How many calories in a margarita?
Listen, if losing weight is really a concern of yours, then sitting around drinking “low calorie” margaritas isn’t really a good weight loss choice, neither is drinking diet soda. ”Diet Soda”, that one kills me. As if that makes it healthy. No, it will just give you a little more time on this planet (vs drinking a regular soda) so you can give them an additional $2 for 1 more diet soda… then you’ll die. It’s like the treat my wife buys for my kids…Organic pop tarts from Trader Joe’s.. oh yeah they’re good. I can devour a whole box in a day, but shit is shit, organic or not. Back to calories.
How many calories in a margarita? How many calories does this exercise burn? Is this calorie counter on the treadmill accurate? Enough with the calorie questions!! Wrong point of focus.
Personally I don’t believe in counting calories. It’s not the first thing people should focus on. First it’s about what you are eating. When you begin to eat healthy your caloric intake will generally decrease because the foods you are eating have more nutrients per calorie. Counting or managing calories is the easiest thing to do but the least important thing to spend so much time and energy focusing on. Our bodies are not that simple. All calories are not equal. All calories have a different effect on our physiology.
You can eat “dead” calories, stress your body, and make it work more by trying to digest this enzyme and nutrient void “food” or you can eat “live” calories and let the food re-energize and repair your body. If it were really as simple as “calories of energy in < calories expended”, there wouldn’t be so many overweight, overfat people in this country. It wouldn’t be the major issue it is today. All people would need to lose fat would be a calculator and a couple charts consisting of “food calories”, and “exercise calories”. We could use my daughters 2nd grade math class to solve the nation’s obesity problem.
Off the top of my head, here are a few things I think people need to consider instead of counting calories;
1) the nutritional density (macro-nutrient and micro-nutrient profile) of the food being eaten.
2) whether or not you have intolerances or allergies to the food you’re eating (you can get this tested)
3) whether or not the food being eaten is covered in pesticides or contains chemicals (which could also result in allergic reactions)
4) the glycemic index and glycemic load of the food being eaten
All of these things affect the way your body digests and processes the food. They affect hormone levels which ultimately control your body. They influence a thousand different things from where bodyfat gets stored to how strong your libido is.
You have to realize food doesn’t just go in as a number and we subtract from that number by burning calories and then whatever is left is stored or released and everything is just peachy. Let’s say all you drank and ate all day was alcohol and cheeseburgers. 2000 calories of booze and cow. Do you think that all you would need to do would be to burn whatever calories were left after considering your basal metabolic rate. If your body required 1200 calories to just make it through a day, do you think all you would need to do would be to burn 800 calories and you would be healthy with an ideal bodyweight and bodyfat while living on cheeseburgers and booze?
You do realize the booze and burgers would wreak havoc on your internal organs, and just about every system controlling your body and health. Food affects the way our bodies function. Do you think if you ate the same amount of calories, 2000, in vegetables you would get the same result? Not that I’m even sure if it’s even feasible to eat 2000 calories of vegetables in a day since they are so nutritional dense and low calorie but you get the point. A calorie is not just a calorie. 1000 calories of fruits and vegetables is not even close to being the same as 1,000 calories of McDonalds so focusing on counting calories should not be a priority. Sure, most people do overeat and portion sizes are out of control. Those large portions are also usually of the bad stuff and not the good stuff. When was the last time you saw someone in a restaurant eating a pizza that was the size of a small side plate and a salad as large as a pizza pan? You haven’t! It’s usually a miniscule salad on a 6″ plate and a pizza on a 16″ pan. Make those corrections and the calorie control will happen as a result of better food choices.
When you eat healthier, you get more nutrients per calorie of food, eat less calories, and reduced cravings. Your body ends up getting what it needs, then it stops sending out the signals or cravings to eat more because it has what it needs to do it’s job…repair, replenish, and keep you alive.
With that said, forget about the calories and just make the smart decisions when it comes to your eating. You know what’s good for you and what’s not. Stop fooling yourself. Think about what your diet mainly consists of now. Is it working for you? Do you have low bodyfat levels? Do you have energy? Do you get sick alot? Do you have skin problems? Do you sleep well? Do you have chronic joint pains? These are all signs of poor diet. You know what you need to do. Stop cheating, stop lying to yourself, stop blaming everything else.
Prepare some of your food ahead of time so you’re not grabbing shit at the last minute as you run out the door. Eat a variety of foods to avoid developing food allergies. Plan out 3 different meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner, then rotate through them so you’re getting some variety throughout the week. Try to eat better 80% of the time and give yourself a little leeway the other 20%.
In regards to exercise, do not get caught up in the “calorie burning” mentality either. It’s not about how many calories you burn in that 40 mintues jog on the treadmill. It’s about what you do in the gym (hello resistance training and sprints) that causes you to burn more calories the other 23 hours of the day OUT of the gym. You need to rev up your system so it’s burning more energy 24 hours a day, not 1 hour a day. You do not build muscle in the gym while you workout, you break it down. You build muscle OUT of the gym as a result of what you did IN the gym
You have access to the knowledge and tools you need to get healthier but if you don’t act on it, then nothing will happen. Don’t wait until it’s too late, get crackin! Remember “Train for Life”.