Some spiritual guidance came to me for a client over the past week, thought I would share it with my health and fitness fans.

When people with BED, binge eating disorder, try to lose weight they often check with a free app on how many calories to eat in a day.

The problem that may arise for some however is they may ignore the problem that got them to the point of needing to lose weight to begin with.

In order to gain or lose one pound someone would have to consume 3500 calories more to gain or less than their maintenance calories to lose.

Someone with BED isn’t going from 1700 maintenance calories a day to 1200, they are going from 2300 on average to 1200. Because they have been overeating, and most likely are not counting those calories. Now that is an average over a week, most likely they do semi-well many days and then over eat more than 500 cals for 2-3 days. 3000 calories is easy to do, 4 slices of pizza, one fast food burger and fries, and 4 cocktail drinks, that is 3000 calories.

Spirit offered one suggestion this past week for a client. Instead of going from 2300 all the way down to 1200, try to do maintenance calories daily consistently first, then add exercise with it 2-3 days a week to create the caloric deficit. That may seem less extreme on your body and mind and get you used to what is maintenance calories for you, rather than a huge drop in calories that seems like too little food. If you are someone with BED you’ve been eating a lot of extra food every week, 1200 calories will seem like too little and may do too much mental damage in what it will take to lose weight and keep it off. Get comfortable with what maintenance feels like first.

To figure out your BMR or basil metabolic rate you can Google calculator and BMR. Enter your information and it will give you the basic amount of maintenance calories you need without exercising. For any calculator that asks for level of activity, unless you are a body builder be realistic, leaning towards conservative.

Per usual, consult with a physician for any medical or health related advice. This blog does not provide diagnoses or professional medical advice.

If you have more questions or want to speak to Spirit about your own health/diet journey, my readings are here. Talk to you soon!