Pay attention to the little things. Small actions when implemented consistently will yield big results over your long-term nutritional health. In fact, one simple change can protect you from weight gain. In a future post, I’ll discuss these “micro-habits” in detail but for now let’s keep this post simple. Here is a great example to understand the power of small, seemingly insignificant changes.
Let’s evaluate what happens if you reduce your food intake by two bites per meal; just six bites of food per day. Doesn’t seem like much, does it? Even the least educated, least motivated, most nutritionally uniformed person could handle eating two less forkfuls per meal, right? Using estimates of 20 calories per bite, a man could reduce caloric intake by about 43,800 calories per year (20 calories per bite X 2 bites per meal = 40 calories per meal or 120 calories per day X 365 days = 43,800 calories). For you math geniuses out there, that’s a lot of calories.
In fact, 43,800 calories is about 15 day’s worth of food! From a metabolic standpoint, one pound of fat is about 3,500 calories, therefore, 2 bites per meal actually equates to about 12.5 lbs of stored body fat (43,800 / 3,500 = 12.5). Imagine putting on a jacket and stuffing the pockets with 16 cans of beer. That’s what an extra 12.5 lbs feels like.
During meals, it is so easy to eat two EXTRA bites of food but rarely do we think about eating two LESS bites and that’s one reason why our clothes miraculously shrink every year (and you thought it was the dryer). The point of this post is simple and illustrates that any positive change you make in your life can be helpful and get you moving in the right direction. If you want to build Rome in a day then go ahead but also realize that small changes have significant potential to improve your nutritional health immediately. In this highly simplified example, one small change may protect you from weight gain. So pay attention to the little things! If you are new to our blog, read our Start Here post. Also, please promote us so we can continue to help you improve your nutritional health (Not a threat, just a mild suggestion, for now).