The process of losing weight and monitoring your food intake has many things in common with balancing your budget. Below, we’ll take a look at some of the elements that are found in both. Sometimes, just being able to visualize the weight loss process in a new way can bring clarity and help you in achieving your goal.
Daily Metabolism = Daily Budget Your daily metabolism is the amount of calories you are allowed to consume each day without gaining weight. For the average female, the typical daily metabolism is 2000 calories a day. For a male, the typical daily metabolism rises to 2500 calories a day.
It may be useful to think of your metabolism as your daily budget. It is the amount of money you are allowed to spend each day. If you go over this amount, you’ll have to borrow money and go into debt. If you spend less than your budget, then you will have money to save for purchases (eating food) or payment toward any existing debt (excess body fat).
Calories Consumed = Money Spent Calories represent the amount of energy that is contained in food. The more calories that you consume over your daily metabolism, the more weight you will gain.
In our comparison, we can visualize calories as the equivalent of money. Each time you consume calories, you are spending money from your daily budget (metabolism). So the primary goal is to not overspend more than you are allowed each day, otherwise, you will go into debt (gain weight).
Your Excess Fat = Your Debt The excess fat that you have is the result of overeating, consuming more calories than your daily metabolism has allowed.
There is approximately 3500 calories in a pound of excess fat. What this means is that if you are 50 pounds over weight, you have essentially consumed the equivalent of 175,000 calories over the amount you were allowed by your daily metabolism (over an extended period of time). As a result, you have created a debt of 175,000 calories of fat on your body.
The only way to get rid of this debt is to either decrease your spending to less than your daily budget (consume less calories than your daily metabolism)…or…to get a job and earn more income (exercise).
Eating Food = Making a Purchase The more you eat, the more calories you consume.
In many ways, this is the equivalent of making a purchase. You do not want to spend more than what your daily budget (metabolism) will allow. Otherwise you will begin to accrue a debt (gain weight).
Not Eating Food = Earning Money Each hour that you spend not eating, your body is hard at work burning the calories that you consumed from your previous meal. When your body finishes consuming the calories from that food, it then gets to work on burning the calories from the existing fat that you have on your body.
One way to picture this is that each hour you spend not eating, you are earning money for the purchases that you made earlier in the day (food consumed). If you’ve paid off all your purchases from the day, then you can begin paying off your debt (your excess fat).
Exercise = Earning Money Exercise is the most important aspect of any diet. It is like earning extra money to spend each day. It allows you to spend more money on making purchases (eating food) or you can use the extra money to pay off your existing debt (your excess fat that you are trying to lose). This is why exercise is such a marvelous supplement to any diet. It allows you more freedom, because you have more to spend.
There are dozens of other similarities in losing weight with balancing a budget; however, these are the fundamental elements to focus on. The real challenge now is applying the discipline that’s necessary to monitor your weight and make sure you don’t over spend the calories that you are allowed each day.
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