It's me again. This part two, to further discuss calories.

My name is Sally Taylor, and I am the Studio Manager and Strength, Conditioning, and Fitness Coach at MFW Fitness Studio.

We broke it down a little bit in our last blog post, but we didn't really get to touch on it in depth. So I thought I'd do another blog about calories themselves.

What most people don't realize is how quickly your calories can be bumped up with the choices of foods that we make. The other thing is, most people don't realize what foods they can have that actually give you more bang for your buck, so to speak. In order to get more volume, you get to eat more food in terms of, it is going to give you more energy, which is going to make you feel better throughout the day, (but you don't have to overeat to do so!)

I'm going to go through a few little things that I just want to point out.

I'm going to go through a few little things that I just want to point out. First thing when watching how many calories you eat, there's four rules that I would probably stick to.

1. Eating more veggies. And the reason why I say eating more veggies is, generally most of us don't get enough veggies. But the beautiful thing about vegetables is you can eat a lot and you get a lot for a small amount of calories. So if I want to eat pasta, I'm going to get this tiny little bowl of pasta of 200 grams. But if I eat 200 grams of veggies, my bowl is going to be huge! I'm probably not going to get through it. So you get to eat more, which is great, because that keeps you fuller for longer. When you eat the little bowl of pasta, an hour later, you're like, oh my God, I'm starving!!! Oh my God.. and you go searching for food.

So that's rule number one.

2. I would suggest rule number two: eat less sugar. We think we are not eating a lot of sugar, but we don't realize how much sugar is hidden in a lot of our foods. Being conscious of our sugar intake allows you to be conscious of the actual sugar (and not the hidden sugars). Because you're going to eat sugar no matter what, it's in fruit, it's in our wine… honey, so we've got to get it in, but we need to be mindful of those hidden sugars as well.

3. Eat more whole foods is rule number three. The more wholefoods you eat, the better you're going to feel internally, (and the better you will look externally). The more wholefoods you get in the better your body is going to function, the more energy you're going to have, and not to mention, your hair, nails and skin will benefit! Here are some examples of wholefoods to increase or add into your diet: vegetables, nuts, fish, meat and seafood. Try to keep away from packaged things, breads and cereals… usually things like that. If you can keep them to a minimum and focus more on eating real wholesome foods, you're going to be way better off. You're going to feel a hundred percent better.

4. The last rule is: drink more water. That's not going to affect your calorie intake, but that's important too and sometimes we think we are hungry but in fact we are dehydrated.

Things to be mindful of…

A very huge thing with calories is drinking your calories away. This is very common. Soft drinks, flavored mineral waters, juice and again, alcohol can be high in calories. I think glass of wine can average on about 200 calories, have two glasses of wine and I think the last time we discussed, 1600 calories is a good starting point. Two glasses of wine and that's a quarter of your calorie intake gone. The thing is wine, and these drinks is they don't fill you up. So guess what? You're going to drink your calories, but you're still going to want to eat the food.

Snacks is a huge one. Generally our snacky foods, quantities is a huge thing. People love to snack on muffins, potato chips, trail mix, protein bars, all those sorts of things. These snacks are all usually high in calories. You eat a whole Mars bar, guess what? That's pretty much a large portion of your calories gone in a day. Snacks are ok to eat, but just remember a snack in calories is often the same portion as a meal (but wayyyy less satisfying).

And another sneaky one is fats. Fats can increase your calorie intake, quite quickly, quite fast. And usually again, it's a bit like the snacks, the fats we need to keep in small doses, but generally we don't. We use oil for cooking. We might have a half an avocado with our breakfast. Then we might add butter to our potatoes, then we cook our mince in more oil… and before you know it, your calories have skyrocketed. Just mindful of all this when cooking and preparing your food.

I hope I've sort of given you an indication of how we need to be more mindful of our calorie intake. All this information is given to you based on the feedback we have received from you girls.

If tracking your calorie intake is a bit too overwhelming, but you are looking to change your body composition, then just start off simple. Start off by eating more veggies, eating less sugar, eating more wholefoods and drinking more water – this is the perfect way to start improving your overall eating,

I hope that helps girls. If you have any more questions in regards to counting calories, there's some great apps online to get you started that can help you track your foods intake. I'm here to help, so if you would like any further information, give me a call, because I can certainly help you out with that!

For more information on some of the meals plans offered at MFW Fitness Studio, click here.