Weight loss insights from pet food bags
"More die in the United States of too much food than of too little."
John Kenneth Galbraith
by Jonny Bowden, PhD
I came across a very interesting piece of info the other day, which I’ve since verified with my veterinary sources: The average cat needs about 200-400 calories a day.
Why should you care?
If you happen to be the guardian of an animal, check the calories on the nutrition facts label for his food. Surprise! There is no such nutrition facts label because pet food manufacturers never put the caloric content on the label. They do, however, tell you how many cups or cans to feed your animal companion, and guess what- it’s almost always more than they need.
I think the exact same thing is going on with us two-legged folks.
Food manufacturers are in the business of selling food, and they want you to use a lot of it. I can tell you that if I fed my very healthy and trim dogs anything like the number of cups a day the dog food manufacturers recommend, they’d look like balloons.
Now granted, I feed them expensive, high-nutrient food. But guess what- they don’t need that much of it.
Just like us.
Most people believe they “need” far more calories than they actually do. Most calorie calculators will give you a calorie amount that is too high by at least 200 calories. For example, I put in the following data at one well-known Internet site for calculating calories: Woman, 35 years old, 5’3”, 145 pounds. The calculator told me she needed 1706 calories to maintain her weight. But my experience tells me that’s a guaranteed recipe for weight gain.
The formula for weight loss is really simple: take your goal weight and multiply by 10. Our 145-pound woman who wants to lose a couple of pounds would be well advised to aim for no more than 1450 calories, and that’s with exercise!
While calories are not- repeat not- the whole picture when it comes to weight loss, they still count. Try the goal weight times 10 equation and see what you get. As my friend Barry Sears, PhD has said many times, “It’s simple. Most men will lose on 1500-1800 calories and most women will lose on 1250-1400.”
Try it.
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