Understanding the key to weight-loss : Energy Balance

Optimum fitness is the ideal we all strive to achieve, isn’t it? For that to happen, we must be fully aware and acutely conscious of the movement of the energy balance in us from day to day.

What is energy balance? We imbibe energy from food and drinks and expend that energy on our physical and mental activities. By ‘physical’, we mean not only the work we do—physical exercise and so on—but also all our bodily functions—the heart pumping, blood coursing through the arteries, each organ functioning, each cell pulsating, new cells replacing withered ones… We need so many calories a day to be fit and functioning at our optimum level.

If we take from food and drink more calories than we thus burn out from day to day, it can only get deposited in our body as fat reserve. It is simple logic. Similarly, if the calories we take could not meet the energy requirements of our body, the body would dig into its energy reserves to make up for the deficiency. As the balance swings from one side to the other, we gain weight and lose weight.

It is not as simple and that, though. Intense, conscious dieting for a period of time to lose weight makes our condition no different from the unfortunate people of famine-struck Saharan desserts. Everything about us is on an ebb. That is not the ideal condition we want to be. Feeling good, full of genuine happiness for everything, is the ideal we seek. That lightness of being fit.

Making a great fuss about a nutrient-rich diet, without looking at the ideal mix we take, also can’t help, because nutrient-rich can mean low volume and, therefore, low levels of satiation. If we don’t feel satiated, we don’t feel good. Our mood is down. Everything about us is on an ebb.

Calibrating the energy balance is the ideal Alpha Coach Evolve strives to achieve through technology. The calibration changes from individual to individual, from food habits to food habits, according to what the individual has set for himself or herself as the goal to optimum fitness.

The energy we imbibe from food and drinks depends not only on calorie input. It also depends upon other factors like individual metabolism and absorption and hormonal stimulation. It is enough to look at it as the role of the individual constitution. One person is always overweight despite modest calorie intake, while another person is lean and wiry on double the calorie intake. Quirk of destiny!

Our algorithm strives to track the behavior of calorie intake in your individual constitution by looking at the food you log from day to day and week to week. How does it relate to your weight logs, and physical activity logs? Which way is your energy balance tilting? What can we do to steady this simple balance? Science of nutrition is everything.