Eureka

Eureka:
        A cry of joy or satisfaction when finds or discovers something.

I broke my stream of laziness this afternoon.  I took out the trash, swept up some leaves, vacuumed, and cleaned up the kitchen counters, which I subsequently made dirty again while making diner and roasted chickpeas!

While I was cleaning I was listening to the Jillian Michaels Podcast on iTunes.  Yes, I'm still obsessed with it at the moment.  I found some episodes I had not listened to yet and figured it would make good background noise while I puttered around.

What lead to my eureka moment?  Calories are a main topic of conversation on the podcast.  I fully understand that calories are energy and weight loss, gain, or maintenance is all determined by calories eaten and calories burned.  I must burn calories or lower my calorie intake in order to lose fat.  I've got that part down.

One thing I did not know was how many calories per day my body burns naturally doing it's daily functions.  Thanks to the podcast and some internet research I was able to determine my magic number to maintain my weight.  The number comes from multiple formulas that take into account your height, weight, age, and activity level.  My magic number is 1900, give or take 50-100 calories.  I've always just applied a "standard" to myself and let me tell you, it wasn't even close to that!

This magic number is definitely good to know.  With that number I can then determine exactly how many calories to eat or burn in a day in order to lose 1 pound or 2 pounds per week.

This is very much a Eureka moment in my life.  Two goals each day: reach my goal for how many calories to burn; reach my goal for how many calories to consume (never a problem).

It's still the same concept - calories in, calories out.  But it seems way more doable now that I know that magical number.