Grateful for good metabolism

Today I came to a realized that I have a good metabolism. This was something I heard all my life, but never truly realized it's actually true, and that it means. I can say I was never overweight, not I gained weight easy, and this is why everyone referenced it with good metabolism that my grandpa also has. I never gave too much meaning to it.

Since I decided to dedicate more to exercise, and getting into better shape after long winter, I thought it wouldn't be bad to check how many calories should I ate, and calculate how much I had so far. Because I am not on diet, nor I specifically want to lose weight, but only to be more healthy and fitted, checking calories was only to have some round number and idea of it.

The more I checked calories on things I usually eat, the more I was shocked how many calories everything has, but seriously. The ice-cream that I got was one of the most 'diet' things I had, and I considered it a cheat meal of course. After knowing all this, I thought it's still fine, I will just have a bit smaller portions than usual. And to tell you the truth, when it comes to food that I like, I can eat a lot, like really a lot. It's like I have a second stomach for potatoes and pasta :D But I could still fit it all into 2000 calories, which is a normal, recommended amount for adults to have in a day. That's what I thought.

Anyhow, then I searched for some online calculators that can tell you how many calories you can have in a day, to maintain, mild lose weight (0.25 kg per week) lose weight (0.5 kg per week) or extremely weight loss (1 kg per week), based on your age, sex, height, weight and how much you exercise during one week. Well, it turns out, that I am so small, I have to eat much less than a normal human being. If I have little or no exercise, I need to take only 1500 calories per day to, not lose, but maintain my weight. With light exercising (1-3 times a week) the situation is a bit better, and I can take 1700 calories, again, to maintain my weight. I really didn't expect this, and I thought normal calorie intake is 2000 calories, but of course, it makes sense, it can't be same for someone shot and small and someone big and high.

I am very sure that I was taking over 2000 calories a day till not, and I guess I do have great metabolism and I should be very grateful for my good genes, because I did gain weight, but it was far from a lot, considering how much more food ate than I should. Also, realizing this at this point was great, because I could have good for a month doing exercising and still taking more calories than I should, so change wouldn't be so visible.

Now I don't plan to change my diet or count calories each day, but I am much more aware of amount I should eat, and I will try to have smaller portions then before, specially when it comes to pasta and potatoes. This also made me realize how everyone is different and how we all have different needs.

If you want to bother yourself with your daily calories intake, you can check out calorie calculator site that I used here.

Lead image from this article is from Unsplash.com

Thank you for reading my post ^^