Our first 30 day challenge went well. Congratulations to all who stuck with it! Now hopefully you'll see where your deficiencies are at and have some tools at your disposal for fixing your sleep patterns so you can get the 7.5 to 9 hours you should be getting every night.

September begins our second 30 day challenge. The goal of this challenge is:

Tracking our daily caloric intake

Reply if you will take part, and then every day reply to your original buy-in comment with your numbers. When submitting your numbers, I don't care if you list a detailed breakdown of what you ate, or just post the total calories. The main thing I want everyone to get out of this is to realize how many calories they're consuming every day.

When it comes to tracking your calories, honestly there are so many apps, websites, and so on that I'm not going to list them here. Just find one that works for you and report your numbers starting September 1st. I just use google and an excel spreadsheet and it gets the job done.

Pay special attention to the amount of sugar you're consuming

http://authoritynutrition.com/how-much-sugar-per-day/

According to the American Heart Association (AHA), the maximum amount of added sugars you should eat in a day are (7):

  • Men: 150 calories per day (37.5 grams or 9 teaspoons).
  • Women: 100 calories per day (25 grams or 6 teaspoons)

To put that into perspective, a single 12oz can of Mountain Dew has 46 grams of sugar, or more than the recommended daily allotment for an adult male, and nearly twice the daily amount women should have! And people wonder why America has an obesity epidemic.

How Man Calories Should You Consume?

This is tricky business, but it's not rocket surgery. Finding out how many calories you'll need really depends on your current body composision, your goal body composition, and your activity level. One of the biggest mistakes I've seen is people figuring out how many calories they need when they input "high" activity, but then still consume those numbers of calories on their rest days when their activity levels are marginal at best. This is why you should come up with 2 target calorie figures, one for days where your activity level is high, and another for when you're being a lazy bum on a rest day or sick or what have you.

Here's a few resources for estimating your calorie needs:

http://iifym.com/iifym-calculator/
http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/calorie-know-how-get-equation-right-to-get-results.htm
http://authoritynutrition.com/how-many-calories-per-day/

What Diet Is Right For You?

If you want to improve your diet, my recommendation is to keep things simple. I'm a big fan of /r/paleo, and I've known people who've had great success with Zone, /r/keto, and others. There is no one-size-fits-all diet. My only recommendation is that whatever system you decide upon, you stick with it for the entire 30 days and don't jump around from one diet to another. Again, find something that is to your liking and stick with it for at least 30 days. If you're in tune with your body you'll know at the end of that month if it's working for you or not, although some people may require longer.

Lastly, check out Intermittent Fasting. Maybe it's for you, maybe it's not. Read and see:

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2013/08/06/a-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/
http://dailyburn.com/life/health/intermittent-fasting-methods/


What I need from all of you when you post your buy-in comment that you'll take part in this challenge, is to include your target calories fo when you're active and sedentary. You don't have to do this, but it's helped me not go crazy and overeat on rest or cheat days. Your posts should look something like this:

Bsutansalt will take part of the nutrition challenge. My calorie goals are 1950 per day.

Then when you post your replies you should note which day's calories goal you were shooting for:

Day 1: I consumed 2400 calories.

Day 2: I consumed 1700 calories.

And so on. It's important to note that calories can be fungible in that if they average out at the end of the week, then you should be okay for meeting your goals, sorta, so long as you're not going crazy one way or the other. However, if you really want to be successful, then consistency is the key. Whatever your goal calories figures are, try to hit them each and every day.