The most popular weight loss programs across the past twenty years have been concerned with a low carb or low fat foods. The fundamental reality about all eating programs devised to assist us to lose weight however, is that regardless of their focus, diets only bring about weight loss if they include calories loss.
Are you ready to figure out how many calories that you should take in each day? There are several ways to decide what your ideal calorie intake should be. Some are complicated and involve calculating your Base Metabolic Rate and then adding the amount of energy you normally put into physical activity and adding in how efficiently your body processes food.
It is possible to visit an experienced professional who is qualified to calculate this and provide you with specific details of the number of calories you ideally should consume every day. But a more straight forward way of determining your calorie intake is available. This requires you to identify your general activity level first.
You belong to the sedentary category if you have an office job and are no more active than getting to or from the car that takes you to you workplace. The formula for calculating your preferred calorie intake each day involves multiplying your weight by 14 and getting for example 150X14 if you weigh 150 pounds. This means that you need 2,100 calories a day to maintain your weight but you should factor in a calories loss with an intake below 2100 if you are planning to lose weight.
If you take part in aerobic activity up to two or three times at the gym or at home or you walk even more regularly than that you are moderately active. Your formula for calorie consumption every day is to multiply your weight by 17 so if you weigh 150 pounds your daily menu should contain 2550 calories. A calories loss will see your total intake less than this if you want to lose weight.
If you bike to work, go to the gym every day, or run five miles at night, you are active. In order to figure out your ideal calorie intake, multiply your weight by 20 and that is how many calories your body needs to keep working efficiently. To lose weight through calories loss your intake will need to be less than this.
Keeping details of what you eat and how many calories this contains across each day can be recorded in a food diary. Many people find that these commercially produced books are a helpful tool to manage their weight loss, especially as the act of recording the calories they consume gets them to pay closer attention to exactly what they eat. Notation in food diaries also helps identify those foods most calorific that can be eliminated or reduced to allow sufficient calories loss for a healthy weight loss.
There are plenty of calorie counting websites that have the same information for free and will help you manage your calories loss and the impact of this on your overall weight loss. Counting calories may take a little time at the outset but you it becomes a lot easier and will help you control what you eat so you can lose weight and keep it off forever.