You want to know how many calories a day you can take in and still lose weight? Well here is some pointers on how to do it. Dieting can and is simple when you do the math.
How to Start
To tip the energy balance in favor of weight loss, start by determining how many calories you should consume each day. To do so, you need to know how many calories you need to maintain your current weight. Doing this requires a few simple calculations.
First, multiply your current weight by 15 -- that's roughly the number of calories per pound of body weight needed to maintain your current weight if you are moderately active. Moderately active means getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity a day in the form of exercise (walking at a brisk pace, climbing stairs, or active, physical gardening). Let's say you're a woman who is 5 feet, 2 inches tall and weighs 150 pounds, and you need to lose about 12 pounds to put you in a healthy weight range. If you multiply 150 by 15, you will get 2,250, which is the number of calories per day that you need in order to maintain your current weight (weight-maintenance calories). To lose weight, you will need to get below that total.
For example, to lose one to two pounds a week -- a rate that experts consider safe -- your food consumption should provide 500-1,000 calories less than your total weight-maintenance calories. If you need 2,250 calories a day to maintain your current weight, reduce your daily calories to 1,250-1,750. If you are sedentary, you will also need to build more activity into your day. In order to lose at least a pound a week, try to do at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most days, and reduce your daily calorie intake by at least 500 calories. However, calorie intake should not fall below 1,200 a day in women, or 1,500 a day in men, except under the supervision of a health professional. Eating too few calories can endanger your health by depriving you of needed nutrients.Meeting Your Calorie Target
How can you meet your daily calorie target? One approach -- probably the most accurate -- is to add up the number of calories per serving of all the foods that you eat, and then plan your menus accordingly. You can buy books that list the calories-per-serving of many foods. In addition, the nutrition labels on all packaged foods and beverages provide calories-per-serving information. Make a point of reading the labels of the foods and drinks you use, noting the number of calories and the serving sizes. Many recipes published in cookbooks, newspapers, and magazines provide similar information.
If you hate counting calories, a different approach is to restrict how much and how often you eat, and to eat meals that are low in calories. Indeed, new dietary guidelines issued by the American Heart Association stress common sense in choosing your foods rather than focusing strictly on numbers, such as total calories or calories from fat. Whichever method you choose, research shows that sticking with a regular eating schedule -- with meals and snacks planned for certain times each day -- makes for the most successful approach. The same applies after you have lost weight and want to keep it off. Sticking with an eating schedule increases your chance of maintaining your new weight.
Reducing Fat
| Some people focus on reducing the fat in their eating plan because, at 9 calories per gram, fat by weight contains more than twice as many calories as carbohydrates or proteins (4 calories per gram). By substituting lean cuts of meat for fatty ones, avoiding high-fat packaged foods and snacks, and refraining from fat-rich products such as butter, mayonnaise, and salad dressings, you can cut out dozens or even hundreds of calories per day. On the other hand, many people mistakenly think that cutting fat always means cutting calories. Some fat-free foods actually contain more calories than the regular versions because manufacturers use extra sugar to make up for the flavor lost in removing the fat. Moreover, low-fat or nonfat foods are not low-calorie if you consume them in large quantities. |
If Calorie Counting Is Impractical
Here are some guidelines to follow when straight calorie counting is impractical.
Eat foods that are filling and low in calories. That means meals and snacks made of whole grains, such as rice, whole-wheat bread, and oatmeal, as well as legumes, such as lentils and other beans.
When you eat meat, cut out fat and cut down portion sizes. Choose lean cuts of meat and modest amounts -- about 3-1/2-ounce or 4 ounces per serving. Depending on how they are prepared, the leanest cuts of beef are eye of round (155-217 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving), top round (169-277 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving), tip round (170-274 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving), and flank steak (207-263 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving). Use ground meat labeled 10% fat, the lowest fat content in ground beef. The leanest kinds of pork are roasted tenderloin (166 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving), roasted top round (150 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving), roasted lean top loin (245 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving), and lean ham (120-157 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving). Light-meat poultry has less fat than dark meat: Stewed light-meat chicken without skin has 159 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving, while stewed dark-meat chicken without skin has 192 calories per 3-1/2-ounce serving.
Avoid fried foods. Frying foods adds fat and calories. For stovetop cooking, it's better either to stir-fry foods in nonstick pans lightly coated with a cooking-oil spray or to braise them in broth or wine. Baking, broiling, and roasting leave no extra fat in your meals.
Use low-fat or nonfat dairy foods. Milk, yogurt, and cheese are good sources of protein and calcium, but the whole-milk versions of these dairy products are very high in fat.
Avoid fast foods. Hamburgers, chicken nuggets, French fries, and other fast-food meals and snacks tend to promote weight gain for two reasons. First, they are high in fat or calories, or both. Second, the "value meals" are often excessively large, and thus they tempt you to overeat.
Avoid high-fat and high-carbohydrate snacks. Both types of snacks are high in calories. Even snacks labeled "low-fat" are often high in calories because they contain large amounts of sugars and other carbohydrates.
Watch what you drink. Regular sodas, fruit juices, and, especially, alcoholic beverages are high in calories. For example, a 12-ounce can of Coca-Cola contains 154 calories, and an 8-ounce glass of lemonade, about 60-110 calories. A can of beer is about 130-170 calories; a 7-1/2-ounce gin and tonic is 171 calories; and a 3-1/2-ounce glass of white wine is 70 calories.
Eat scheduled meals and snacks. It may seem that skipping meals or cutting out snacks is a smart way to cut out calories, but doing either of these things can work against you. You need to eat regularly, even when you're on a diet. If you don't, you'll feel so hungry that you may give up in frustration.
If one person cut back on calories without exercising and another person increased exercise without cutting back on calories, the first person would lose weight more quickly. That's because it's easier to cut 500 calories from your diet than it is to burn 500 extra calories through exercise. You'd have to walk or run about five miles a day -- or 35 miles a week -- to lose one pound of fat. But if you only cut back on calories, you're more likely to regain the weight you lose. Why should that be so? The body reacts to weight loss as if it were starving and, in response, slows its metabolism. When your metabolism slows, you burn fewer calories -- even at rest. When you burn fewer calories, three things can happen. If you continue to take in fewer calories, you will either stop losing weight as quickly as you have been, or you'll stop losing weight altogether. If you increase your calorie consumption, you may actually gain weight more quickly than you have in the past. The solution is to increase your physical activity because doing so will counteract the metabolic slowdown caused by reducing calories.
A regular schedule of exercise raises not only your energy expenditure while you are exercising but also your resting energy expenditure -- i.e., the rate at which you burn calories even when the workout is over and you are resting. Resting energy expenditure remains elevated as long as you exercise at least three days a week on a regular basis. Because it accounts for 60 percent-75 percent of your daily energy expenditure, any increase in resting energy expenditure is extremely important to your weight-loss effort. The kinds of vigorous activity that can stimulate your metabolism include walking briskly for two miles or bike-riding uphill.
Any Exercise Helps
For people who are obese and who have been sedentary, any amount of physical activity is beneficial, including walking, swimming, and water aerobics. But start out slowly and gradually increase the pace and duration of such activities. Low-intensity activities -- such as taking a short walk or raking leaves -- won't raise your resting energy expenditure as much as high-intensity activities will, but they have other advantages. For one thing, they help reduce body fat and build muscles -- and muscle burns more calories than fat does. Regular weightlifting also builds muscle and has a similar effect.
Another benefit of regular physical activity of any sort is that it temporarily curbs your appetite. Of course, many people joke that after a workout they feel extremely hungry -- and promptly indulge in a snack. But because exercise raises resting energy expenditure, people continue to burn calories at a relatively high rate. Therefore, a moderate post-exercise snack does not erase the benefits of exercise in helping people control their weight.
So you can see, dieting alone is not enough. You need to get the exercise and apply it with a good diet program.
Calories Burned in Each Mile of Walking or Jogging
Body Weight (pounds) Calories
100 67
110 74
120 83
130 89
140 95
150 100
160 108
170 115
180 121
190 128
200 135
210 141
220 148
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