How to Lose Weight with Calorie Counting in 5 Steps
So you’ve toughed it out through diet after diet with seemingly no result.
You’ve reached the point where you have tried everything you can think of to
lose weight. You eat healthy. You exercise regularly. You’ve attempted “fad”
diets like the ones you’ve seen on TV. Short of gastric bypass surgery, you feel
like you have no other option.
But there may be one simple diet that you still have not tried. So simple in its
design, many people overlook the diet we will be discussing in this report -
Calorie counting.
Chances are that you have heard the old adage of dieting. Calories in, calories
out. That means that in order to lose weight, you have to take in fewer calories
than you burn in a single day. Or you can burn more calories through exercise
than you gain by eating. Either way will work, but since we are talking diets
here, we’ll stick with the first description.
Losing weight then turns into a simple numbers game. As long as your caloric
intake is less than what you burn each day, you will lose weight. That is really
all there is to it. But do not go running off and starving you just to shed a
few pounds. The five step program we will be discussing in this report will help
you learn how to eat the right foods at the right times for the rest of your
life–so you can lose the weight now and keep it off for good.
After all, losing a huge amount of weight and then putting it right back on gets
you nowhere. That’s why this diet and all other diets require you to keep up
with your dieting and get at least a little bit of exercise at the same time.
Then, and only then, will you be able to keep the weight off for years rather
than weeks.
Step 1: Know What You’re Dealing With
Before we get into the proper practice for counting calories and losing weight,
we have to learn what a calorie actually is.
A common misconception is that calories are, by their nature, bad for you. This
could not be any further from the truth. Calories are the energy our bodies need
to survive. Without taking in any calories (caloric intake), our bodies would
shrivel up and die due to lack of energy. After all, our cells need energy to
survive and they get that energy from the food we eat, specifically calories.
From a more scientific perspective, calories are a measurable amount of energy.
One calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise one gram of water by one
degree Celsius in temperature. It is important to note that a food calorie is
not the same as a regular calorie.
Food calories are actually kilocalories, or one thousand regular calories.
Therefore, the amount of energy in one food calorie is actually enough to raise
one kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.
Calories are used for everything our bodies do. We expend caloric energy when we
walk, run, eat, dance, watch TV, type an email, tap our foot to music, and even
when we sleep. There is nothing our bodies do that does not require energy from
calories. Like it or not, we need calories to keep on living. It’s the amount of
calories that we intake each day that has to change if we want to lose weight.
But more on that soon.
Every person burns a different amount of calories because of their activities
and their genes. People with higher metabolisms burn calories faster, so they
can eat more each day and still lose weight. People who have jobs that require a
lot of physical activity also burn calories more effectively, so they can eat
more and not gain weight either. The problem is that these people are few and
far between.
For most of us, we don’t have a job that requires a lot of activity, and as we
get older, our metabolism slows down, meaning we have to eat less to stay in
shape. We are the ones that this five step calorie counting diet is designed
for.
Step 2: How Many Calories Do You Need Each Day?
In order to start a diet plan where you lower the amount of calories you eat
each day, you need to know how many calories your body burns just doing what you
normally do. After all, if you lower your caloric intake to a level that is
still above how many calories your body burns, you will still not lose any
weight.
To calculate how many calories your body burns on a daily basis, there is a
handy formula you should look into. It’s known as the Harris-Benedict formula.
By using data about how old you are, your sex, your weight, and how active you
are each day, the formula can determine the amount of calories you burn on an
average day. This number is known as your Basal Metabolic Rate and is the most
important number you can know when trying to lose weight using a diet based on
calorie counting.
While you could input the data into the formula yourself, there are a couple of
easier tools that you should check out. The first is a chart that was designed
by for the MyPyramid.gov website sponsored by the US government. You can find
the chart here:
http://www.mypyramid.gov/pyramid/discretionary_calories_amount_print.html .
While it provides some good data, it is rough and there are better options out
there.
A better, more personalized, option in addition to the above chart is a Basal
Metabolic Rate calculator where you enter in your own unique data. These
calculators are perfectly safe and easy to use. In about two or three minutes,
you’ll be well on your way to knowing exactly how many calories your body burns
on the average day.
Of all of the calorie calculators online, the best is one provided at this
website: http://www.stevenscreek.com/goodies/calories.shtml . It gives a very
precise breakdown of how many calories you burn both during activities and
resting. Other good calorie calculators include the one at the Mayo Clinic
website (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/calorie-calculator/NU00598) and one
found on About.com’s Calorie Count Plus website
(http://caloriecount.about.com/).
With these tools in hand, you’ve started down the path to losing weight with a
diet based on calorie counting.
Step 3: Choose How Many Calories to Cut and Learn How to Read Labels
Now that you know how many calories your body needs every day, you can determine
how many calories you want to cut from your diet. The more you cut, the more
you’ll lose. But if you cut too much, you will notice a major drop in energy
levels and stamina, making it hard just to get through the day.
A healthy calorie driven diet should allow for 250 to 500 calories to be shaved
off each day. So if your normal calorie intake is supposed to be 2750, consider
lowering that amount to 2500 or 2250 for the best results. Under no
circumstances should you cut your calories below 1200 per day, even if your
daily calorie needs are very low.
Once you’ve decided on how many calories you want to eliminate from your diet,
you need to learn how to properly read the nutritional labels found on nearly
all foods. Known in the United States as the Nutrition Facts label, this is a
standardized measure designed to help people learn the various amounts of
calories, fats, carbohydrates, and other nutritional content in a given serving
size. All boxed and bagged food will have this label and some supermarkets will
even post labels for their fruits, vegetables, and meats as well.
There are two important things you should notice on a Nutrition Facts label. The
first is the serving size. This tells you exactly how much of the food contains
the amounts of nutritional content specified in the label. The serving size can
range from anywhere between a small morsel to the entire box.
The other important point to look at is the amount of calories found in each
serving. This is the number you will be using for your daily calorie counting.
Your diet hinges on your ability to read that number, add it to your daily
total, and keep track of exactly how many calories you eat each day. Remember
where the number is located, and look for it on everything that you eat.
But what about food that doesn’t even have a label? Many restaurants are
embracing people on calorie counting diets, and now publish their nutritional
information on their websites. Any time you are considering eating out, make an
effort to check the restaurant’s website before you go or ask about the
nutritional information before you order. Some restaurants even provide
brochures detailing the amount of calories and fat in each of their meals.
Step 4: Controlling How Much You Eat
While counting calories is the cornerstone of your diet, it does you no good if
you are not keeping the serving size in mind. After all, while you may think
that a chocolate bar has only 150 calories, the Nutritional Facts label may only
be measuring a serving size that’s less than an ounce.
A lot of the food you find at the store will be measured by the slice, by the
square, or by some other arbitrary measurement. Foods like bread, sliced deli
meat, cheese, and candy are some of the most popular foods that are measured in
this way.
For most foods, however, the best way to make sure that you stick with the
serving size guidelines is to go to the store and buy a measuring cup. Pour
every food you are going to eat in the measuring cup before you take your first
bite, and only eat as much as the serving size recommends. You can do this with
dried foods like rice or cereal as well as liquids like soda, syrup, jelly, or
iced tea.
If you find that the serving size on many of your foods is too small to be
measured with a measuring cup, use a teaspoon or tablespoon. Remember that there
are three teaspoons to every tablespoon.
The tricky part comes when you eat foods that are measured by weight. For these
foods you may need to purchase a kitchen scale so that you may weigh your foods
before eating them. Alternatively, there are charts and graphs available online
that can convert many of these serving sizes into a more easily used
alternative, such as cups or slices.
Simply taking the time to measure your portions before you eat will quickly help
you lose weight and make it easier to total your caloric intake.
Step 5: Tracking Your Daily Caloric Intake
Even the most well planned calorie counting diet is useless unless you actually
count your calories. In other words, you’re going to have to keep a daily chart
of how much you eat.
The best way to keep a running total of your caloric intake is to carry a simple
paper and pencil with you everywhere you go. Although, if you have a high end
cell phone or PDA, you can always use that to keep track of your numbers as
well. The important thing is that you always have some idea of how many calories
you’ve eaten.
At the end of each day, you should total your calories as well as which foods
were the worst offenders in terms of large amounts of calories. If you are over
the daily limit you set for yourself, see if there are any areas where you could
have cut out some calories or eaten less. Chances are that there will always be
at least one item you could have lived without.
Furthermore, while it may not directly relate to the amount of calories you eat
each day, you may also want to use your calorie chart to determine which foods
are healthier for you and which are not. If you drink a soda and eat an apple
each day, and you find that you are exceeding your calorie limit, cut the soda
and keep the apple.
When it all comes down to it, a calorie counting diet may seem like a lot of
work at first, but the benefits are completely worth it. In about a week,
counting calories and measuring serving sizes will seem like second nature. In
fact, you’ll probably wonder how you ever lived without it. Taking a few minutes
out of your day to keep a count of your calories will easily add years to your
life expectancy and make you feel better and healthier in the process.
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