My Favorite Weight Loss Strategy

April 4th, 2007 · No Comments

I have come to realize over the years what the common variable is among most of the successful weight loss programs. And believe it or not, with the thousands of diet programs being crammed down our throats, very few are really successful. What do Weight Watchers, The Zone Chefs, Atkins and the South Beach Diet all have in common? A reduction in calories.

These diets basically take away the high calorie foods such as breads, pastas, potatoes, processed foods and sugar. There is no “secret formula”, just simply cut back on calories without having to cut back drastically on food intake. Choose your foods wisely. A combination of healthy carbohydrates, protein and fat are needed for your body to function normally.

In order to lose weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in. You must take control of your calorie intake while burning calories through exercise, lifestyle changes and determining your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). Your RMR is described as the number of calories your body burns to maintain your vital body functions such as breathing, heart rate and brain function. Your RMR also accounts for up to 75% of the calories that you burn daily.

The first thing you need to do is, figure out how many calories you need per day for your body to function normally. When you get this number, you can accurately balance the number of calories you eat against how many you expend.

To determine your estimated RMR in calories, see this chart for your desired weight. Note your desired weight on the table and now multiply your desired weight by 10. (ie: 5′8″ female 140lbs x 10 = 1400 calories - this would be your RMR.)

Next check your activity level chart here. Multiply the factor times the RMR. So for our 140 pound 5′8″ female desired weight, let’s say she has a sedentary lifestyle. Maybe she works in an office environment. Her factor would be 1.1. So 1.1 times the 1400 calories is a 1540 allowable calorie intake to maintain weight.

Now to loose weight - 3500 calories not eaten in a weak equals one pound of weight loss. So to lose one half pound per week, our lady would need to eat 250 calories LESS per day (3500 (loses 1 pound in a week) /2 (to lose a half pound instead) = 1750 / 7 (days in a week) = 250. Or burn off an extra 250 calories daily through exercise.

To lose 2 pounds per week, she would eat 1000 calories LESS per day or burn off 1000 calories extra per day. 7000 (2lbs) Ã· 7 days = 1000 per day. But there is a problem here. It is not recommended to lower caloric intake below 1200 calories per day withour strict medical supervision. So for those who want to lose weight faster and who are up against this lower limit of calorie intake, the answer is to increase calorie outgo by exercising more.

We’ll go into further detail on this in future articles. In the mean time, to make the whole calorie counting process much simpler, I recommend the Calorie Counter at MyFoodDiary.com

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