Applying your Calorie Counting skills

If you haven't done so, please read my two previous posts. Those are important, otherwise you won't understand know how to apply what I'm going to teach you here.

1 pound of mass = 3,500 calories. Remember this!

If you end up with a -3,500 calories at any time, then you should be 1 lb. lighter. Now you see why it's so important you learn how to count calories.

Did you know that your body burns calories just to keep you alive. It's called the Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR, sometimes used interchangeably with Basal Metabolic Rate [BMR]) If you stayed in bed for 24 hours, and did absolutely nothing except lay still, your body burns calories to keep your vital organs on! The number of calories you burn daily without exercise is dependent on your height, weight, age, gender, and activity level. I'm going to post a link for you in order to determine what this number is. Keep in mind that when you lose or gain weight, this number will change. The website is: http://www.annecollins.com/calc/5.htm

Enter the appropriate info. If you don't know your activity level, it's ok to put Sedentary because that is the minimum amount of calories your body burns without exercise.

Ok, what do you do with this number? Let's use it to determine how many calories you can eat a day of course. Let's use an example. Bob has a desk job and does not exercise. His RMR is also 2000 calories. If Bob ate 2000 calories of food each day, he would maintain his current weight because 2000-2000 equals 0. Ok, let's say Bob wants to lose 1 lb. a week without exercise. That means every 7 days, he must have a net calorie intake of -3,500 calories. He would have to reduce the number of calories he eats and drinks to 1500 calories per day. That means he burns 500 calories daily. 500 x 7 days equals 3,500 calories. He just lost 1 lb!

Ok, let's say Bob wants to lose 2 lbs. per week. That would mean he would have to consume 1000 calories per day on average. That's a very low amount of food and very unhealthy (Health professionals recommend you eat at LEAST 1200 calories daily). Although Bob CAN lose 2 lbs. a week doing this, it might harm him in the long run. So he decides to eat 1500 calories and start exercising daily to burn 500 additional calories per day. He just lost 2 lbs. in a week doing this!

Now you see why Calorie Counting is crucial to weight loss. It allows you to plan ahead instead of blindly dieting and making yourself suffer because you don't see results. With this, calculate how much weight you want to lose and by when. Then you can calculate how many calories you should be eating daily so you can get there without killing yourself or slowing down your progress.

On my next post, I'll explain how to get started with weight loss.