Sunday 16 February 2014

How Many Calories To Eat To Lose Weight

How Many Calories To Eat To Lose Weight?
If you are asking the question “How many calories should I eat a day?” then I am guessing you want to lose weight. The calorie is the standard measure for food to indicate how much you are eating.

The problem is that not all calories are created equal. There are calories that come from certain foods such as vegetables that will do you no harm whatsoever. There are others coming from foods such as fats and red meats that can be very harmful.

The other main factor for determining the correct number of calories is how active you are. If you have a physical job such as brick laying or gardening then you will need to eat at the top end of these guidelines. If you are house bound or inactive then you need to be at the bottom of the ranges given below.

Having said that let me give you some idea of how many calories to eat to lose weight each day. This information is for adults only. Children have their own special needs when going on diets and needs medical supervision.

How Many Calories For Men?
For most men you should be looking to eat from 1900 – 2600 calories a day. By maintaining your current level of activity and eating within this range you should keep your weight static. To bring your weight down you can do 2 simple things. Reduce your calorie intake by 500 per day, or increase your physical activity everyday. The best option is to combine these 2 tactics to lose weight.

How many Calories For Women?
For women the count is much lower. The range of daily calories needs to be between 1300 and 2200. The same variables that apply to men also apply to women. Because the female population as a whole are smaller in physical stature the reduction of daily calories needs to be less. So instead of reducing the calorie count by 500 a day, women would aim for around 300 – 400 a day. Exercise can be increased by similar amounts to men.

Because there are less calories that you can reduce, women will lose weight slower than men. This seems like a complete injustice for women but it is a fact that their bodies cannot lose weight as fast.

Target Weight Loss And Reduced Calories
Dieting represents a complete regime change for them. The surest way to lose weight is to take it off at a similar pace to the way you put it on. So instead of only eating 1000 calories per day you should be looking to reduce your daily intake by a modest amount that allows you to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week. Over a year that’s 52 – 104 pounds lost. A daily pattern of eating that naturally includes good foods with lower calories needs to be established to help with the willpower and constancy needed to lose weight.

How Many Calories Do I Eat To Lose Weight?
This is very personal. What I mean is that one persons answer to the question “How many calories do I eat to lose weight” will differ a great deal to mine. Our bodies are different from each other in the same way that we all look slightly different.
There are at least three important factors that will govern these differences. The first one is exactly how efficiently your body processes your food. The second one is how physically active you are. The third variable is the one most people place first in importance, what you eat.

Food Selection And Losing Weight
Your food selection does have a huge impact on your weight but that other two factors are equally critical to consider when you want to lose weight. If your body has been used to eating large amounts of food then your digestive system will have adjusted to this. It expects every meal to be large and probably unhealthy. You never hear of anyone getting fat on salad.
Because your body is used to too much food the reduction of calories will make you feel hungry very quickly. Once your stomach has shrunk it will not send hunger messages to your brain. If you also start up an exercise routine this will further exasperate the hunger problem. No wonder its so hard to stick to a diet when you are always so hungry.

The way to lose weight is to reduce your calorie intake by a modest but still significant amount daily. For men I would suggest a reduction of 500 calories per day. For women I would say between 300 and 400 per day. This coupled with an increase in physical activity will see you losing weight slowly but surely.

How Many Calories To Eat To Lose Weight?
So my answer to the question is about 500 less calories a day than you eat right now. To work this out you will need to measure what your current intake of calories is. A simple 3 day food diary will suffice for this. Using an online calorie counter calculate your current daily intake of calories. You will be shocked at the figures. Everyone underestimates what their daily calorie count is.
Once you know what yours is you can reduce it by 500 and start losing weight.


http://www.weightlossbreakthrough.com/calories-to-lose-weight/ - How Many Calories To Eat To Lose Weight