When you finally have decided that now is the time, now you really want or need to lose weight, one of the first questions popping into your mind is "How many calories should I eat to lose weight?" or "How many calories should I cut?" If you want to get these questions answered and plan your diet easily, read on!
So, how many calories should I eat? Well, it depends mainly on two factors and let's first have a look onto these:
Your calories needed for maintenance are influenced by your gender, your current weight, your height, your age and your activity level. If you feed these data into an online BMR calculator, you will get your personal result calculated within seconds. So, that part was easy and gives you already an estimate about how many calories you should eat at maximum. For weight loss it has obviously to be below that value. But how much?
How many calories should I eat to lose weight?
Now, we all would prefer to lose weight at a speed of 10 pounds in 5 days etc. These and similar high promises are often done within the weight loss industry, but a result like this is unlikely and even unhealthy. Opt for something more realistic and get an idea how fast you want to lose weight. It should be fast enough to show some results and keep you motivated but slow enough to be doable and enable you to stick to your diet for as long as it has to be. Being rather weeks to months than 5 days!
How many calories should I cut? Calculate your calorie deficit
Say you want to lose those 10 pounds not in 5 days but 5 weeks, this is still 2 pounds per week and equals a calorie deficit of 7,000 calories per week, or 1,000 calories per day that you either need to eat less or exercise off. Each day! Even that is not so easy, but doable.
Calculate you calorie deficit per day as follows:
Daily calorie deficit = pounds you want to lose x 3,500 calories / number of days you want to diet
Example: 10 pounds x 3,500 / 35 days (5 weeks) = 1,000 calories = daily calorie deficit
Now the only thing left to do is to take the value of your daily calorie deficit off the amount of calories needed for maintenance and then you know how many calories you should eat when you want to lose those pounds!
Example Calculation:
Female, 25 years old, height 5'7, weight 156 pounds, lightly active, wants to lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks. Her questions is: How many calories should I cut and how many calories should I eat?
BMR (lightly active) = 2,098 calories per day
How many calories should I cut = 1,000 calories
How many calories should I eat = 1,098 per day
Alternatively you can eat a bit more like 1,400 calories per day and increase your activity, do some exercise daily, walk , run, dance or do whatever it takes to move your body.
So, how many calories should I eat? Well, it depends mainly on two factors and let's first have a look onto these:
- what is your calorie maintenance level (the amount of calories you can eat where you neither lose weight nor put on weight)
- at what speed do you want to lose weight (the faster, the harder to do!), this determines how many calories you need to cut
Your calories needed for maintenance are influenced by your gender, your current weight, your height, your age and your activity level. If you feed these data into an online BMR calculator, you will get your personal result calculated within seconds. So, that part was easy and gives you already an estimate about how many calories you should eat at maximum. For weight loss it has obviously to be below that value. But how much?
How many calories should I eat to lose weight?
Now, we all would prefer to lose weight at a speed of 10 pounds in 5 days etc. These and similar high promises are often done within the weight loss industry, but a result like this is unlikely and even unhealthy. Opt for something more realistic and get an idea how fast you want to lose weight. It should be fast enough to show some results and keep you motivated but slow enough to be doable and enable you to stick to your diet for as long as it has to be. Being rather weeks to months than 5 days!
How many calories should I cut? Calculate your calorie deficit
Say you want to lose those 10 pounds not in 5 days but 5 weeks, this is still 2 pounds per week and equals a calorie deficit of 7,000 calories per week, or 1,000 calories per day that you either need to eat less or exercise off. Each day! Even that is not so easy, but doable.
Calculate you calorie deficit per day as follows:
Daily calorie deficit = pounds you want to lose x 3,500 calories / number of days you want to diet
Example: 10 pounds x 3,500 / 35 days (5 weeks) = 1,000 calories = daily calorie deficit
Now the only thing left to do is to take the value of your daily calorie deficit off the amount of calories needed for maintenance and then you know how many calories you should eat when you want to lose those pounds!
Example Calculation:
Female, 25 years old, height 5'7, weight 156 pounds, lightly active, wants to lose 10 pounds in 5 weeks. Her questions is: How many calories should I cut and how many calories should I eat?
BMR (lightly active) = 2,098 calories per day
How many calories should I cut = 1,000 calories
How many calories should I eat = 1,098 per day
Alternatively you can eat a bit more like 1,400 calories per day and increase your activity, do some exercise daily, walk , run, dance or do whatever it takes to move your body.
Now that we shed some light on your questions "How many calories should eat to lose weight?" (see related VIDEO on my blog!) and "How many calories should I cut?", use this BMR calculator to have your values calculated and get started with your diet.
Author: Claudia Ohst from dietonautopilot.com
Article: How many calories should I eat? How many calories should I cut?
Author: Claudia Ohst from dietonautopilot.com
Article: How many calories should I eat? How many calories should I cut?
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Claudia_Ohst
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