Counting Calories Can Help You Lose 50% More Weight!

Counting calories is an important part of losing weight. First, let's understand what a calorie is: it's the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of a liter of water 1 degree. Now that we have the technical, hard-to-understand definition out of the way, what do you really need to know about counting calories? The 3 most important things are:

1. Figuring out what your caloric needs are

2. Keeping track of how many calories you are eating per day

3. Understanding how many calories are burned doing different exercises

1. How Many Calories Per Day?

Use this useful online calorie calculator from the Mayo Clinic to determine how many calories per day you should be eating. It calculates the number of calories you need to be eating each day based on your age, weight, height, sex, and activity level:

Calorie Counter

For counting calories manually, use the Harris Benedict equation, which is a formula used to measure how many calories you need using the factors of height, weight, age, and sex to determine basal metabolic rate (BMR), which is calories needed by the body when it’s “at rest”. Once you have this number, you can then use it to determine how many calories you need per day based on your activity level.

Men: BMR = 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Women: BMR = 655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) 

Now that you know your BMR, you can calculate your daily caloric intake by multiplying your BMR by your activity multiplier from the chart below:

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)

Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)

Moderately active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)

Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)

Extremely active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)

2. How Do I Keep Track of Calories?

There are many useful calorie trackers and food diaries on the web. Some are free and other are offered for a small fee. Food diaries are an excellent way to keep track of what you're eating and help you lose weight.

In fact, a recent Kaiser Permanente study found that keeping a food diary/calorie counter doubled weight loss among participants when combined with 30 minutes of exercise each day. Some of the better food diaries include:

• www.fitday.com
• www.myfooddiary.com
• www.sparkpeople.com
• www.thedailyplate.com