Moderate Calorie Restriction & Weight Loss

Fad diets usually do not provide the long term effects they claim. They often leave you more frustrated than you were before you decided to go on a diet. Moderate daily calorie restriction coupled with nutrient dense foods and exercise will lead to healthy and sustained weight loss.

Significance

Even though weight loss is all about counting calories, drastically decreasing calories to unsafe amounts is unhealthy. Caloric intakes below 1,200 calories for women and 1,500 calories for men are termed extreme or severe. Diets that recommend consuming less than this promote radical results in a short time. However, most of the weight you lose will be fluid and/or muscle, because muscle is more easily broken down than fat.

Specifics

Before you begin reducing calories for weight loss, you must determine your specific caloric needs. Daily caloric intake is based on more than just age and gender. Other factors that should also be taken into consideration are your height, current weight, activity level and body composition. The online calorie calculators provided by Nutriweb and Ask the Dietitian provide specific tools to help you determine your caloric needs.

Calorie Restriction

Depending on your weight loss goals, moderate calorie restriction ranging from 250 to 1,000 calories a day will lead to healthy weight loss. Because there are 3,500 calories in one pound, you need to create this deficit for each pound you wish to lose. A daily 250 calorie deficit will lead to a half pound of weight loss per week, and a 1,000 calorie deficit will lead to two pounds of weight loss per week.

Exercise

Creating calorie deficits through dieting alone can be hard. Adding exercise to your calorie restricted diet will not only make it easier to lose weight but will also enhance the rate and amount of weight lost. Exercising to burn 250 to 500 calories a day will help you reach your daily caloric goals. When you do either cardiovascular exercise or strength training, you build lean muscle. Lean muscle burns more calories than fat throughout the day. So as you increase your lean muscle mass, you will burn more calories because your body fat is lower.

Considerations

Although weight loss comes down to calories, certain foods will help you lose weight while others tend to prevent weight loss. For instance, carbohydrate sources like fruits and vegetables are preferred over processed ones like bread, cereal and pasta. These processed carbs actually interfere with weight loss and may cause weight gain, whereas natural carbohydrate sources are packed with vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and fiber. Fiber helps keep you full between meals, and aids in regulating your digestive system.