Healthy and long term weight loss involves knowing how your body expends energy and stores calories from food. Your body is constantly burning calories to carry out basic functions such as breathing and digestion. The American College of Sports Medicine explains that your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, is the amount of calories you burn to carry out these functions and resting metabolic rate, or RMR, refers to the calories your body burns while at rest. Nearly 75 percent of the calories burned a day come from BMR. However, each individual burns different amounts based on various factors such as body size and composition as well as controllable factors such as the foods you eat and level of physical activity engaged.
Step 1
Do the simple math. According to the Presidents Council on Fitness, 1 lb. of fat equals 3,500 calories of unused energy. A deficit of 3,500 calories must occur in order to lose 1 lb. To create this deficit decrease the amount of calories you eat a day, increase your physical activity to burn higher quantities of calories, or do a combination of both for optimal results.
Step 2
Set a daily calorie intake goal. In order to calculate how many calories you consume a day, you must count every item that goes into your mouth. Make a quick reference list of the foods you eat most frequently and utilize this list to set limits on your daily intake. MayoClinic suggests skipping at least one high calorie indulgence per day and reducing portion sizes to meet your daily calorie intake goals. If you choose to follow an 1,800 calorie a day eating plan, this will create a 200 calorie deficit if you normally consume 2,000 calories a day.
Step 3
Burn more calories a day through exercise. Burning 500 calories a day, seven days a week equals 3,500 calories burned or one pound. This is one of the simplest calculations you can do to monitor fat burn. Pair a daily activity calorie loss with a deficit of calories eaten and you stand to burn even more per day. Exercises such as walking at 2 mph for one hour burns up to 270 calories or jogging at 5 mph burns 500 to 875 calories per hour. Take an aerobics class three times a week and burn 300 to 760 calories per hour.
Step 4
Do the difficult math. According to the "Journal of Applied Physiology" you can use a specific formula to determine basal metabolic rate and then calculate total daily energy expenditure for an exact number of calories required for intake and output to lose weight. The equation for women consists of 655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)= BMR. For men the equation is 66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)= BMR. Calculate the BMR then calculate your total daily energy expenditure by multiplying BMR by one of the following activity factors; sedentary = 1.2; lightly active = 1.375; moderately active = 1.55; very active = 1.725; extremely active = 1.9.
Tips and Warnings
- Nutrition labels exist on most foods and the U.S. Department of Agriculture offers a detailed nutritional value listing for hundreds of foods that is also available online. The Calorie Control Council does not recommend losing more than 1 lb. per week, if you want to keep weight off permanently.
- Extremely overweight or muscular individuals can have skewed final calculation for calories needed per day to lose or maintain weight.
Things You'll Need
- Nutrition value chart
- Calculator
References
- Mayo Clinic: Counting Calories: Get Back To Weight-Loss Basics
- American College of Sports Medicine: Establishing Eating Essentials for Weight Loss
- Mayo Clinic: Exercise For Weight Loss: Calories Burned in 1 Hour
- Calorie Control Council: Weight Maintenance Calculator
- Presidents Council on Fitness: Exercise and Weight Control
- "Journal of Applied Physiology": Are Basal Metabolic Rate Prediction Equations Appropriate for Female Children and Adolescents; William Wong, et al; December 1996
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