Counting calories helps you keep track of meals and reduce your caloric intake to below your metabolic resting rate. If your resting metabolic weight is 1,500 calories a day, then consuming only 1,300 calories will result in the body burning fat to obtain energy. The burnt fat equates to lost weight for the dieter. Counting calories can be accomplished by keeping a journal of meals and summing up the calories from the nutrition labels on food items. You also need to include hidden calories like recipe ingredients and condiments. Although keeping a journal is a tedious process, the result can mean a few extra pounds removed from your waistline.
Step 1
Buy a journal or notebook to keep track of each of your meal calories. The FDA requires food manufacturers to package foods with a nutrition label. Use these labels to write down how many calories are in each food item you eat.
Step 2
Calculate your resting metabolic rate using an online calculator (see Resources). Input your weight, height and gender. If you are regularly inactive, you will not burn as many calories. It's estimated that you burn about 10 to 13 calories per pound of fat. This is the amount of calories you need to maintain the same weight. Reducing this amount from dieting and exercise will result in weight loss.
Step 3
Incorporate how many calories you burn with each workout. Cardio exercise will help you lose weight by burning fat and lowering the net amount of calories available for the body. Aim for a 300 calorie workout, which is about 45 minutes to an hour of exercise. If you incorporate high intensity workouts, you can burn 300 calories in 30 minutes.
Step 4
Determine how many calories you want to consume each day. You can incorporate the workouts in your total sum. For instance, if you work out and burn 300 calories and reduce your diet by 200 calories, you essentially cut 500 calories per day, which will lead to a loss of one pound a week.
Step 5
Add all the calories eating each day. Subtract the calories from your workouts to evaluate the net calories consumed. If you've eaten less and burned off more than your resting metabolic weight, you will see gradual weight loss.
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