The bottom line for weight loss is that you must burn more calories than you take in. A pound of body fat is equal to 3500 calories, so if you want to lose that pound of fat you must burn 3500 more calories than you take in. Losing one pound a week is considered to be a safe, sustainable rate of weight loss. That means a caloric deficit--taking in fewer calories than you expend--of 500 calories per day. Most dieters can successfully aim for burning at least 250 calories through exercise and trimming another 250 by making smart diet choices.
Step 1
Calculate your basal metabolic rate (BMR), either by using the BMR Calculator link in the Resources section or by multiplying your weight by 9 calories/pound if you're sedentary, 13 calories/pound if you get light exercise and 20 calories/pound if you engage in heavy exercise. Then subtract 100 calories from the result for every ten years of age over 30. So if you're 40 years old you would subtract 100 calories; if you're 50 you would subtract 200; and so on. The final resulting number is a good estimate of your basal metabolic rate.
Step 2
Keep a meticulous diary of any calories you take in--right down to chewing gum, sauces or dressings and occasional treats. Make sure to record not just what you ate but the portion size as well; you may find having a food scale in your kitchen and carrying a small notepad with you whenever you eat out to be helpful habits. See Resources for a link to the sort of calorie counting book that can help you calculate the calories in various foods.
Step 3
Keep a similarly meticulous diary of all the calories you burn during exercise. Use the "calories burned" display on exercise machines or a chart of calories burned by activity, like the one given in Resources, to help you keep track.
Step 4
Add your calories burned by daily exercise and your BMR together; subtract this sum from your total calories consumed each day. If the result is a positive number, you've actually consumed more calories than you burnt that day, which means they will be stored as body fat. If the result is a negative number you've created a caloric deficit, burning more calories than you took in. Once you've burned a total of 3500 more calories than you took in, you will have lost one pound of fat.
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