Determining the Calories You Consume and the Calories You Burn Daily

Perhaps you are trying get ready for bikini season, or you are trimming your waistline to fit into that expensive dress in your closet for an upcoming formal event, or you finally made good on your long standing New Years diet resolution at last. Truth be told, most of us have probably travelled down the path of starting a new diet in earnest, on numerous occasions during our lives. So how do we finally succeed at losing the weight and then keep it off for good? Here are some tried and true weight loss tips, that can get your diet started off on the right track, and then help you to stay on track with your diet, for life.

Determine how many calories you burn per day:

The first step in getting started with your diet, should be to calculate an estimate of the amount of calories you are currently burning per day. Reasonably accurate estimates can be made, by using simple calorie calculators online. The information you will type into these online calorie calculators will be: gender, age, weight, height and daily activity level. You should consider carefully the activity level you select in the online form, for many people this will be actually be the sedentary activity level. You can find these calculators searching for the keywords (calories burned per day).

It may be a good idea to compare the results from a couple of these websites and to average the results, or simply choose the lowest value of calories per day, if it is within about 100-200 calories of the other estimates. This calorie total represents an estimate of all of the calories your body burns in 24 hours.

You can calculate calorie totals for any additional activity that you perform routinely (or you are planning to do going forward,) such as dancing, walking or running long distances, various types of other exercise such as weight lifting, etc., independently of the estimate of calories you burn daily (i.e., from normal or sedentary activity.) To do this, use online calorie counters, lists, or tables for these specific activities. Go online and search for a three word keyword phrase that consists of (your activity or exercise + calories burned,) ample lists, tables, or calculators will display in the search results for most common activities and forms of exercise. The total amount of calories burned for each of these activities you perform on a daily basis, can be added directly to the 24 hour sedentary lifestyle calorie total above.

The total amount of calories for each of these activities that is performed daily can be added directly to your sedentary activity daily calorie total. If you do not perform the activity everyday you will need to total the amount of calories you expend per week during these extra activities, divide the subtotal by 7, and then add this normalized value to the grand total of calories you are burning daily.

Your research and calculations will take a little effort on your part, but when your finished, you will have a very good starting estimate of the calories you actually burn everyday. Its important to remember at the outset, that people can spend years on a sensible diet, but inadvertently overeat and actually gain rather than lose weight over time, as a result.

Determine how many calories are in the foods you eat:

Now that you have an estimate for the calories you expend daily, let's determine the calories that you consume each day. There are three basic resources you can use to determine the amount of calories in your diet, online nutrition data tables and lists, and food calorie calculators are sources for fresh fruits and vegetable, grains, legumes (beans,) etc., and many packaged foods. The second resource is nutritional data provided by chain restaurants that you eat at regularly, either directly at the establishment, or online at the restaurant's website. The third nutrition resource you will use, is the nutritional data on all of the packaged foods that you buy at the grocery store. You can also find much of the data from these all three of these free nutrition resources, at the library or your local book store.

This will be a challenge at first, but soon you will know the calorie content for all of the foods you eat. While your at it, be sure to maintain a balance of protein, carbohydrates, and essential unsaturated fats. Use a log sheet, spreadsheet, cell phone online, lap top, pc online, or books, what ever it takes to educate yourself. It is also important to weigh out portions in order to ensure accuracy.

Adjust your diet to create a net calorie intake deficit:

Once you have a handle on the calorie and food group content for the foods you eat, keep a log of every meal and snack, and the beverages you consume. The goal here is to gradually create a meal rotation with a net calorie intake deficit, said another way, the amount of calories that you are consuming daily must be less than the total calories your body burns. A pound of fat takes about 3500 calories to burn, so you will need a caloric deficit of 500 calories per day to burn a pound of fat per week or 4 pounds per month. You may adjust your activity or diet, in small to modest increments to achieve the rate and amount of weight loss you desire.

Conclusion:

The principle reason researching and determining your total daily caloric intake and expenditure, are valuable tools in helping dieters achieve and maintain long term weight loss, can be summarized in two statements. Most dieters can't intuitively fine tune their caloric intake and expenditures to achieve a zero balance (no weight loss or gain,) or to a net caloric intake deficit (fat burn and weight loss mode,) on a consistent basis. This very fact results in the need for a diet plan to begin with. Finally, as with all significant changes in exercise and daily diet, consult a family physician to ensure your plan is safe in relation to your current health and prior health conditions.

Here are related articles on diet and weight loss that I have written that you may wish to research:

The Basics of Weight Loss - Exercising "Common Sense"

Five Weight Loss Diets That Work For The Long Term

How To Select A Weight Loss Diet That Works For You