The Staples Of Losing Weight
Basically, the old rules still apply. We haven’t found any newfangled shortcuts, and pills and “magic potions” only serve to remove extra weight from one place: your wallet.
Here, then, are the basic weight loss rules that we’ve known all our lives.
In order to lose one pound, you must burn about 3500 additional calories, or take in 3500 less calories through your daily eating. Though it sounds like a lot of calories, and doing it in one day would be nearly impossible, taking it slowly and methodically, you can figure out what you need to do every day to burn up or cut out the extra calories that are keeping you from your goal.
To get started, you need to know how many calories your body needs to function and maintain its current size. This is called your BMR (basal metabolic rate.) You can find a number of calculators online which will give you an approximation of the number of calories needed to eat each day. As you lose weight, your BMR will go down, so adjust accordingly.
Find a good calorie calculator and figure out how many calories you burn throughout the day. Get an idea of what you are burning when asleep, sitting at your desk, walking, running, weight training, etc. so you’ll know what your calorie burn is. I suggest keeping an activity journal, or even purchasing a heart rate monitor that calculates calories burned for you.
Keep track of every morsel that passes through your lips, so that you can get an accurate assessment of how many calories you are currently consuming. Studies have shown that keeping a food journal is one of the top pieces of advice given by people who have lost weight and keep it off for any length of time.
Once you have these numbers, figure it out! Reduce 3500 calories through a combination of adding exercise or reducing your food intake, and one pound of fat is gone.
