How To Control Your Calorie Intake To Lose Weight

Control Your Calorie Intake To Lose Weight

Controlling your daily calorie intake to lose weight is one of the most important aspects of any weight loss program that you decide to go on.

Studies have been taken where overweight people believed they were eating the same amount of food as other people that they associated with and who were considerably slimmer than them.  The overweight people were under the false impression that the reason why they were heavier and gaining weight was due to their body’s metabolism.

When keeping a record of what they ate over a specified period of time, it was shown that the overweight people were actually consuming more calories and it had nothing to do with their metabolism but rather their choice of food and the quantities they were eating.

Counting Calories to Lose Weight

You only need to reduce your calorie intake to lose weight by 100 calories per day to make a substantial effect on your weight over the period of the year.

This is a very manageable goal for almost everybody and it is not too difficult to cut back by that amount. The problem with restricting your calories too much is the fact that it slows down your metabolism and in doing so it makes it all the more difficult to sustain weight loss. This is one of the reasons why it is suggested that you don’t reduce your calorie intake by an excessive amount on a daily basis if you want to keep reducing weight over the long-term.

It is crucially important to control your calorie intake to lose weight because if you consume excess calories over and above the energy needs of your body then these calories will be stored as fat.

The Easy Way to Reduce Calorie Intake To Lose Weight

The suggested calorie intake to reduce weight varies from person to person, but there are guidelines for calorie requirements you can use as a starting point. The UK Department of Health Estimated Average Requirements (EAR) are a daily calorie intake of 1940 calories per day for women and 2550 for men.

A number of different factors can influence your calorie intake to lose weight. These include your age, height, weight, gender and your lifestyle. A more active person will need more calories because they will be burning more in the course of the day.

On average every pound (0.45kg) of your body weight represents approximately 3500 calories.  Based on this average, to lose 1 pound you will need to reduce your calorie intake by 3500 calories. If you were to try and consume less calories to lose weight fast you can see how it won’t be possible to lose a pound a day unless of course you already have a considerable calorie intake and the reduction will still leave you with sufficient food and nutrition to remain healthy.

To reduce your calorie intake to lose weight by only 100 calories per day over the course of the year you would have consumed 36,500 less calories and that converts to a weight reduction of over 10 pounds (4.5kg).

For many people, just knowing that is enough to ensure that they can start and maintain a good weight loss program.

NEED HELP WITH YOUR CALORIE INTAKE TO LOSE WEIGHT?

Take a hard look at your diet and workout plan as well as your calorie-tracking system to ensure everything is on the right track. Take advantage of apps like My Food Diary. This highly-acclaimed food database contains over 100,000 foods to improve your diet and the exercise log can calculate calories burned for over 700 activities to help you achieve your weight loss goal.