In this blog, I will help you to give some solid tips to lose weight. We all are aware that if we want to gain weight or lose weight, we adjust calories accordingly. To gain weight, we need more calories and to lose weight we need to lose calories. Let’s understand some facts how this works.
What is Calorie?
Our body needs energy to keep us alive. When we sleep, walk or work, body needs energy. This energy comes from calories. Body burns calories and generate energy. So calorie is nothing but the measurement of energy.
When we eat, our food generates calories, these calories stores in our body and used later to generate energy. Every food generates a different amount of energy. Same size of cucumber will have fewer calories than same size of butter.
Now you are clear that food is source of calories and calories generate energy. So if you want to lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than your body burn. So that excess calories can be burned to reduce weight. I do not believe, you will be disagree with this fact. Hard part is to calculate that how much calories your body burn and how much calories you should eat.
Step 1: How much calories are you consuming?
Good news is that many processed food has label with calories count. There are many applications which provided approximate calories in dishes as well. www.myfitnesspal.com is good app for that and it’s database has thousands of dishes. These calories are not accurate because it all depends upon chef. If you put little extra butter while cooking, calorie count will go up. More complex food you will eat, it will be more difficult to count calories and chances of error in calories count will be higher.
Since calories count is tougher in complex food so try to eat simple food when you are on losing weight. Try to eat same type of food so that you do not need to calculate calories every day. I am not saying that do not eat pizza or oily dishes, ensure calories count is easy.
Step 2: How much calories are you burning?
Your body needs a certain amount of energy to keep you alive. This amount is called BMR (Base metabolic rate). Measuring BMR is not difficult. There are many applications available online which will give you your BMR based on your height, weight, age and gender. My favorite one is http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/. My height is 5 feet 6 inch and weight is 121 pound, so my BMR is approx. 1401 calories per day.
Since we do some activities per day, so we need to add that factor as well while calculating BMR.
The Harris Benedict Equation is a formula that uses your BMR and then applies an activity factor to determine your total daily energy expenditure (calories).
Table: Harris Benedict Equation
| Little or no exercise | BMR x 1.2 |
| Little exercise (1-3 days per week) | BMR x 1.375 |
| Moderate exercise (3-5 days per week) | BMR x 1.55 |
| Heavy Exercise (6–7 days per week) | BMR x 1.725 |
| Extra active (twice per day) | BMR x 1.9 |
I run 5 – 6 days in a week so my BMR is 1401 * 1.55 = 2171. Since I am losing weight so, I keep it one level down for safer side. It means my body burns 1401 * 1.375 = 1926 calories per day to keep me alive with current daily routine.
Step 3: Let’s set the goal to lose weight
By now, you are clear how calories work, how to calculate calories which you are consuming and how to calculate calories which your body needs per day.
Now let’s create weight lose plan. To lose one pound of weight, you need deficit of 3500 calories (for losing 0.5 KG, you need deficit of 3850 calories). It means if I will not eat anything for 2 days, I will lose approx. 1.10 pound (0.5 kg). So if I set a goal to lose 1 pound per week, I need to take 3500 calories less than what my body is burning. When I divide 3500 by 7, it comes 500 calories per day. So I need calorie deficit of 500 calories per day.
Since my BMR is 1926 calories per day, so I should take only 1926 – 500 = 1426 calories per day to lose 1 pound of weight. I give 10% error margin to handle errors in calories count.
So total calorie which I need to eat, will be 1926 – 200 (10% error margin) – 500 (deficit) = 1226 calories per day. It means if I take 1226 calories per day, I will lose 1 pound in 1 week.
Initially when I started it, my weight was 141 pound (64 kg) and 35 inch waist. With this plan, I reduced 20 pounds (9 kg) and 3.5 inch waist in 4 months.
You can also take same steps to calculate your plan to lose weight. Be careful that when you will start to lose weight, your BMR will drop, so you will be needed to recalculate your daily calories count periodically (which your body is burning) and either you need to reduce your calories further or increase activities to keep losing weight.