Let’s do some simple calculations of what it takes to lose weight with healthy eating habits. We’ll use some online tools at first, but down at the bottom of this post, I will include links to some nifty excel templates that can do all the calculations for you!
This calorie calculator will tell you the amount of calories you need per day to maintain your current weight. As long as you are under that number, you are starting to lose weight.
Plug in your numbers into the calculator to give you the number of calories per day that you need to maintain current weight.
So let’s say the calculator says you need 2000 calories a day to maintain current weight. You can still eat up to 2000 calories a day provided that you exercise and burn calories. What you want is to end up with a negative number each day.
So let’s say you eat 2000 calories and burn 500 through exercise. (2000-500 calories burned=1500 for the day. With your maximum being 2000 and you ending up with 1500 calories for the day, you saved 500 calories.
With this example, you’d lose one pound per week. Why? Because 1 pound of fat = 3500 calories (universally, no matter how much you weigh).
1 pound of fat = 3500 calories, so 500 calories saved per day x 7 days=3500 calories per week. That’s one pound lost per week.
Now if you ate 1500 calories per day and burned 500, that would leave you with 1000 less calories per day. (1500-500=1000, and 2000 maximum per day-1000 that you got=1000 total for the day.)
1000 x 7 days=7000 calories saved. You lose 2 pounds per week.
Now what if you eat 2500 calories per day and don’t exercise? Well, 2500 and 2000 manximum per day, means you have an excess of 500 calories per day. 500 x 7=3500 in one week, so you would gain a pound a week!
Now how can you know how many calories you are taking in, and how many calories you have burned?
Well, for most foods, just look at the nutritional facts box on the label. Easy enough. But what if you’re out and getting something from a restaurant, or what if it’s a piece of fruit?
Here you have USDA food database where you can look up many foods. If you can’t find a specific food, find one that is similar. For instance, let’s say I eat a serving of frozen mango chunks, no sugar. (By the way, mango is REALLY sweet. You don’t need any sugar because it contains so much naturally.)
So I enter in “frozen mango” and what happens? ” frozen mango Not Found!”
OK, so let’s try “mango”.
Ok, and that will take us here.
Now we choose “mangos, raw” because that’s closest to frozen mango without added sugar.
Click “submit” and it takes you to this page.
So which do we choose? Let’s go with “one cup pieces” because I don’t know how much 1 gram is in my mouth, or belly…:)
Which takes us to our final destination here.
Looking at the chart, we see “Energy”under the Nutrient column and “KCal” (calories) under the Units column. That’s what we want, so we see 99 calories per one cup.
Now it looks like a lot of work, but a five year old can do it after the first time.
So everything you eat that you can’t find on the product label can be researched here. Is it time consuming? Maybe 5 minutes a day. That’s it. Once you do this a few times, the whole writing down and adding thing takes 10 minutes a day, tops. It’s worth it! Still too much for you? Ok, down below, all the way at the bottom of this post, you’ll see download links to excel templates you can download free that do the work for you. Aren’t I really helpful? 🙂
Back to the online tools. Ok, now about exercise and burning calories, look here. If you type in for example, 200 pounds at 30 minutes, it takes you here. Amazing, huh? Almost every activity known to mankind is listed here, from sleeping to sky diving.
So now you can count your calories burned with whatever you are doing. Betcha didn’t know that mowing the lawn can burn 272 calories in 30 minutes!
So now, we need to keep a log, or journal, and write down your current weight at the top and your maximum amount allowed that you got from the first calorie calculator at the top of this article.
Next, write down everything you eat during the day, and the # of calories for each item. Also add in your activities and calories burned. Add up the totals at the end of the day.
Weigh yourself once a week when you wake up before eating anything, and mark it down in your book.
Not losing yet? Try dropping down your daily calorie intake by 250-500 calories (or burn 250-500 calories more each day by exercising) and see how you do in the next few weeks. If that doesn’t work, try dropping another 250 calories.
You need to keep this diary current to judge how you are doing. If you are not seeing progress, adjust the numbers until you do.
So I promised you helpful free templates to calculate your calorie intake, calorie counting and physical activity. Here you go, created by R.Musadya of exceltemplate.net:
Change your health, change your life,
Michael
If you like this article, please comment or share with your friends…:)
* Find “The top 10 foods that pharmaceutical companies don’t want you to know about” here.