Most people can handle weight maintenance. For example, what you eat right now probably maintains you at the weight you are now. So if you can figure out how many calories you are consuming in the moment to maintain the weight you are at. The way to do this is to use a simple formula called the Harris-Benedict principle. It assesses your basal metabolic rate.
The basal metabolic rate or BMR is what your body burns to function. For most of us, we use about 60 percent of the calories we consume each day to do things like breathe, eat and live. The are a lot of factors that influence our BMR including our sex, our weight, our height and our age. Here is how you figure out what your BMR is:
For Women: 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) = BMR
So if you are 35, weigh 180 pounds and stand 65 inches tall, your BMR would be:
655+ (4.35 x 180) + (4.7 x 65) - (4.7 x 35) = BMR
655 + 783 + 305.5 - 164.5 = BMR
1579 = BMR
Now, that's just step one. For men the formula is a bit different: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)
So the second step to figuring out your calorie counting and BMR is:
Multiply your daily activity and caloric output versus your BMR.
- Sedentary = BMR x 1.2
- Lightly Active = BMR x 1.375
- Moderately Active = BMR x 1.55
- Very Active = BMR x 1.725
- Athletic = BMR x 1.9
So let's say our 35 year old woman is lightly active: 2172 is the answer to how many calories you are taking in at your level of activity in order to maintain your current weight. So to create your caloric deficit to lose weight, you need to burn an extra 500 calories a day, you can lose about a pound a week.
You can do this by burning 250 calories extra in exercise and cutting back 250 calories per day from the diet. You can push this up to burning 500 calories a day in exercise and cutting back 500 calories out of your diet per day. This puts you in a target goal of losing .5 to 2 pounds for week.
Go here to get more information on how to design the perfect diet for you and your body type.
This site will also give you animated exercises for dieting that are easy to do, don't need any fancy equipment, and will make your diet much more effective.
