How many calories to lose weight ?
I want to lose weight. Not to fast but not to slow either. I want to know how many calories my body needs to maintain physical functions and how much to cut back to lose weight. I am 5’7 1/2 and 33 year old female. I have looked online but there are so many sites and so much conflicting info. I want to cut back enough to lose at least 2 pounds to 3 a week. But I dont even know what amount of calories to consume.
October 14th, 2010 at 7:09 pm
eat around 1,000-1,500 calories each day. but again it depends how long u exercise.
October 14th, 2010 at 7:19 pm
first you need to know how many calories you burn. You can get a metobolic test for abot $250 but I have found that if you get a good pedometer that estimates your metobolic rate they are usually with 100 calories or so. then you need to eat about 500 calories a day less than that to lose 1-2 pounds a week.
October 14th, 2010 at 8:16 pm
1 pound of weight = 3,500 calories
So you need to cut back or burn off 7,000 calories in a week.
A mixture of both is probably best.
Good luck
October 14th, 2010 at 8:54 pm
Losing weight is a simple equation: if you burn more calories than you eat, the weight will come off. Start off by estimating how many calories you burn each day using the calorie calculator http://straighthealth.com/pages/tools/caloriecalclb.html This will give you an idea of how many calories to eat. Healthy weight loss is 1-2 pounds per week. To lose 1 pound per week you need to create a calorie deficit (burn more than you eat) of 500 calories per day. To lose 2 pounds a week, you have to double the deficit to 1000 calories per day. You can achieve this by eating less, exercising more or a combination of both.
Beginners Guide to Dieting – http://straighthealth.com/pages/guides/begdieting.html
October 14th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
Cat, this is basically a numbers game. Let me help you out.
First, I’m assuming that when you say you want to “lose weight” you actually mean you want to lose body fat. Weight is generally a bad gauge of body composition — there are very lean women who weigh 130 pounds, and “skinny fat” girls who weigh 100 pounds with a higher ratio of fat-to-lean muscle. Keep this in mind as you move forward.
Second, 3 pounds a week is probably a little too aggressive. I would aim for 1-2 pounds of fat loss per week. To lose a pound of body fat a week you need to create a calorie-deficeit of around 3500 calories below the amount of calories you need to eat each day just to maintain your current weight. If you wanted to lose 2 pounds, you would need to cut out 7000 calories.
For the purposes of getting you started, let’s assume 1 pound of fat loss a week and go from there.
The first step for you is to determine how many calories at your current weight, height and activity level you need to consume to MAINTAIN your current weight. Though I’m not believer in Hydroxycut, they do have a nice, easy-to-use calorie requirement calculator. Go here and plug your info in and select “Maintain Weight” as your goal:
http://www.hydroxycut.com/WOMEN/CALCULATORS/CALORIE/index.shtml
This will tell you how many calories you need to consume each day to stay at your current weight. It will probably be somewhere between 1500 and 1800. Write this number down.
Now, figure out a realistic fat loss target. We’re going to target one pound a week. Any more than two pounds, and you risk losing lean muscle, which you don’t want to do. Unlike fat, lean muscle actually burns calories at rest, so you want to preserve it. It also gives you that healthy, toned looked.
Again, if you are aiming for the very realistic goal of losing a pound of fat a week, you simply need to create a calorie deficit of 3,500 calories per week. That’s 500 calories per day below the maintainence number the calculator referenced above gives you. Cut these calories by combination of diet and exercise. So, burn 250 each day running, biking or weight training and then consume 250 less in food.
Resist the urge to try to cut the 500 calories out of food exclusively. You will be way too hungry and your metabolism will start to suffer. There are fat burning and health benefits to exercise, so make sure you are doing at least 30-45 minutes a day. A combination of weight/resistance training and cardio will do the trick.
Also, eat clean. Try to eat small meals more frequently, with lots of veggies, lean protein and water. Stay away from sugar, soda, alcohol and too many starchy carbs like potatos and white bread.
Do this and in a month, you’ll have lost around four pounds of fat. You’ll also feel healthier and be in a better mood because you didn’t starve yourself.
For some tools to keep track of your calories and exercise, check out some of the links below.
Best of luck!
October 14th, 2010 at 8:56 pm
body needs 50cal/hour just for functioning (like when you are in coma) so thats 1200cal/day and thats for a person thats under 150lbs. A person thats above 150lbs needs 70cal/hour.
find calorie/fitness calculator on the net, enter all your stats and it will tell you how many calories you need a day to maintain, take off 300-400cal off that number and thats how much you need to lose.
eat 5-6 small meals a day (eat every 2-3 hours)
5-8 servings of fruit and veggies a day
8 glasses of water
have complex carbs for breakfast – they give you energy
have lean meat (protein) for dinner – repairs muscle
cardio exercise 4-6 times a week for 30-50min, light weight training
dont consume foods that are made of white flour (white bread, cakes, past etc.), sugar loaded foods (cookies, icecream, candy etc) and nothing fried, oily.
ofcourse you can spoil yourself once in a while with a little treat:)