What is the Recommended Calorie Intake to Lose Weight?

One of the most important things to figure out when you want to lose weight is what your recommended calorie intake is.

This is the number of calories you should consume in a day based on your gender, height and frame size.

As you probably know, losing weight is all about your calorie balance.

You need to consume fewer calories than your body burns in order to lose weight.

When considering your recommended calorie intake, you should note that you can eat more carbohydrates and proteins than you can fats and eat the same amount of calories.

In other words, a smaller amount of fats will have the same number of calories as a larger amount of carbohydrates.

By the way, alcohol has seven calories per gram, almost up there with fats.

The reason you can eat more of one type of food (such as carbohydrates) than another is because of how a calorie works.

A calorie is a unit of energy, and all food has a calorie measure.

Food items are not, however, created equally.

The types of foods lowest in calories are:

• Carbohydrates and
• Proteins, each with four calories per gram.

Fats contain a whopping nine calories per gram.

To determine how many calories you should consume in a day, or your recommended calorie intake, you need to consider:

• Your ideal healthy weight
• Your gender and
• How active you are.

For example:

• A woman who should weight 140 pounds and includes moderate exercise in her day can consume 2,156 calories a day.
• A man who should be 170 pounds and also includes moderate exercise in his day can consume 2,880 calories a day.

To lose one pound per week you need to cut back on your recommended calorie intake by approximately 500 calories a day.

A pound of fat is equivalent to 3,500 calories, so to lose a pound you need to:

• Eat 3,500 fewer calories or
• Exercise enough to burn the same number of calories.

It is often best to combine these two schools of thought by:

• Reducing the number of calories you eat and
• Increasing the number of calories you burn.

For example:

• You could reduce your daily intake of calories by 250 calories and
• Exercise enough each day to burn 250 calories.

Food packaging is required to tell you how many calories are in a particular product, so you can figure out how it fits in with your recommended calorie intake.

Just be sure to watch your portion size, if one serving is one ounce, don’t eat half the box.

Also, if you cook a lot at home it may help to buy a couple of cookbooks that include nutrition analysis.

Understanding your recommended calorie intake is a super tool to help you lose weight.

By making sure you’re not consuming too many calories for the number of calories you burn, you’ll be making a great start toward overcoming obesity.

Another great idea is to follow the tips below to lose even more weight.

• Incorporate a proven, complete nutritional program into your daily life.
• Enhance your nutritional program with a complete mutivitamin supplement because no nutritional program is perfect.
• Use a behavior modification and motivational program that will help you stay on track with your nutritional plan.
• Exercise at home with your own:
  Treadmill

  Stairstepper

  Exercise bike

  Elliptical trainer

  Hand weights or

  An aerobic video.

• See what kinds of weight loss aids your health insurance covers such as:
  Hypnotism

  Gym membership discounts

  Nutritional counseling.

By staying within your recommended colorie intake levels you will lose weight.

It's a proven fact!

So, go ahead. Follow the tips above.

Start losing those pounds right now!