Simple math: How to count calories to lose weight

From caloric content of diet and lifestyle, not only your appearance, but also your health depends. Do you want to know how to achieve an ideal figure with benefit to the body? We will teach you how to count calories for weight loss and make a meal plan for a week in just a couple of hours. Take the pen, the leaf, the calculator and go! Lose weight correctly!

What is the metabolism and what is its role in losing weight?

Metabolism (metabolism) is the number of calories per day that the body consumes to maintain physiological processes. That is the number of calories that you need for a full heart, Gastrointestinal, Liver and well-being. Normally, this amount is 1200-1300 calories per day.

Abundance of calories with carbohydrates leads to obesity, proteins - to a set of muscle mass. Deficiency of calories is expressed by weakness, dizziness, malfunction of the digestive tract, slowing metabolism. Strict diets with consumption of less than 1200 kcal per day, which last for more than a week, cause huge health damage and contribute to weight gain after leaving the diet.

How to Count Calories to Lose Weight

There are two formulas for calculating the metabolism: Harris-Benedict and Muffin-Geor.

According to the Harris-Benedict formula:

OOV = 655.1 + (9.6 * weight, kg) + (1.85 * height, cm) - 4.68 * (age)

Example: a girl weighs 50 kg, height 165 cm, 21 years. According to the XB: 655.1 + 9.6 * 50 + 1.85 * 165 - 4.68 * 21 = 1342 kcal / day

By the formula of Muffin-Geor:

OOV = 9.99 * weight, kg + 6.25 * height, cm - 4.92 * age - 161

Example: a girl weighs 50 kg, height 165 cm, 21 years. According to the M-D: 9.99 * 50 + 6.25 * 165 - 4.92 * 21 - 161 = 1266 kcal / day.

For accuracy, we take the golden mean of the results (1300 kcal) and multiply by the activity coefficient:

Example: our girl is lazy, she does only charging, so we take a factor of 1.3. Daily energy consumption: 1300 * 1.3 = 1690 kcal.

How to count calories to lose weight? It's simple: take 10-15% of the daily energy consumption and based on this figure, make a diet for a week. After a week, stand on the scale and make a new diet for the next week, taking into account minus 10% of the new calorie content by body weight.

Important! Do not go below 1200 calories per day. With intensive sports, reduce the daily diet for weight loss by only 100-150 kcal.

How to make a diet with calorie counting

For a balanced diet of knowledge about daily calories is not enough. Proper nutrition for weight loss is based on the ideal ratio of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. Let's learn how to calculate calories to lose weight with health benefits.

In 1 gram contains kcal:

Example

We consider the daily intake of proteins, fats and carbohydrates for a low-activity girl weighing 50 kg:

Total: 1750 kcal per day for well-being and stable weight.

But 50 kg the girl does not arrange, therefore we will remove some carbohydrates and fats:

Total: 1460 kcal to intensively reduce weight, but not to lose muscle mass.

Important! When you consider calories for a diet, do not forget about the ratio of daily ration within the norm:
  • proteins - 15-20%
  • fats - 20-30%
  • carbohydrates - 55-65%
To lose weight, cut the intake of carbohydrates and fats, leave the proteins in the same amount or add 5-10%. If you want to replenish, on the contrary, increase the protein to 40-50%, the balance of calories. It is impossible to get rid of fats and carbohydrates colossally, risk to break the digestive tract and get a bunch of diseases.

About protein foods in nourishment, slimming, read here .

How to count calories to lose weight: calorie table of foods + menu for a day

Now you understand how to lose weight, counting calories, but there is probably a question: how to apply this knowledge in practice and calculate calories for weight loss by calorie table of products. "

There are two options:

  1. We consider the calorie content of each product in the refrigerator and on the shelves of the supermarket. It's a long and tedious, and often stray.
  2. To get acquainted with the products for proper nutrition , write an approximate menu of healthy nutrition and calculate the calorie of ready meals.

Menu for the day

Choose the 2nd path and sketch the diet.

  1. Breakfast: oatmeal on milk with honey and raisins + green tea;
  2. Snack: sweet and sour apple + kefir 1% 250 ml;
  3. Lunch: buckwheat porridge with stewed vegetables + chicken drumstick for a couple without skins + slice of rye bread;
  4. Snack: pancakes fritters / fitness cookies with green tea - 2 pcs;
  5. Dinner: steamed fish cutlets + steamed vegetables.

Portions are calculated by 100-200 grams.

Calorie content per day:

Total: 1550 kcal / day.

On the subtleties of calorie counting

Learning how to make a menu is not difficult at all. A couple of days, and your eyes will evaluate the food not as edible and tasty, but as useful and high-calorie. A week later, in your brain, there will be a special function for calculating calories without a calculator. And now about the subtleties: