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Walking the Walk: Making it work for you
Posted on Oct 7th 2008 8:00AM by Bethany SandersThe best way to figure out how many calories you need to eat in a day is to know how many you're burning. Aside from your daily workouts and activity, your body burns calories just going through its daily processes. This is called BMR, and you can figure out what yours is here.
Once you know your BMR, then you can figure out what your daily caloric need is. Once you know how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight, you can choose to eat fewer calories or burn more calories through exercise to lose weight.
To lose a pound, you need to burn 3500 calories. So if you subtract 500 calories from your diet every day, you should lose one pound a week. Exercise will speed up the process, of course, and you can figure out how many calories you've burned using this handy calculator.
Everyone has different calorie needs based on their weight and activity level. It's generally accepted by health experts, however, that no one should eat less than 1,200 calories a day. Though it's motivating to lose weight quickly, it can be harmful to your health. You'll lose muscle mass along with fat, and when you put the weight back on (and you will put it back on if you crash-diet), you'll put on fat, leaving you worse off than you were before.
Counting calories is only one part of a successful weight loss effort, but it can be an educational experience that can help you shape your healthy eating habits for the long haul. If you decide to count calories, be sure to check out our How Many Calories? feature here at That's Fit. In addition, there are several sites on the web that you can use to look up the calorie content of certain foods, like Calorie-Count, The Calorie Counter, and My-Calorie-Counter, among others.
Do you count calories? What kinds of tips and tricks can you share with our readers to make this healthy habit stick?
Got a Walking the Walk idea you'd like to see Bethany try for seven days? Share it with us in comments!
Once you know your BMR, then you can figure out what your daily caloric need is. Once you know how many calories you need to eat to maintain your weight, you can choose to eat fewer calories or burn more calories through exercise to lose weight.
To lose a pound, you need to burn 3500 calories. So if you subtract 500 calories from your diet every day, you should lose one pound a week. Exercise will speed up the process, of course, and you can figure out how many calories you've burned using this handy calculator.
Everyone has different calorie needs based on their weight and activity level. It's generally accepted by health experts, however, that no one should eat less than 1,200 calories a day. Though it's motivating to lose weight quickly, it can be harmful to your health. You'll lose muscle mass along with fat, and when you put the weight back on (and you will put it back on if you crash-diet), you'll put on fat, leaving you worse off than you were before.
Counting calories is only one part of a successful weight loss effort, but it can be an educational experience that can help you shape your healthy eating habits for the long haul. If you decide to count calories, be sure to check out our How Many Calories? feature here at That's Fit. In addition, there are several sites on the web that you can use to look up the calorie content of certain foods, like Calorie-Count, The Calorie Counter, and My-Calorie-Counter, among others.
Do you count calories? What kinds of tips and tricks can you share with our readers to make this healthy habit stick?
Got a Walking the Walk idea you'd like to see Bethany try for seven days? Share it with us in comments!
