The Key To Your Weight Loss

Weight loss begins with mathematics and figuring out your own body.



Example: In figuring out how I wanted to lose weight, I started counting calories. I used a software program that helped me figure out how many calories were in every little bit of food I took in. (I'll share this software program with you in another chapter.)

I discovered that at a 2,000 calorie diet, which is recommended for weight loss by many programs, that I didn't lose weight at all. I did it for four weeks, a full month. I didn't lose a pound.

This is because the science that worked for 'normal' people didn't work for me.

So I lowered the number of calories I took in. I lowered them to 1,500. Still nothing. Lowered down to 1,200. Still nothing. I finally lowered my calorie count to between 800 to 1,000 calories maximum per day. It was only then that I started showing any sign of weight loss. When I maintained my lower calorie count, I maintained losing weight.

I kept losing weight for weeks. After a few months, I was down from 220 to 180.

This was all thanks to figuring out my own body and understanding how calories worked.

Was I ever hungry? Sure. I had to figure out how many calories were in food, and some days I got to 800 calories and was still hungry.

I had to figure out how to eat so that I wasn't hungry and still keep my calorie count down.

So I started experimenting. I studied the labels on the back of boxes. I didn't pay attention to many other numbers in the beginning. I stuck with the calories. One number was enough to concentrate on.

I discovered which foods had higher calories. Some of the foods I had been eating would have put me at 1,000 in a single meal.

You can figure this out for your own body as well. It starts by figuring out how many calories you actually take in a day, and figuring out your own 'calorie count' that will help you to lose weight.

It starts by writing down what you eat.

Counting Calories - The Basics

This might be old news to a lot of people, but this is how you lose weight.

When you eat more calories than you burn in a day, your body stores those calories in some form, usually padding your body with fat.

When you eat fewer calories than you need to burn for the day, your body works on the 'reserves'.

Simple, right? So the answer looks very simple when you narrow it down to this.

Your body burns a certain amount of calories per day.

You eat a certain amount of calories per day.

When you can figure out the math, you can control your weight loss.

That's the secret. Nutrisystem, Jenny Craig and all the other programs work on the basis of controlling how many calories you take in during the day. They might have prepared meals, meal plans, recipes and suggestions. In some cases, you can take these programs, lose weight, and not even have to count a calorie or think about what you are doing. You just eat the food and go.

However, you could also follow the programs to a T and not lose weight, or lose weight really slowly.

You could also jump off the diet and gain all that weight back, and then some.

There's a reason for this: simple mathematics and genetics.

The genetics: Your body isn't the same as other people's. Your body might burn more or less calories during the day than other people.

The math: When you don't know how many calories you can take in a day to either lose weight or maintain it, how can you be expected to lose weight, or move forward after you have finished losing the weight?

Check back tomorrow for help on figuring out this formula.