How Many Calories Should I Eat to Lose Weight

If you are asking the question: "how many calories should I eat to lose weight?" the answer is unfortunately not that easy. The amount of calories you have to eat if you want to lose weight depends on your current weight as well as your activity level. Working that out is not that difficult though, so, read on and find out how you should do it.

The first thing you need to understand is that you have to eat about 500 calories a day less than your body needs to maintain it's weight. This will give you about a one pound loss a week which is well within the healthy zone. Never try and lose too many pounds a week as it will only slow down your metabolism and you will find getting rid of fat more and more difficult.

This is where you have to be warned against fad diets. Fad diets promise to give you fast weight loss in a very short time. Well, this of course depends on your definition of "weight loss." The weight loss you get with fad diets are mainly water and muscle.

So, even though you may lose "weight" with fad diets, you are not losing fat. And the purpose of weight loss has to be fat loss. The water you lose you will regain as soon as you rehydrate and you do not want to lose valuable muscle!

Remember, the more muscle you have, the faster your metabolism is as muscle use more energy than fat, even when you are sleeping! So if you want to lose weight, you want muscle.

Now, if you want to know "how many calories should I eat to lose weight?" you will have to do a little math, don't worry it is easy!

1. First of all determine your activity level:

* Sedentary - almost not exercise, only the normal walking etc. in an ordinary life
* Moderately active - exercising for 30 minutes about 3-4 times a week
* Very active - Strenuous exercise at least 6 days a week

2. Now for the math:

For sedentary you need 13 x your weight calories to maintain your weight. So, from this you subtract the 500 calories and you know how many calories you need to eat each day.

For moderately active you take 16 x your weight and for very active you take 19 times your weight.

3. Moderate exercise:

A very good moderate exercise is walking. Keep in mind though; a leisurely stroll is not good exercise. Walk at a brisk pace for at least 30 minutes if you want to see results. Only then can you consider yourself moderately active.

You will be surprised at how many opportunities you will find in your everyday life to get a little extra exercise. Walk whenever you can instead of taking the car, bus or train. Climb the stairs whenever possible and do it vigorously.

OK, so now you know how you can increase your activity levels so you can eat a little more or so you can speed up the weight loss process.

Hopefully this simple explanation has answered your question of: "How many calories should I eat to lose weight?"