HOW MANY CALORIES DO I NEED?

If you haven’t seen the challenge, check it out here: If You Bite It, Write It!

Join in, it starts today! This is an opportunity to find out the truth about how many calories you eat each day and the nutritional content of that food.

I am using LoseIt.com, but you can use any website, any phone app, or pen and paper. You can search online for the calorie count of any food or purchase a paperback book at the bookstore that lists thousands of foods including restaurants.

It takes about 15 calories per pound to maintain your weight. So if you weigh 200 lbs and eat 3000 calories a day you will do a great job of maintaining your weight, but you won’t lose weight.

If your goal is to lose weight, cut your caloric intake to between 7-10 calories per lb. So if you weigh 200 lbs, eat between 1400-2000 calories per day. Obviously, if you eat 1400-1500 calories per day you will lose weight much faster than if you eat 2000 calories per day.

Keep in mind that you need to recalculate your caloric intake as you lose weight. I recommend recalculating every 10 lbs. So when you hit 190 lbs you would need to eat 2850 calories (15 per lb) to maintain, and 1330 – 1900 (7-10 per lb) to lose. It is not wise to ever go below 1200 calories per day. As you get closer to your weight goal you may notice that the weight comes off slower because you don’t have the large caloric deficit that you had when you were heavier.

Are you joining the challenge? What mode of tracking are you going to use? Is your goal to learn how much and what you are eating or is it to lose weight?