Many studies have shown that significantly depriving your body of calories may actually work against you, and that a far better solution is a small reduction that burns fat more gradually.
Using a round number of calories to cut out (like 500 calories or 1,000 calories) is not the most accurate way to determine how to reduce your calorie intake.
This is because the amount of calories consumed daily by each individual can vary greatly, making the reduction either too high or too low depending on your normal calorie consumption.
For example, cutting 500 calories from a 2000 calorie diet represents a much larger decrease than cutting those same 500 calories from a 3500 calorie plan.
Instead, you should aim to use a percentage decrease in calories to lose weight fast.
The most effective and widely accepted percentage is 15-20% below your maintenance level.
Your maintenance level is the number of calories you require each day to maintain your current weight.
There are two formulas you can use to determine your own individual number of daily calories to lose weight fast…
The “Harris Benedict Formula” requires you to first determine your basic metabolic rate (BMR), which is the number of calories your body requires daily for natural processes such as breathing, circulation and digestion.
You then use an activity multiplier to take into account your additional daily activities to determine how many calories you need daily to maintain your current weight.
You can then decrease this number by 15-20% to find out your daily intake of calories to lose weight fast.
Calculate the BMR by using the following formula:
Men: 66 + (13.7 * bodyweight in kg) + (5 * height in cm) – (6.8 * age in years) = BMR
Women: 655 + (9.6 * bodyweight in kg) + (1.8 * height in cm) – (4.7 * age in years) = BMR
Multiply that number by the activity multiplier:
Sedentary = BMR * 1.2 (if you get little to no exercise)
Lightly Active = BMR * 1.375 (if you get light exercise: 1-3 days a week)
Moderately Active = BMR * 1.55 (if you get moderate exercise: 3-5 days a week)
Very active = BMR * 1.725 (if you get intense exercise: 6-7 days a week)
Extremely Active = BMR * 1.9 (if you get intense daily exercise and you also have a strenuous physical job).
Reducing that number by 15-20% will provide you with the target number of calories to lose weight fast.
The other formula you can use to determine your target calorie reduction is the “Katch-McArdle Formula”.
This formula is an even more accurate way to determine your target number of calories to lose weight fast because it factors in your lean body mass, leading to a more accurate metabolic reading.
To use the Katch-McArdle formula, calculate your BMR using the following:
BMR = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)
Your lean body mass simply represents any type of body weight that is NOT fat.
You can determine this number if you have had your body fat levels tested.
The more extreme your body type (leaner or fatter) the more critical it is to factor in your lean body mass to determine your target number of calories to lose weight fast.
Once you’ve factored in your lean body mass, you simply use the activity multiplier and then reduce by the 15-20% required.
Reducing your calories by more than this level can end up slowing down your results by triggering your body’s natural starvation mechanisms.
If your calories dip too low, your body will stop burning fat as a way to conserve energy.
Reducing calories to lose weight fast by using a percentage of your typical caloric intake will ensure that your metabolism stays steady, your body burns fat, and your lean muscle mass doesn’t decrease.
Filed under Meal Plans & Nutrition by on Jan 13th, 2010. Comment. 
Depending on what you eat and how much you exercise, weight control diets can be both good and bad. Most weight control diets require that you restrict your calorie intake to about a thousand or less calories per day.
Restricting your calories to such an extent makes your body feel like it’s in a famine, and so it goes into starvation mode. As a result, your body starts preparing for the next “famine” by holding on to every calorie it can.
Thus, when you go back to eating regular food or when you cheat on your diet you start gaining a lot of weight.
This is why most weight control diets aren’t effective. You end up gaining all the weight that was lost, and often you gain more weight than you lose.
It’s a good idea to create a deficit of a few calories instead of cutting back on a thousand or less calories per day, especially since your body doesn’t like to starve.
First you need to calculate the number of calories that your body needs everyday to maintain its current weight. Your daily caloric requirement can be calculated using any of the following two formulae: The Harris-Benedict Formula and The Katch-McArdle Formula.
(If you want a little more info, just do a simple Google search.)
Once you know your daily caloric requirement, in order to find your calorie intake for weight loss, simply reduce 15% to 20% from it.
Reducing your calorie intake by such a small amount will not make you prone to putting back on any weight that you lose, because it won’t trigger a starvation response.
Weight control diets such as the “cabbage soup diets” and “celery and cream cheese diets” are examples of diets that are designed for crash dieting.
These often require that you eat only one or two kinds of foods.
Excluding all other types of foods, you can eat as much of the prescribed foods as you want.
You really don’t need a doctorate in biology to figure out how wrong this is.
While you do lose some weight in the beginning, such weight control diets deny your body the necessary nutrition.
To make matters worse, you tend to easily gain the weight back on, and then some, because such diets trigger the starvation response.
The best weight control diets will require you to follow a healthy diet and exercise regularly.
Good weight control diets result from this perfect mix.
Your body starts to burn calories more effectively and quickly when you exercise, because exercise increases your metabolic rate.
Moreover, the protein required to build lean muscle is also provided by such diets.
You start to burn calories faster than you would otherwise as the increase in muscle mass raises your metabolic rate.
Since the minimal calorie reduction does not reduce the increased metabolic rate, you are able to burn calories such that you can lose weight in a healthy manner.
The market is filled with hundreds of books on weight control diets that make you eat unusual combinations of foods or impose strict limits on the amount of calories you consume.
You cannot expect these diets to work.
Follow the link below for more information on weight control diets that can help you burn fat in a healthy manner….
The myths and truths behind weight control diets.
Filed under Fat Burning by on Oct 17th, 2009. Comment.
