Calorie Intake: Eat to loose weight!

So, you may ask, how many calories should I be eating. You don't to be eating too little, and you don't want to eat too much. Here is a basic rule that I discovered while dieting. This method is what is used by the Weight Watchers program (confirmed by at least two people on Weight Watchers that I know). So you're getting the info, without having to pay to loose weight and stand in front of a bunch of people to weigh in.


Guidelines

Take your weight and multiply by 100. That is how many calories you should be consuming if you are trying to maintain weight with no exercise in the least bit. If you want to loose weight you subtract 200 to 400 calories from that amount.

So say I weigh 150 lbs. To maintain weight without exercising, I should eat around 1500 calories. To loose weight I should be eating between 1100 and 1300 calories. This is of course a guideline, not a in fact rule. I am not saying to starve yourself, if you are hungry even though you've consumed 1300 calories, then eat, but choose foods that are better options (you can ask my classmates, I always enjoy a nice bowl of mutligrain cheerios when I get home from a night class).

DO NOT STARVE YOURSELF. This is no way to diet, if you are actually consuming less than 1000 calories a day, your body goes into starvation mode, and it retains whatever you put into it (which is the exact opposite of what you want!) So basically, you have to eat to loose weight.

Of course, if you are exercising, you should eat more to replenish and fuel your muscles. This of course all depends the long and the intensity of your workout. (this is up to your discretion)

You should break up your calories into 4 or 5 different meals a day (this helps boost your metabolism). So say you are eating 1200 calories a day, you should break your meals like this:

Breakfast-300 calories
Lunch-300 calories
Mid snack- 150 calories
Dinner-300 calories
Snack-150

These again are of course guidelines, you can break your meal calories up as much as you want to. You can eat a bigger breakfast and have a lighter lunch, it all depends on how you feel that day.

I suggest keeping a food diary. Writing down what you eat keeps you accountable for the foods you are consuming, and I personally don't want to write down that I ate Twinkies in my diet food diary. This diary makes counting calories very easy, once you get the hang of how many calories are in items, then it all becomes second nature of how much you are consuming and reading the nutritional information becomes easy when dealing with serving sizes. Until that happens, writing it down is the easiest way to get a hang of calorie consumption. I actually keep mine on sticky notes which hang in front of my closet.

I'm starting with nutrition because anyone can exercise, but not everyone knows how to eat properly, exercising is mostly second nature, but your nutrition (quantity and quality) is learning a whole new way of life.