Losing Weight - It's More Than Just Counting Calories

Losing Weight - It's More Than Just Counting Calories

Many people have heard the phrase “calories in, calories out”. They believe that eating fewer calories than they burn off is the key to weight loss success, but it’s more complicated than that. Here’s some basic information about calories, and some important things you need to know if you want to lose weight. 

First of all, you need to calculate how many calories your body needs by using the BMR formula. BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate, which is the amount of calories you need to maintain your body’s basic functioning (not including activity). The BMR uses height, weight, age and gender to come up with the total (it’s more accurate than weight alone, but still doesn’t include individual differences, such as how much muscle you have).

The BMR is calculated like this:   

Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

Once you calculate your BMR, then you add the calories your body needs to carry out your daily activities. If you do anything more than lay in bed all day, you will need to add these to the total, and the way to figure out approximately how many calories this is, is by using the Harris Benedict formula.

To do this, take your BMR total and multiply it by your activity level score: 1.2 if you’re “sedentary”, 1.375 for “lightly active”, 1.55 for “moderately active” (sports 3-5 days/week), 1.725 for “very active” (more active sports 6-7 days/week), and 1.9 for “extra active” (for those who do very intense daily exercise). Once you multiply your BMR by this number, you have figured out your approximate total calorie needs for the day (there is another formula to calculate your calorie needs, but this is the one most generally accepted).

The next step is to decide how much weight you want to lose. Since there are about 3,500 calories in one pound of body fat, if you burn 3,500 more calories more than you take in (whether through diet, or exercise, or both), you will end up losing one pound of body weight.  If you are careful to follow weight loss principles, the weight you lose will be from fat. A good rule of thumb is that the maximum recommended amount of weight you should lose per week is 1-2 pounds.

Another important thing to remember is that if you reduce your calories, limit this reduction to no more than 1,000 below your calorie needs, and to be sure, talk to your doctor or a dietitian. The ACSM (American College of Sports Medicine) recommends that you get at least 1,200 calories per day (women) or 1,800 calories per day (men), and if you severely restrict your calories, you put your body into “fasting” mode, which is counter-productive for losing weight (and definitely if you want to keep it off). Also, children, elderly, and pregnant or nursing mothers need to use different guidelines.

Now here’s the best part. Losing weight isn’t just about calories! It’s important to eat the right kinds of foods, and at the right time. The phrase I encourage my clients to remember is “eat to manage blood sugar” (even if you’re not diabetic). In other words, learn to eat so you keep your blood sugar balanced and eat the right kinds of foods: this can have a great effect on weight loss AND health. It’s also very important to exercise, because the muscle you build will help burn fat, without any of your extra effort! When you are just starting out, don’t be discouraged if you’re exercising and not losing weight right away: when you exercise, you build muscle which is denser than fat so you won’t see positive results on the scale. It’s much better to use other measurements such as body fat percentage, inches, or simply noticing how you fit into your clothes.  

There’s much more to weight loss than eating fewer (or burning more) calories, or even the quality of your nutrition (which is very complicated enough), but hormones, genetics, and various health conditions can also play a role. So be sure to talk to your doctor, and consider getting support from a qualified dietitian or nutritionist for information about eating healthy while you’re losing weight. Want to know more? Schedule an appointment and attend our 8 week class to get support, and information to get started.