As you already know, in order to lose weight we need to create difference between number of consumed and burned calories. Proven way to do this is to setup right diet for weekly calorie deficit. Required number of calories for such diet can be calculated on daily or weekly basis.
Here are the basic principles which you should take into account when you will create your diet with weekly calorie deficit:
1. Make a decision for yourself
You do not have to wonder – if I want to lose weight or not. You must be completely sure in your decision for 100%. This is the starting point of your journey, the ultimate goal of which is to lose weight.
At this stage, you conclude an agreement between your body and your mind. This is a very important step since your brain, and therefore your thoughts, control your body and all the processes that occur in it.
2. Be patient, get rid of excess fat gradually
The body is a unique bio computer with a very complex mechanism of functioning. After you made a mental decision to remove excess weight, you thereby created a new subprogram for your mind.
Do not rush the process of reducing weight, let the body do its work gradually and without extreme loads. Because your bio computer(your mind) needs to adjust every cell of the body in accordance with the new task.
There is one basic rule on this step which is telling us next – to lose weigh effectively you must lose it no more than 2 lbs per week.
But this rule is not strict because weight reduction depends on many different factors, such as metabolism, body health, physical activity and individual characteristics of the organism.
3. Calculate your weekly calories limit
Let’s calculate our goal weekly calories needs
1) First of all, we must calculate how many calories our body will burn without any movement (BMR). To do it we will use Harris-Benedict(1984) formula.
Men:
BMR (kcal) = 66 + ( 6.23 x Weight in lbs ) + ( 12.7 x Height in inches ) – ( 6.8 x Age in years )
Women:
BMR (kcal) = 655 + ( 4.35 x Weight in lbs) + ( 4.7 x Height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x Age in years )
For more accurate calorie calculations you can use Mifflin – St Jeor formula
Men:
BMR (kcal) = ( 9.99 x Weight in kg) + ( 6.25 x Height in cm) – ( 4.92 x Age in years ) + 5
Women:
BMR (kcal) = ( 9.99 x Weight in kg) + ( 6.25 x Height in cm) – ( 4.92 x Age in years ) – 161
2) Next we need to calculate number of calories your body burns daily taking into account activity factor. We will use TDEE( Total Daily Energy Expenditure ) formula for this purpose.
TDEE = BMR x Activity Factor
|
Amount of Exercise/Activity |
Description |
Activity Factor |
| Sedentary | Little or no exercises | 1.2 |
| Lightly active | Light exercise/ sports 1 – 3 days/ week | 1.375 |
| Moderately active | Moderate Exercise, sports 3 – 5 days/ week | 1.55 |
| Very active | Heavy Exercise/ sports 6 – 7 days/ week | 1.725 |
| Extremely active | Very heavy exercise/ physical job/ training 2 x/ day | 1.9 |
In addition you can use – daily calorie intake calculator, which will help you to calculate BMR and TDEE
3) Now let’s calculate our weekly calories needs to maintain our current state.
Total Weekly Calories = 7 * TDEE
4) Let’s get number of calories taking into account weekly calorie deficit.
One pound of fat contains around 3500 calories. That means if you will create 500 calorie daily(3500 weekly) deficit, than you should lose around 1lb of fat per week.
So our final formula will look like:
Goal Weekly Calories = Total Weekly Calories – 3500 * Desired Weekly Weight Lose (lbs)
4. Keep the balance between diet and exercises
First of all, you must exclude unhealthy food like: fast food, cookies, soda, etc. and replace it with fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains.
To get the maximum effect from your diet plan, you need not only to eat right but also to add to your lifestyle more physical exercises to increase your level of activity. Physical exercises are an ideal mechanism to control your metabolic rate and therefore your weight lose.
Optimal way is going to the gym 3-4 times a week.
Choose the suitable level of intensity and do not overload yourself, if you are new at the gym you always can ask for professional advice from trainer.
Physical exercises combined with a right healthy diet will allow you to achieve excellent result.