Find out how much you should be eating and how to cut the calories.
When we eat and drink more calories than we use up, our bodies store the excess as body fat. Being overweight or obese can increase the risk of type 2 diabetes , heart disease , stroke and some cancers. Combining these changes with increased physical activity is the best way to achieve a healthier weight.
How Many Calories You Should Eat to Lose Weight | fawzyzakhary.com
To maintain a stable weight, the energy we put into our bodies must be the same as the energy we use up through normal body functions and physical activity. An important part of a healthy diet is eating the right amount of calories, balancing the energy you put into your body with the energy you use. If you need to lose weight, aim to lose about 0. You should be able to lose this amount if you eat and drink about to kcal fewer a day than you need.
You can find out whether you're a healthy weight by using the BMI calculator. If you're overweight, the healthy weight calculator will give you a personalised suggested calorie range. If you're very physically active because of your job or you do a lot of exercise, you may need more calories to maintain a healthy weight. If you do very little physical activity for example, you're housebound or you're overweight or obese, you may need fewer calories.
A healthy diet isn't just about eating the right amount. It also means eating a wide range of foods to ensure you get all the nutrients you need. You can still eat less when following a balanced diet. Learn more about a balanced diet in the Eatwell Guide. It's estimated the average adult has to more calories than they need every day. This might not sound much, but over time it will cause significant weight gain. Foods and drinks that are high in fat or sugar can contain lots of calories, and eating or drinking these often or in large amounts can make it easy to have more calories than you need.
You can reduce the number of calories you eat by making healthier choices when it comes to food and drink. Recommended daily calorie intake varies from person to person, but there are guidelines for calorie requirements you can use as a starting point. Public Health England PHE recommend a daily calorie intake of calories per day for women and for men.
How much should you eat?
As with all averages, the numbers conceal wide differences in the daily calories required for individuals. Most people are probably aware that a builder needs more calories than an office worker, but differences in calorie requirements go well beyond physical activity levels. The main ones being:.
You can look up the basic calorie intake to maintain your current weight in the charts below.
How Many Calories Should You Eat to Lose Weight?
Need to Lose Weight? Enter your details to calculate your ideal weight range, and discover how soon you could reach it! The tables show daily calorie needs for men and women of different weights, at different levels of normal daily activity and show the daily intake needed to maintain weight at its current level.
If you want to lose weight you will need to create a calorie deficit by consuming less than this amount. The daily calorie allowances in the tables are given for your general level of activity, additional calories should be added to this for specific exercise sessions like going for a run, swim, cycle or brisk walk. These additional calories are a great incentive to get some exercise whether you want to lose or maintain weight. Use this level if you spend most of your day working at a desk and most of your evening on the sofa. Get a delicious meal plan each week based on your weight loss goal and the foods you like to eat.
We marked her goal as "lose 1 pound per week. Next, we entered the same information, but we said the woman's current weight was pounds and her goal was to "maintain current weight. That's a huge difference. Never force yourself to track calories if it stresses you out. Sass says it could end up being counterproductive and drive you to overeat out of frustration or totally give up on your goal.
When it becomes all-consuming, it can even trigger a surge in levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which has been shown to increase belly fat, she adds.
How Many Calories Do I Need To Lose Weight?
Luckily, if tracking your food intake isn't your thing, there are plenty of other ways to reduce your calorie intake, such as focusing on portion size instead of calories. For example, increasing your portions of non-starchy veggies, like spinach, broccoli, and mushrooms while decreasing your portions of starchy, simple carb foods think white bread or pasta , will automatically reduce your calorie intake, Sass says.
Some people might also want to try using a tracker just at the beginning to get a feel for what it would be like to eat a healthy number of calories for their goal weight.