Gaining weight, for most of us, is quite easy. There are a few people who face difficulty gaining weight. However, you probably know a lot of people who seem to struggle with losing weight. I am not spared from this dilemma! It’s typically easier to indulge and consume more than you intend than to stop yourself from binging!
Now, everything you need to know about weight loss can be found on the internet. It’s far easier to find ways on how to do pretty much everything since the advent of the internet. However, since this is a very popular topic online, search results are probably diluted by senseless posts that don’t hit the point directly.
Now, enough with beating around the bush, and let’s get to know more about losing weight.
Everything you Need to Know about Weight Loss
Losing weight, without any pre-existing medical condition, is a task that requires discipline and stick-to-itiveness. So before anything else, given that you are perfectly healthy, the basic of losing weight is counting calories, BMR, and activity.
Basal Metabolic Rate
Basal metabolic rate is the number of calories you expend daily to maintain essential bodily function assuming that you are stationary. It’s as simple as that. There’s no fancy way to say it.
Some people already know about calorie counting. However, without knowing your BMR, you won’t have a clear guideline on how many calories you should consume daily. To compute for your BMR, you just need to know your height and your weight to get an approximate daily calorie requirement to meet your BMR.
There are two popular formulas that you can choose from. Here they are:
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Harris-Benedict Formula |
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MEN |
BMR = 66.47 + ( 6.24 × weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 × height in inches ) − ( 6.755 × age in years ) |
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WOMEN |
BMR = 655.1 + ( 4.35 × weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 × height in inches ) − ( 4.7 × age in years ) |
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Mifflin-St Jeor Formula |
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MEN |
BMR = (4.536 × weight in pounds) + (15.88 × height in inches) − (5 × age) + 5 |
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WOMEN |
BMR = (4.536 × weight in pounds) + (15.88 × height in inches) − (5 × age) − 161; |
These formulas will give you the approximate calorie you burn daily. These are not absolute and will only be more or less applicable for people without medical conditions that may affect the rate of calorie burn.
Calorie Counting
Now, if you read food labels, you can check out how many calories per serving you are consuming. To help you count calories, you can use the internet to search how many calories a particular food contains. The internet had already simplified this for you.
To determine the number of calories in a food serving, you can make use of calorie counters that are available online.
Supplements like goli gummies may be added to your daily regimen.
Activity
Aside from your calorie intake, your activity also affects losing or gaining weight. To put it simply, active people burn more calories than people leading a sedentary lifestyle.
For easy reference, a field officer who is always on foot burns more calories than someone who works in front of a computer every day.
It’s not just your daily activities that affect how many calories you burn or whether you will gain or lose weight. If you want to lose 10lbs in 2 weeks exercise is another crucial factor that influences your weight.
On average, a 150lb person jogging for 30 minutes can around burn 200-300 calories (depending on the intensity).
To know more about physical activity guidelines, watch this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bLgEKIYmBOg
Losing Weight
Combining these three essential factors, you can draw a clear-cut plan on how you would manage your weight. Let’s take an example from the data we have here. So, let’s say we have a 30-year-old, 150lb, 5ft8in male. Using the formula above, here’s our BMR.
| Harris-Benedict Formula | 1663.42 |
| Mifflin-St Jeor Formula | 1615.24 |
So, you would need close to around 1600 calories to keep your bodily function. Let’s say, on average, without any other activity or exercise, you burn close to 500 calories daily. Your daily caloric need is around 2000 calories. To maintain your weight, you just need a little more or less than 2000 calories.
In essence, if you burn 2000 calories and eat, let’s say 1600 calories, you will lose weight. But many of us do love to eat, and we tend to consume more than 2000 calories daily. Can you see where we are headed? Yep! If you want to eat 2000-2500 calories and want to lose weight, you need to burn more calories by increasing your activity. Meaning, you need to engage in some form of exercise!
The bottom line, you need to know how many calories you burn daily by computing your BMR and factoring in your average daily burn based on your activities. And to lose weight, you need to either add more activity, in the form of exercise, or eat less. Like we mentioned above, this is harder for some people, more commonly for those that are considered obese. If this is your situation it may be worth visiting your doctor to discuss gastric sleeve cost and your eligibility for the weight loss surgery.
About Author: Laura Edward a graduate of San Diego State University, and currently a content contributor at FarmTrace and HealthitWrap. In her spare time, she read books and writes new blog posts. Follow her on Twitter.
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