Counting Calories

Most people do not realize the amount of calories they need to consume daily, most think that it is 2,000 calories which is a wrong assumption. The calorie intake has to come from a calculation that must include your height, age and weight in order to know the amount of food you should be ingesting. The problem after finding out the amount of calories you should be consuming is knowing how to proportionally distribute those calories throughout the different groups of the food chain. We all have also different metabolisms so a diet that works for someone might not work for you and so on. It is usually mistaken the fact that by stopping food consumption you can lose weight, which is a false statement. When you stop eating your body enters into a saving up mode and by this I mean that it starts slowing down the metabolism in order to be able to survive. You DO lose weight since you still burn up calories but you also start to eat up all your muscles and since your metabolism is starting to slow down, once you start eating normally again you are going to gain weight very fast.

We all want really fast solutions but in fact just reducing the amount of intake we consume may actually lead to a weight loss. Counting calories and just looking closely at what you are eating and in what group of the food chain it is is a really great way to actually keep up how much you are taking in daily depending on how much is your height, how much you weigh and your age.

You must be asking yourself can I calculate my ideal caloric intake?

well I have a formula for you:

Women: 
655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)


Men:
66+ (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)


It is important to note that this formula only applies to adults.

Also having several meals a day is better than having just 2 to 3 meals a day since it keeps your metabolism up to speed since it is constantly burning something. Of course these should be 5 small meals during the day which should consist of:
-breakfast
-snack
-lunch
-snack
-dinner

Then trying to divide the different food groups throughout the day is essential.
Look in the next page called Tips for a great metabolism in order to know what is the composition that could help you the most.