How many calories should you eat for WEIGHT LOSS?

The only true way to lose weight is by eating less than you burn. That’s all fine and dandy, but how do we even know how many calories we should actually eat?

The world of nutrition is so confusing, largely in part due to big companies bamboozling customers in order to sell their products.

There are 3 main methods for working out your calories. All of them work – choose as you wish or better yet, experiment.

1 – The easiest method to getting started

Take your bodyweight in lbs and multiply it by 11.

So if you weigh 150lbs, multiplied by 11 you’d have 1,650 calories.

The slight flaw with this method is that it doesn’t entirely take in to account variables including age, gender, weight, activity levels. However, it’s a fantastic start point and gets you started right away.

2 – A method that is calculated for you

If you click here, you can use an online calorie calculator. This will take in to account age, gender and activity levels. It is potentially more accurate than option 1.

3 – Manually tracking and adjusting

This final option is probably the slowest but is still massively effective. It requires you to track your calories, starting today.

If you aren’t making any progress, you reduce your calories by 50-100 per day. Try this for a week and go again. Still no progress? Reduce again. You’ll keep going until you start to see progress.

An important point on the above

The bottom line is that no formula on this earth can work out your calories to the dot. It requires trial and error. Some weeks you will move more and other weeks move less. If you aren’t seeing progress you’re still eating too much or not moving enough.

No progress* means you need to adjust the calorie balance. Think about reducing calories by 50-100 per day or doing extra steps.

A final word is to ensure you are tracking accurately. Many people under-track calories by wrongly estimating weights and portion sizes. Calorie tracking is worth the time you invest in it – it just takes time!

*A quick word on progress.

Don’t measure your progress by the weight on the scales. Instead, measure it through photos, measurements and how clothes fit you. Click here for reasons why you shouldn’t use your scales.