Hi all..

Today, I would like to share a small and easy idea on how to create a personalised weight loss diet plan..

Many people seem to have no idea on how to start out the first step..

It's easy yet very effective to lose pounds of weight in no time..

The steps are:

1) Understand your daily calorie maintenance level (means the amount of calories you normally burn daily) --> you can get this calculator easily on web..just do a google search to get this calculator..

2) Let say your calculated calorie maintenance level is ~2500 calories. You can simply consume foods with total calories roughly 200 calories less than your daily calorie maintenance level.. In short , you just need to consume calories around 100-200 less than your daily calorie maintenance level no matter how much your daily calorie maintenance level is --> You can get the calorie calculator at my blog of weight loss tips below..

3) Plan you diet one day before and stick to the plan strictly to avoid over consumption of the calories..

I really believe everyone one can surely lose some weight if one can follow the steps ..Heck..I have tried and lost some pounds really quickly.....

Hi Gavin,

Congratulations on your quick weight loss. Looks like an easy-to-follow weight loss plan.

But there are a few things I still wonder, though.

If I'm right, we need a 3500-calorie deficit to lose 1 pound of fat. So if we keep a 100 - 200 calorie deficit per day, it'll take anywhere between 17 - 35 days to lose 1 pound of fat and I think this is considered a bit slow by most people, especially those who have more excess weight.

This plan works very well with people who are somehow already lean. For those who aren't, I'd suggest increasing the calorie deficit to a reasonable extent (400 - 500 per day, for example) either by eating less or adding some exercises or both.

Just my 2 cent.

Thong
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The easiest way to understand your calorie input and output is to get a free account from FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal. You can log both your exercise and food and it shows the calorie balance. Also a breakdown of your nutrition so that you can hone it for better weight loss (by getting the improvements from things like high protein, sufficient calcium etc).

Hi Thong..good day to u...

Yes you are right.. 200 calories deficit is not much..

But we still have to take into account the BMR (Body Metabolic Rate). Every male and female shouldn't take less than 2200 calories daily as it will decrease the body metabolism rate. If your metabolism rate is low, the fat can hardly be burned no matter how hard you exercise. Many people can't lose fat or gain fat after losing is due the the reason that they think eating less = losing fat more.

Although 200 calories deficit is not much.. but you still can increase the fat burning by oxygen exercise like aerobic. Take note that, since your calories intake is >BMR spec, the metabolism rate is higher than you take calories < BMR spec, the fat can be burn pretty fast.

This is what I understand. Thong, please tell me if you think any things should be corrected

Cheers...

Wrong. It all depends on a number of factors - age, weight, gender, level of activity.

I am aged 50, female, 5ft3" maintaining 126 pounds. I happen to be active which is lucky because my standard BMR is 1264.
I would have to be pretty active to maintain at 2200.

One of my friends that I have been chatting to this morning happens to be of a similar age. She is also highly sedentary since she has been in a wheelchair from childhood and her arm muscles are no stronger than those in her legs. Her level of activity is therefore pretty much rock bottom.
I hate to think how much weight she would gain if she ate at 2200.

Nope. You're using a one-size-fits-all model, which doesn't work. Heck, some people don't even HAVE a 2200 calorie BMR - with your recommendation, those people would GAIN weight.

Yes, you can drop your metabolism and stall out your weight loss by dropping your calories too fast, so it's a good idea to not drop your calories any more than necessary to get a good result. I agree with that. But you can't link that to a particular figure, because each person is different.

A reasonable approach to losing weight is figuring what your maintenance level of calories is (and that's NOT the same as your BMR) and then dropping that by 20% or 30%. The larger you are, the more you can safely drop that figure - some extremely obese people *can* drop by 50% - but ideally even if you are extremely obese, you still would only drop by 20% - 30%.

Why is that? I think Alan Aragorn said it best in one of his podcasts (paraphrased here): The idea is to get the best results with the least amount of pain and effort. It's human nature to give up if something is too hard. The more difficult you make the effort, the more restrictive, the more painful ... the less likely that someone is going to stick with it all the way through.

The Harris-Benedict formula is pretty much the standard for figuring out BMR and then figuring out maintenance calories on top of that. But you can get a pretty close estimate by taking an average figure of between 13-15 calories per pound of bodyweight (assuming someone who is moderately active).

For example, I'm 5'4" and 167 lbs. My figures using the H-B calculation give my BMR at 1717 and my maintenance at 2403 calories. Using the multiplier above (15 cals per pound of bodyweight) I get 2505 calories to maintain my current weight. Pretty spot on, I'd say.

So either way, if I take those figures and subtract 30%, I get around 1700 calories a day (1683 using H-B and 1753 using the multiplier). Average that out to 1700 and it's pretty darned close.

But based on what you said above, that I shouldn't go below 2200 - I'd never lose weight.

Then, on top of that, the way to make sure your metabolism stays raised is to include exercise in your weight loss routine - and not just cardio, but the type of exercise that maintains lean muscle. That means lifting weights and/or doing body weight exercises.

Maintaining lean muscle means you're maintaining metabolically active tissue - muscle is far more active than any other body tissue. So you want to make sure that you do everything possible to keep/grow muscle (by eating more protein, by doing the types of exercises that build strength) while losing fat.

Hope that helps.