The right calorie balance

If you've read any of my other hubs on weight loss, you've discovered my secret to permanent weight loss. If you haven't read how I lost more than 50 pounds in about seven months, then I'll summarize it here.

The concept is brilliant in its simplicity. To lose weight and keep it off, simply consume fewer calories than you expend daily. Over time, you will weigh less.

Obviously from a purely mathematical standpoint this is absolutely true. In practice though there are some other critical elements. The food intake should be generally healthful in nature. You can't exactly live on snack cakes and cola alone, no matter how few you limit yourself to. Proper hydration is essential to metabolizing body fat, proper digestion and countless other functions.

Of course, the key to the whole program is just like your personal finances. You have to understand the budget in order to manage it. When it comes to saving money and paying bills you have to know what's coming in to the house and what's going out every month. I'm guessing for most of us our finance goals are different than weight loss. I intend to spend less than I earn every month so I can accumulate some savings. When it comes to food, I want to use more than I take in. Either way, the concept is sound. You can add up your bills and compare that to the amount in your paycheck and see where you are.

How do you come up with the numbers for your daily caloric budget? When you are tracking your finances it's important to know what your burn rate is. How much money is going out every month? Those are your financial bills. So what's the calorie bill for your body every day?

I've come across a formula for a baseline calorie requirement that seems to work. I used it as the starting point when I began losing weight in September of 2007. There is a different formula for men and women. There are also factors outside of the caloric balance that might complicate the pure weight tracking from day to day or even week to week. But using the long term approach the formula helped me with my health and fitness goals.

For women, multiply your current weight in pounds by 10, and that will tell you how many calories you need each day. That number represents your caloric baseline. It doesn't take any metabolic functions into account.

Now, that figure also assumes no exercise. To determine caloric needs for a body in motion, take the total calories from the first step and multiply it by 0.2, 0.3 or 0.4 depending on how hard you are going to exercise; 0.2 for light, 0.3 for medium 0.4 for hard.

Add the numbers from the first and second step, then multiply them by 0.1 to account for digestion and normal body functions. Add those three and that's what it would take just to stay where you are. If you reduce that number by 500, you'll lose a pound a week. A caloric reduction of 1000 calories a day could lead to a weight loss of two pounds. You'll lose a pound for every reduction of 500 calories. You shouldn't try to lose more than three pounds a week.

The only difference for men is in the first step. Instead of multiplying by 10, we use 11. So, by way of illustration, here are my numbers. I weigh 191. I start by multiplying by 11, which comes to 2101 calories.

I exercise vigorously, so I'm going to multiply that by 0.4 to account for my physical activity. That's 840.4 calories. Adding those two figures gives me 2941.4. Now, I multiply that number by 0.1 to account for what my body burns just staying alive. That total is 294.14. I add that to the previous total. That brings me to 3235.54. Rounding the total up to the nearest whole number, I can have 3236 calories to maintain my weight.

To lose one pound each week, I must have a total deficit of 3500 calories. If I reduce my intake by 500 calories each day, in a week I would achieve that deficit. So a week from now, to be less than 191, I need to eat no more than 2736 calories a day for the next seven days. If I reduce my intake by 1000 calories a day, I'll lose two pounds.

Week to week, it may not be exact science. Some days your workout won't be as vigorous. Some days you may end up eating something you believe to have a lower caloric value than it really does. That's ok. As I wrote in the opening lines of this edition of the newsletter, strive to follow this and over time, you will weigh less.