Learning how many calories to lose weight it’s going to take you to reach your body weight goal is the first step to success. In order to successfully lose weight, you are going to have to take in fewer calories than what you burn off over the course of the day. Those who don’t take the time to track their calories are going to be essentially guessing as to how much they should be eating to see results.
In order to lose body fat, you absolutely must burn off more calories than you consume and the only way you are going to do that is by reducing your calorie intake or increasing your expenditure. If you are tracking your calories, you will be able to know for certain whether you are achieving this mission. This said, how many calories to lose weight do you need? Let’s look at what you must consider when figuring out this number.
Your Activity Level
The first thing that will definitely come into play when assessing how many calories to lose weight you need to consume is your activity level.
The more active you are on a day to day basis, the more calories you are going to be burning off, therefore the more calories you can eat and still see weight loss results.
Those who lead a very active lifestyle, not only with regards to their workouts but also with their day to day activities as well are going to be positioning themselves to lose weight far faster than those who aren’t.
If you aren’t very active and are sedentary most of the day, you are going to have to take your calorie intake extremely low in order to see results.
For most people, this is too low to maintain for a lengthy period of time, therefore they aren’t able to stick with the diet long. Simply put, when it comes to losing weight quickly, the more active you are on a day to day basis with your overall lifestyle, the better your progress will be.
Your Current Body Fat
Second, the next thing that you need to be looking at is your current body fat level. This means how much total body fat you have to lose as you go about the dieting process.
Those who have more body fat to lose can maintain a lower calorie intake without having to worry about their metabolism slowing down or other negative factors such as that. On the flip side, if you already are quite lean and are looking to just lose those last five pounds and take your body one step further, you’ll want to maintain a slightly higher calorie intake.
At this point your body is going to fight you more to continue to lose further body fat, so if you aren’t careful, you could risk more muscle mass loss or a slow metabolism. The leaner you are, the more moderate your calorie intake needs to be. Being at a very low body fat percentage and using a very low calorie intake is basically a recipe for disaster.
Your Desired Rate Of Weight Loss
Moving along, the next thing to consider when thinking about how many calories to lose weight you need is your desired rate of weight loss.
How fast do you want to lose the weight overall? Some people are quite happy using a moderate fat loss diet plan. They don’t need to be losing weight too quickly and would rather eat a little more food and enjoy the process than see rapid success.
These individuals can then keep their calorie intake higher.
On the flip side of the coin, if you are looking to lose weight as fast as possible, then you will need to use a much lower calorie intake. For you, this will cause your body to turn to using more body fat overall, meaning you see a greater return on your efforts.
Those who want slower, more comfortable weight loss should aim for around 250 calories below maintenance, while those who want faster and more aggressive weight loss should aim for around 500-1000 calories below.
Keep these numbers in mind and you will see faster results.
Your Body Type
Finally, the last thing that you need to take into account is your body type. Those who are of the mesomorph body type, meaning they easily put on body fat will need to use a lower overall calorie intake. These people are unfortunately not blessed with fast metabolisms, so they will need to be bringing their calorie intake lower in order to see the results that they are going for.
If you have a mesomorph body type, you can likely maintain a slightly higher calorie intake as you go about the dieting process because your body is more likely to burn up calories faster naturally due to your increased muscle mass loss.
So there you have the primary factors that go into determining how many calories to lose weight. So what is your magic number?
The best and simplest method to approximate your target calorie intake for fat loss is to use a body weight multiplier.
You’ll want to take in somewhere between 10 and 13 calories per pound of body weight to get fat loss moving along.
If you are an endomorph, sedentary, or want a faster rate of fat loss, go with 10 calories per pound for best results.
If you are a mesomorph, very active, at a lower body fat percentage, or want a slower rate of fat loss, use around 13 calories per pound of body weight.
Remember that these are just approximations however and should be adjusted based on the results that you are seeing.
It’s the ongoing adjustment process that will bring you the most optimal results possible and ensure that you never that dreaded weight loss plateau. Keep checking in on how you’re doing and adjust your diet from there to ensure continued fat loss success.
