SET GOALS

Once you have started weighing yourself daily, that process starts collecting information to benchmark your current situation.

Next, we are going to look at adjusting your daily food and drink intake to begin the weight loss process. There are many factors that can influence your weight, but the most obvious factor to look at, first, is how much you are eating and drinking every day. Generally, you need to eat and drink less than you use in order to lose weight.

Every item of food and drink has a calorie value, which is the amount of energy it gives to the body. The body uses this energy to operate, burning calories for all of its daily functions including breathing, blood circulation, digestion, etc. Additional calories are burned in the form of activity or exercise.

Generally, to lose weight on an ongoing basis you need to burn more calories in a day than your body needs. You can do this by either reducing what you eat and drink or by burning additional calories with exercise, or by doing both.

To find out how much your body needs each day in terms of fuel or nutrition, you need to know the number of calories you need to consume per day. Everybody’s number is different, since we all have different activity levels. It is also affected by age, height and gender.
Note: other factors can also affect the body’s operation in terms of calorie requirements, such as genetics, medications, hormones and diseases, which is why you should always consult a healthcare professional before starting a weight loss program.

So - how do you find out the number of calories you need to consume per day? There are two figures that are needed to get that figure correctly in shape! - your BMR and your Daily Calorie Requirement.

1. BMR

You can estimate your daily calorie requirement by first finding out your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR.

Your BMR is the number of calories needed to keep your body functioning when it is at rest. Once this figure is known, we can adjust it to reveal how many calories you should be eating per day to lose weight.

The BMR figure is different for everyone, even female to male figures differ here dramatically and is subject to your activity, age, etc. In a nutshell, is the number of calories required to sustain life and it is used as a form of reference.

Click here to access your BMR Calculator

This calculator uses your age, size, sex, and activity level to estimate the number of calories your body needs each day to function and maintain your weight.

Once this figure is known, we need to determine how many calories you will need to consume per day to follow The Alternate Diet for weight loss.

2. Daily Calorie Requirement

This is where things become interesting. As an easy way to remember it, think of it as being similar to how your bank balance works:

$$ IN - $$ OUT = $$ BALANCE

We all know how that works, because if we don’t we will really be in trouble!

Think of this as if it was an energy equation. The body needs a certain amount of energy to exist and then we have our additional activity on top of that, which requires energy. This energy is put into the body to fuel it in the form of calories, which are generated when the digestive system ‘burns’ food as our fuel.

This translates to:

Total calories needed for a day = your BMR + your activity and exercise calories

Now there are three scenarios for the energy equation of the body:

1) If our input requirement in calories is the same as the calories burnt up when energy is used up by the body – we simply don’t lose weight.

2) If our calorie input is higher than the body needs, then we have an excess and our weight goes up.

3) If our calorie input is lower than our body’s needs, the body will look for fuel from somewhere else and start to burn fat. Consequently, we will lose weight. This is the scenario we are after.

This is a very simple way to explain what happens. There are other important factors that should be considered but, for explanatory purposes here, we need to put our body in a calorie deficit to lose weight.

So the question becomes:
How many calories do we need to consume per day to put ourselves into this calorie deficit?

To lose weight steadily, it is necessary to consume around 10-20% fewer calories than needed. So, if you find out how many calories you need for each day, which is your BMR, you must set your daily calorie intake at 80% to 90% of this value to lose weight.

As a guideline, adult females burn in the region of 1,500 to 2,500 calories per day and adult males burn around 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day.

Since different people live and work different lives, some have more physical activities than others. A desk worker’s day is very different to that of a professional rugby player so we must adjust for this.
Please see table below for the adjustment factor:

Note: Fast weight loss can be achieved by consuming a lot less calories than you need every day, but this is not at all recommended for several good reasons. You might be constantly hungry and will find it difficult to stick to your diet plan. Also, your body may struggle to cope without adequate fuel every day and use up your muscle stores or worse, it could cleverly adjust to prevent further weight loss as a preservation tactic. This is the precise opposite to what we require! Do not attempt to lose weight by having a large daily calorie deficit.

It is best to work out a steady plan to lose weight in a healthy way, such as by following The Alternate Diet.

Also, please keep in mind that this tool only provides general guidance, as activity levels and many other factors influence your daily calorie needs. Thus, this calculator will likely provide a number that’s close to your calorie needs, but it’s not a perfect tool.

Your doctor or dietitian can offer more individualized advice on your ideal calorie intake depending on your health status and goals.

Now we have determined our daily requirements and set our Goals, we can move on to Make your Plan.