calorie counting demystified

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by Rich Strauss www.The-Weight-Loss-Formula.com Demystified Calorie Counting

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Calorie Counting Demystified - To lose weight, you must consume fewer calories than you burn. Containing 4 chapters and 39 pages, this book guides you, in the simplest way possible, to create that calorie deficit – by knowing exactly what you are doing.

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Page 1: Calorie Counting Demystified

by Rich Strauss

www.The-Weight-Loss-Formula.com

Demystified

CalorieCounting

Page 2: Calorie Counting Demystified

Calorie Counting DemystifiedSecond Edition

© 2011 Rich Strauss www.the-weight-loss-formula.com

This booklet was designed to give correct and helpful information, but there may be typographical errors and mistakes in content. All content in this publication is provided for information and educational purposes only. Individuals wishing to make changes to their dietary, lifestyle, exercise or medication regimens should do so in conjunction with a competent, knowledgeable and empathetic medical professional.

I try to keep information in this publication as accurate as possible but accept no responsibility for errors or inaccuracies. The author and publisher of this book shall not have liability nor responsibility to any person or legal entity in regard to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused either directly or indirectly by the information contained in this booklet.

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Please Note:This is a sample chapter taken from Calorie Counting Demystified.The full product is available at www.the-weight-loss-formula.com

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ContentsIntroduction 5

Chapter 1: The Truth About Counting Calories And Weight Loss 6

Chapter 2 - The Basics 9Creating a Calorie Deficit 10How many calories does your body burn? 10Setting a Target Body Weight 11Determining the Calories in Food 12

Chapter 3 – The Macronutrients 14Carbohydrates 14Protein 15Fat 15Calories in carbohydrates, proteins and fats 16Macronutrient Ratios 17Converting Nutrient Ratios to Grams 18

Chapter 4 - Calorie Counting in 7 Steps 20Step 1: Determine Your Calorie Needs 20Step 2: Create a calorie deficit 21Step 3: Determine the Calorie Content of the Foods That You Eat 24Step 4: Decide on Your Macronutrient Ratios 25Step 5: Measure Your Portion Sizes - Control How Much You Eat 25Step 6: Tracking Your Daily Caloric Intake 27Step 7: Keep track of Calorie Expenditure 28

Appendix 293500 Calories To Lose A Pound - Is This Formula All Wrong? 29Brink’s Unified Theory of Nutrition 32

Whats Next? 39

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IntroductionThe goal of your diet and weight loss plan should not be to lose weight, but to lose body fat.

Exercise, in particular strength training exercise that builds muscle, will help prevent muscle loss and keep your metabolism from slowing. It’s also necessary to eat nutritious, well-balanced meals in order to maintain muscle and support all the bodily functions necessary for weight loss.

But the most important factor in any weight loss plan is how many calories you consume each day, and eating too few is an even more common mistake than eating too much. You need to count calories in order to understand your eating and exercise habits, to be able to make improvements, and reach your goals safely and effectively.

Counting calories is necessary to help keep things under control, and will make it easier. If you know the calorie content of food, you can avoid high-calorie foods and select lower-calorie foods that allow you to lose weight and satisfy your nutritional needs.

In order to lose weight, you have to consume fewer calories than you burn. If you eat more than what your body needs, the excess calories is stored as fat. Losing weight then, turns into a simple numbers game. As long as your caloric intake is less than what you burn each day, you will lose weight.

Where and how these excess calories are stored, or used up, is not a matter of keeping your fingers crossed and hoping for the best. It is about controlling the sources of those calories, and about optimizing your metabolism to burn them.

The first few days of keeping track of your calories are the hardest because you have to look up the number of calories of each new food. Don’t be discouraged - with the resources included with this package, it will be a whole lot easier for you. Print these books, relax and read it. Let it make sense before you do anything else.

The greatest benefit of counting calories is what you will learn from the experience. And as you progressively learn to eat highly nutritious, low calorie foods, you will likely find that counting calories wont always be necessary, and that being able to estimate portion sizes accurately will become second nature for you.

To your success, in life and health,

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Chapter 2 - The BasicsDepending on what country you live in, you will find nutrition data listed in either calories or kilojoules.

A calorie is a unit of measure of the energy required to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1°C. A joule is a unit of electrical energy, equal to the work done to produce power of one watt continuously for one second. Similar physical processes maintain our body temperature and perform other bodily functions.

What we need to understand is that Calories, or kilojoules, are a measure of the energy contained in both the foods we eat and our body fat. Our bodies use the energy found in the food we eat to keep us functioning, and any excess energy is stored as body fat for future use.

When we expend energy it is said that we are burning calories, and when we burn more calories than we eat, our bodies turn to our fat stores to find the additional energy they require. Thus when we eat more calories than we burn we gain weight, and when we burn more calories than we eat, we lose weight.

When referring to food and energy expenditure it is common to refer to these units in multiples of 1,000, because they are so small. The term for 1,000 calories is kilocalories or kcal, and the term for 1,000 joules is kilojoules or kJ.

In the scientific communities, it is common practice to refer to kilocalories as Calories (with an uppercase “C”). However, us common people simply refer to kilocalories as calories.

Therefore, technically:

1,000 calories = 1 kilocalorie

1,000 joules = 1 kilojoule

1 calorie = 4.187 joules

1 kilocalorie (kcal) = 4.187 kilojoules (kJ) = 1 Calorie

But for our purposes, simply:

1 calorie = 4.187 kJ

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Creating a Calorie DeficitCalories, as we have mentioned, are also used to measure the energy required by the body to perform different activities, including the energy required just to keep our bodies functioning (such as fuel for organs, breathing, circulating blood, adjusting hormone levels, digestion, plus growing and repairing cells). It is therefore possible to calculate how many calories you burn in a day, which equates to the number you would eat to maintain your current weight.

If you want to lose weight, you need to create a calorie deficit. A calorie deficit is created when the amount of food energy (calories) you take in is less than the total calories you use, resulting in weight loss.

When Calories eaten are less than Calories burned = Calorie deficit

You can achieve the deficit you desire most effectively with a combination of eating less and exercising more. When you exercise you will be able to eat more, and still create a deficit. When you don’t exercise, you simply have to eat less, period.

How many calories does your body burn?The number of calories that you need depends on various factors: your gender, your age, the size of your body and your level of activity. Men require more calories than women, older people require less calories than younger people, a large person requires more calories than a small person, and an active person requires more calories than a sedentary person.

The minimum amount of energy required by your body when resting, is called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), and can be calculated by using certain equations, the most popular being the Harris Benedict Equation, which uses your weight in kilograms, your height in centimeters, and your age in years, to calculate your BMR, and then applies an activity factor to determine your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).

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The only factor omitted by the Harris Benedict Equation is lean body mass.

Remember, leaner bodies need more calories than less leaner ones (because muscle needs a lot of calories just to sustain itself). Therefore, this equation will be very accurate in all but the very muscular (will under-estimate calorie needs) and the very fat (will over-estimate calorie needs).

To calculate your BMR, and then your TDEE you simply need to access one of the many calculators available on line. From here, you can find the amount of calories that your body burns just by sustaining itself. This is the amount of calories that you would need to consume when wanting to maintain your current weight.

Setting a Target Body WeightOnce you have calculated your current calorie needs (or TDEE), you have to calculate the calorie requirements to get the body that you would like to have.

Your target weight (ideal body weight) should be such, that your Body Mass Index1 falls within the normal range of 18.5 to 24.9.

For example, if you are a 27-year old, lightly-active female with a height of 66 inches (5”6’ or 1.68m) and a weight of 141 pounds (64kg), you need 1,986 calories per day to maintain your weight. If you want to lose 11 lbs (5kg), to weigh 130 pounds (59kg), the calculator shows that (at your target body weight) you should only eat 1,921 calories per day. This difference of about 65 calories per day is equivalent to 100g of raw mango.

Since one pound of body fat has about 3,500 calories, a reduction of 65 calories per day will cause the loss of one pound of weight in 54 days (3,500/65).

Note:A pound of body fat equates to approximately 3,500 calories.

So if you have a calorie deficit of 500 calories (meaning that you burn 500 calories more than you eat each day) you would lose approximately one pound per week: 500 x 7 = 3,500.

It’s easy to see that a calorie deficit of 1,000 calories would mean that you’d lose approximately two pounds per week.

Two pounds (0.9 kg) a week is commonly accepted as the maximum rate of weight loss that is healthy.

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Weight loss can of course be accelerated by reducing the calories further, but a diet should not reduce intake below 1,200 calories per day for women (or 1,800 calories for men), because such diets are not sustainable and it is hard to obtain all the essential nutrients that your body needs. The best and most effective diet is one that can be maintained until healthy eating habits become a way of life.

As a general rule, your daily calories should not be reduced below 15-20 percent of the calories required by your body for maintenance.

◊ In our example above, the maintenance level for the lightly active female requires 1,986 calories per day.

◊ Fifteen percent of this amount is: (15/100) x 1,986 = 298 calories. Subtracting 298 from 1,986 we get 1,688 calories per day.

◊ This reduction of 298 calories per day should result in the loss of one pound every twelve days (3,500/298), or about 2.5 pounds per month.

◊ At 20% calorie reduction you would lose one pound every 9 days, or about 3.3 pounds per month.

Determining the Calories in FoodOnce you know how many calories you need to achieve your target weight, you have to figure out how many calories are in the food that you eat.

You will need to interpret nutritional information to determine the calories in packaged foods, and you will need some basic tools:

◊ Food Scale and Measuring Cup◊ List of foods and calories per gram◊ Calculator◊ A journal to record everything that you eat

Page 10: Calorie Counting Demystified

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Please Note:This is a sample chapter taken from The Weight Loss Formula.The full product is available at www.the-weight-loss-formula.com

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