Dieting can be a mentally draining endeavor. There are so many diet plans which are often contradictory to each other; you don't know which plan is the best. You have low carb, low calorie, hypo caloric, gluten free, Paleo diet and so many others; you don't know what to choose.
No matter which diet you choose, the all must adhere to the same law of thermodynamics. If you eat more calories than you burn, you will gain weight. The same holds true for the opposite. If you consume less than you burn, you will lose weight.
So how do you know how many calories you need to consume on a daily basis? Although you want to cut your food intake, cutting them too low can be almost as bad as eating too much. Too much of a calorie deficit will lead to quick initial weight loss but soon your metabolism will slow down. When you return to your normal calorie intake along with your slower metabolism, you will gain weight and return back to where you started.
A healthy weight loss diet will yield 1-2 lbs. of fat loss per week. There are exceptions such excess water loss during the initial stage of the diet or obese individuals who hold excess water weight. If you don't fit in these categories and you are still losing 5 lbs. a week, you need to re-evaluate your progress to ensure most of that weight loss isn't muscle mass.
There are several ways you can calculate the amount of calories needed to sustain a healthy fat loss rate. There are complicated equations that take height, weight, and activity level into account. A simpler equation is to take your current weight and multiply it by 15. This is your maintenance calorie level. To lose weight you can take that number and subtract 500 calories per day. Each person is different so you may need to adjust these number a bit.
A truer measurement of you daily caloric intake is to actually measure the amount of calories you are consuming each day. For seven days, record everything you eat. Find a calorie counting website like Fitday to calculate your total calories eaten for the week. Take this number and divide by 7. This is your average daily calorie intake. Take your daily calorie intake and subtract 300-500 calories each day. To ensure accuracy, pick a day for a weigh in and weigh yourself at the same time of day each week. If you are losing weight, stay on track. If you didn't lose any weight, subtract an additional 200 kcals.
