Counting calories? The proper way to lose weight with calorie counting!
Why count calories at all? Does that make sense when losing weight on the stomach? Of course, that makes sense. Counting calories is an extremely effective method to get an overview of the nutritional situation and possibly change the diet or reduce calories.
You can only lose weight quickly if you consume fewer calories than the basal metabolic rate + performance metabolic rate. Long story short.
What is this topic all about?
Calculate the basal metabolic rate
Before you bother counting your calories, you need your basal metabolic rate. After entering your age, height, weight, and gender, you will find out your approximate basal metabolic rate. What is the basal metabolic rate? This is Harris Benedict’s formula.
The basal metabolic rate calculates the amount of energy a body needs to keep all metabolic processes and organ/brain functions stable and reliable.
If you are counting your calories, you should never go below your basal metabolic rate. Otherwise, the risk of a kickback or JOJO effect is quite high. The body gets into a deficiency state and immediately stores all excess energy in unwanted fat deposits after the diet.
You can lose weight quickly with the calorie count if you pay attention to your basal metabolic rate out of reason and health awareness.
Calculate performance revenue
After the basal metabolic rate, which is responsible for the “functioning” of your body, comes the performance metabolic rate. This is calculated from your activities throughout the day. Many factors play a role. For example, the job, leisure activities, and even how long you sleep. It is well known that calories are also burned while sleeping.
The University of Hohenheim offers a free performance turnover calculator for this purpose. In addition to your basic metabolic rate, you can also determine your entire energy requirement, including power consumption. Now you know your calorie needs if you want to keep your weight instead of losing weight.
The values are a good guideline but are not a 100% guarantee. But this will give you a first, meaningful overview before you can start counting calories.
Counting calories – now you can start.
After calculating your required calorie requirement, it is a question of how many calories can be saved. The rule of thumb always applies: never fall below the basal metabolic rate. So logically process your service revenue. Depending on how fast you want to lose weight, you save calories.
A generally observed guideline is to eat about 500-800 fewer calories per day than the total calorie consumption. Depending on the starting weight and other factors, one kilogram per week is easily possible without exhausting yourself or even starving yourself.
How do I count calories?
Since my husband is one of those slightly overweight people and deals with it extensively, I was faced with your problem. How do I find out which calories I eat and how many are still “possible” daily to lose weight? After some search, I came across the new “weight loss apps.”
Almost everyone now has a smartphone, which makes losing weight much easier.
There are quite a few apps out there, and I stuck with the first one. The weight loss app is called YAZIO, and here is the developer. I have to say that I don’t get any commission or anything like that for the link.
I have been using the app for 5 weeks and have lost 6 kilograms without starving to death.
I can recommend the application with a clear conscience. Give it a try….
How does the weight loss app work with the smartphone?
The app for the smartphone is available for Android and iPhone. In the beginning, you have to register. But neither name nor address is necessary. All you need is a username and email address.
After confirming the registration email, you can start counting calories. Now set your personal values. Date of birth (for age), activity, gender, height, and starting weight.
When it comes to activity, the performance, as mentioned above, turnover plays a role. Examples of activity information are Little active (office job), Somewhat active (teacher, etc.), Very active (salesperson), and Very active (construction worker).
Assess your job or everyday behavior to determine your level of activity. YAZIO uses this data to calculate your total sales.
Then it goes to the nitty-gritty. What is your goal? Of course, losing weight on the stomach. Here you can set the desired weight loss goal per week in 0.25 KG steps. A maximum of 1 kilogram of weight loss per week can be dosed. I find this interesting from a health perspective because the app does not set any unrealistic or even harmful goals.
Some diets with the promise of 5 kilograms of weight loss a week are already very threadbare. YAZIO is exemplary here. 1 kilogram a week doesn’t sound like much at first glance BUT imagine the result after 4, 8, or 12 weeks.
By the way, with this weight loss app, you can not only set weight loss. You can even regulate gaining weight and maintaining weight. Then just enter your desired weight, and the daily calorie target appears as a number. Other setting options are the diet such as LowFat and LowCarb.
Still, these are only available in the premium version (paid subscription). Even without spending money, this app makes sense to lose weight and count calories.
Simple calorie counting via an app – this is how it works.
Now comes the harder part. After you have established your daily calorie goal, you will be spending some time in front of the smartphone. But it’s worth it! In the diary, enter the foods you want to eat.
This is a bit of a hassle, but over time it provides valuable knowledge about nutritional products, and you gradually get a sense of the calories in food.
Enter eggs, bread, salad, etc. in the search, and the results will appear in no time. If the search results are not identical to your food, you can read the data on the food packaging using the integrated barcode scanner. This is how the daily calorie count begins.
If a product is not in the database and the barcode scan doesn’t help, you can simply create a food yourself. Upon request, this can be fed into the database and made publicly accessible to other users. In this way, the food database expands automatically by all users.
You will quickly find that the calorie limit reaches its limits quite quickly. Assuming the app shows you a daily requirement of 1900 calories, you will notice with shock how quickly the calories fill up. The app quickly exposes the calorie bombs, and you have to rethink your diet by now at the latest.
Of course, you need to weigh your food. This is really a little complicated (for example, butter, etc.), but it’s worth it. Purchasing a digital kitchen scale is helpful, and the scales really don’t cost a lot of money.
How can I keep the maximum number of calories when counting calories?
What helped me a lot personally was not eating any sugary drinks. I have consistently left out lemonade, cola, and juices for weeks. Put these foods in the app, and you’ll see why. The fluid balance is balanced by water and “zero” products.
Still, it doesn’t matter much in calories, with sweetener instead of sugar, of course.
I have extremely restricted sweets. Every now and then, I buy myself a chocolate bar or something similar. However, my calorie counter quickly goes up, and I only eat some vegetables in the evening. I still eat meat, fish, butter, and other frowned upon foods, only in moderation instead of in masses.
I try to make my diet varied despite the low-calorie intake. With me, almost everything comes on the table except sweets and sugary drinks. It’s a struggle for the first few weeks.
However, if the specifications are consistently adhered to, success on the scales can be achieved quickly. I overdid it a little, and after 4 weeks, I lost 6 kilograms (default 1 kilogram per week).
I still have one small point of criticism about the app. My basal metabolic rate is 1700 calories a day. The app shows me a daily intake of 1600 calories to lose the last 5 kilograms.
Never eat less than your basal metabolic rate! In plain language: first, observe the basal metabolic rate, then listen to the app. So I reduced the weekly target to 0.5 kilos per week and kept losing weight.
