We’ll begin with how many you need?
For a starting point we’ll use a simple sum to roughly calculate your maintenance calories (your body weight in pounds x 12-15 depending on current activity levels).
So for me it would be 196 x 15 = 2,940kcal, so that guesstimates that I would need 2,940kcal per day to maintain my current body weight, but if I wanted to reduce my body weight then I’d need to eat below that maintenance figure.
I would recommend a calorie reduction of 500kcal to achieve weight loss initially, however this is something that you will have to monitor and tweak once fat loss does inevitably stall.
A mistake a lot of unsuccessful dieters tend to make is that they start their diet with such a severe calorie restriction, that once the fat loss does stall they have nowhere to manoeuvre because they’re already eating like a rabbit, that’s when they’re faced with two choices…. Hours of cardio a day or go to the Chinese ‘all you can eat buffet’ and the cycle of yo-yo dieting continues again.
This whole process is very simple (notice I didn’t say easy) yet people still managed to fuck it up and a lot of that is due to misinformation, there’s a smart way to lose fat and a lot of stupid ways to lose fat, stick with me and I’ll show you the smart way.
Cliff notes
– Calculate maintenance calories
– Create a calorie deficit of 500kcal
– Don’t be extreme with your diet
– Adjust calories based on fat loss
– Look awesome this summer