Losing Weight By Counting Your Calories

A good way to estimate the proper number of calories in your reducing diet is to take your basic calories—2,500 is the example we have been using—and slash them from 30% to 50%.

This would give you a reducing diet of between 1,750 and 1,250 calories. The smaller total naturally will reduce you faster than the larger one.

Sometimes it is disheartening to weigh yourself every day and discover no significant change. It is average weight loss that counts and once a week is often enough for your little session with the scales. If you do weigh yourself every day, however, do so under the same conditions and at the same time of day. Perhaps the best time is immediately after getting out of bed in the morning, for ordinarily your weight is lowest at this hour.

It is possible, if you are truly overweight, to lose pounds much faster by restricting yourself to 600 or 700 calories a day. This can be accomplished safely if you have the approval of your physician and if you follow a diet providing the essentials your body needs.

It is not always wise to lose weight too fast. Your subcutaneous fat at least presses out the wrinkles from within. If too much fat is withdrawn abruptly, the skin loses some of its support. Your shrinking integument has no place to go and it folds up like an accordion.

Who wants a washboard face or a corrugated disposition? These sad results do not always follow—doctors are much more tolerant of rapid reducing diets, when scientifically sound, than they used to be.

That's about all there is to the arithmetic of losing weight. Your scales will give you a constant check on your proficiency in the art of subtraction. If you adopt a 1,500-calorie a day diet and fail to lose about 1½ pounds a week, drop down to the next level and embrace a 1,250-calorie regimen.

Or if, on a 1,000-calorie diet, you lose more than two pounds a week, you can step it up by adding 100 or 200 calories.

One warning: don't be discouraged, the first week or two, if you show no weight loss even though following your diet faithfully. It's most likely a matter of water retention. The body eventually adjusts itself when it finds you mean business, and often the water loss is quite sudden when it occurs.

The amount you lose will also vary with your age. If you are under 25 your metabolism will usually be much quicker than that of a 40 year old.

Not very difficult arithmetic, is it? You can be even more simple about it. Just decide arbitrarily that you will adopt a reducing diet on one of three levels: 1,000 calories, 1,250 calories, or 1,500 calories per day.. Continue on it until you have reduced your weight about 20 pounds, or brought it down to the ideal level. Then step up your intake until you hold your weight stationary for a few weeks. Repeat the process if you desire further reduction.