Intake vs. Output

October 12th, 2007

If you still need a reminder.....weight loss/maintenance is achieved only through a balance of calories coming into the body and calories leaving the body.  Regardless of what "diet" you choose to achieve your goals, it comes down to how many calories you consume in a given day.  If you are eating more than your body needs (apples or caramel apple sundaes), you will gain weight. 
To find out how many calories your body needs (a 2,000 calorie per day diet is not appropriate for much of the population), check to see if a local nutritionist or health club offer resting metabolic rate testing.  I use the BodyGem device at my studio with great success.  This test is great because it provide's inidividuals with their unique metabolic intake requirements.  Some people have unusually high or low metabolisms and a general equation like the ones listed below will not provide the most accurate measurement/caloric guidelines. 

1.  Your weight

2.  Divide your weight by 2

3.  Multiply the answer from #2 by 30 to get your total caloric needs. 

Check out www.active.com/calculators/calories_calc.cfm (Active.com) or www2.vhi.ie/topic/calneed (Vhi Healthcare). These sites provide cool little tools that calculate your personalized caloric needs. Also, check out ths health calculator from iVillage http://diet.ivillage.com/healthcalc for a breakdown of how many grams of fat, carbs, protein, etc. you should take in per day.

 Check these sites out!  You may be suprised at how little (or how much) you need to consume.