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After years of struggling, the one thing that finally helped me lose 70 pounds was a calorie deficit! The best part? I could still eat whatever I wanted.
Weight Loss By Counting Calories
In this post, I’ll show you how to accurately count your calories to lose weight using the exact calorie counting method I used to lose 70 pounds.
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* Upgrade! (09/21/2020) I am currently back on this diet to lose the baby weight after my third son! The goal is to lose 45 pounds, so far I’m at 28! Follow me on Instagram here @CassScroggins to follow along and see what I eat every day!
Scientifically, “a calorie is defined as the amount of heat required to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water from 0 to 1 degree Celsius”.
Our bodies use calories from food and drink as energy for their activities. However, when there is an excess of calories, our body stores this energy as fat.
Based on my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate), I started out at 2,000 calories a day, then dropped to 1,800 calories a day, then to 1,500 calories a day, and finally to 1,200 calories a day.
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This method of starting with a higher calorie restriction and slowly reducing the calories made it much easier to stay on the diet and stay motivated to lose all the weight! This was the direct reason why I was able to lose weight when I couldn’t before.
I’ve written a full post here on exactly how to get started on this particular low-calorie diet approach and how to navigate it (when to cut/adjust calories). This is the only weight loss method that has actually worked for me! Read the post here.
But in this post, I want to show you exactly how to count calories so you can lose weight successfully!
Even basic things like breathing, sitting, and sleeping burn calories, so we need to fuel our bodies (replenish calories) every day.
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When you consume more calories than you burn in a day, your body stores the extra calories as fat. Constantly eating more calories than you burn will make you gain weight.
But when you burn more calories than you consume, your body uses the calories stored as fat for energy. Consistently eating fewer calories per day than you burn (also called a calorie deficit) will result in weight loss.
3,500 calories make up one pound of fat. So to lose one pound, you need to burn 3,500 more calories than you consume.
The amount of calories a person should eat per day to lose weight is different for everyone and varies greatly depending on gender, age, weight, height and activity level.
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To lose weight, you simply need to consume fewer calories than you burn in a day.
How to calculate how many calories your body burns in a day. Step 1: Use your gender, weight, age and height to calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate).
Your BMR is the amount of calories your body burns per day at rest. This is the minimum amount of calories your body uses just to function.
So if you were basically in a coma and slept all day (not eating, sitting, not even going to the bathroom), the calories you would need just to breathe and function your organs is your BMR.
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**Tip: The older, shorter and lighter you are, the fewer calories your body burns each day. Males also burn slightly more calories than females.
After calculating your BMR, use an activity level chart to calculate how many calories your body burns per day through normal daily activities.
Remember, your BMR is just the minimum amount of calories your body uses to function. You actually burn more calories than your BMR in a day just by being awake and doing normal things like eating, sitting, walking around the house, etc.
People who exercise regularly burn more calories during the day, even when they are not exercising. Regular activity helps maintain your metabolic rate by increasing the number of calories you burn per day, so you need to add your activity level to see how many calories your body burns per day.
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To do this, calculate your BMR, then use an activity level chart to see how many calories your body actually burns in a day.
That’s how many calories your body burns in a day. So, to lose weight, you need to consume fewer calories every day.
So, based on the example above, a 24-year-old, 5’9″ 150-pound woman who doesn’t exercise regularly burns 2,060 calories each day. So, to lose about a pound a week, she would have to limit her calorie intake to 1,560 calories a day.
Using the label above, it says that one serving of this spaghetti pasta has 230 calories. And one serving of spaghetti noodles is ⅔ cup or 55 grams. So 55 grams of spaghetti pasta has 230 calories.
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It also says that there are 8 servings per container. So a whole package of spaghetti noodles has 1840 calories (230 kcal per serving X 8 servings = 1840 calories).
*Also keep in mind that different brands of the same foods may have different calorie content. So a single spaghetti pasta food label will not list the same number of calories/serving size for all spaghetti noodles.
Once you know how many calories your body burns in a day and how to read a food label, you simply need to consume fewer calories than you burn to lose weight. But to do that, you need to know how to count calories accurately!
The problem with using and estimating measuring cups/spoons is that there are many variables. Certain foods don’t fit well in measuring cups/spoons, and when you see portion sizes you never know how much you’re actually eating.
Calorie Counting Still Better Than Intermittent Fasting
However, each package lists the serving size calories in grams, so weighing your food is the most accurate and easiest way to count calories. That’s why I count calories by weight.
All food labels have serving sizes in grams, so weighing food in grams is the easiest and most accurate way to count calories.
To set the scale to grams, turn it on and press the unit button until the grams marked “g” appear.
You can weigh your food directly on the scale, but if the food requires a plate, bowl or cup to hold it, you don’t want to count the weight of the plate/bowl/cup against the weight of your food. To do this, you need to reduce the weight of the plate / bowl / cup.
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Simply place the plate/bowl/cup on the scale, then click the Tare button, which will reset your scale to 0g by subtracting the weight of the plate/bowl/cup from the total weight.
This will ensure that when you put the food in the plate/bowl/cup, your scale only measures the weight of the food.
Place the food or drink you want to weigh on the scale and record the weight in grams.
If you are measuring a liquid. The serving size will probably be in milliliters (ml), but it’s the same as grams, so you can change the scale units to ml or just keep it in grams, it doesn’t matter if they’re the same.
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Once you know the gram weight of your food, you can use a food label or a calorie counter app to record the calories.
If you weighed exactly one serving size according to the food label, then the calorie count is already listed on the package.
For example: Using the spaghetti pasta food label below, if you weighed exactly one serving of pasta, which is 55g. Then you’ll know that the spaghetti on your plate is 230 calories.
What if you serve more or less grams than the exact serving size? How do you calculate that?
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The serving size of this spaghetti pasta is 55 grams, but what if you put 60 grams of pasta on your plate?
One way is to use a calorie counter app. Take a picture of the barcode, change the portion size to grams and change the grams to 60. The app will automatically calculate how many calories are in 60g of spaghetti noodles.
[(Calories per serving ÷ grams per serving) x weight of the food on your scale in grams = total calories of the food on the scale.]So in this example, you would do (230 ÷ 55) x 60. When you divide the calories per serving by the grams per serving (230 ÷ 55 g), you get the total calories per gram (230 ÷ 55 g = 4.18181818 cal/g). .
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Then you take the number of calories per gram (4.18181818) and multiply it by the number of grams on the plate (4.18181818 x 60 = 250.909091 calories) and I always round up to
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