Counting calories is a popular method of losing weight. The intention is to burn more calories than you eat, and therefore lose weight. Of course, there is no definite number that everyone should eat each day, and therefore no special number which we need to cut back on in order to loose weight. The essential figure to consider when calorie counting is the amount of calories you need to consume each day in order to maintain your weight as it is. This may involve a few sums, but once you have that figure, you can work out the amount you want to reduce.

In order to work out the amount you need to maintain your present weight, you first need to work out your BMR. There are many ways that you figure this out online, and it should not take you very long. Once you have done this, then you need to work out how much activity you do during an average day. If you are sedentary, times your BMR by 1.2, If you are slightly active, times it by 1.375. If you are moderately active (if, you do exercise most days a week) then times it by 1.55. If you are even more active than that, times the BMR by 1.725, and if you perform hard labour, or are involved in competitive sport, times the BMR by 1.9.

You may need to fetch a calculator at this point. For example, a woman weighing 200 pounds may have a BMR of 1675 and be very inactive, so she would times her BMR by two, and produce a result of 3350. This figure is the amount of calories the woman would need to consume if she wanted to stay at the weight she is now.

Once you have worked out how many calories you need in order to keep your weight the same, you can then start to cut back your intake in order to loose weight. It is considerably healthier to cut back the amount of calories you eat a little bit at a time. This is also dependant upon how much weight you want to loose. Guidelines recommend that you should loose no more than 2 pounds each week, and it is probably better in the long tem if you only aim for one pound. Each pound is the equivalent of 3,500 calories, which conveniently mean that reducing your intake by 500 calories a day will lose one pound a week through diet alone.

You can lose these 500 calories purely by cutting them from your diet, or you could lose 250 from your intake, and then burn 250 calories thought exercise. You should take into consideration how much you exercise, as well as what you eat, and record it all in a diary. This is not there to reveal how little you did on a certain day; it is an account of each little step you take towards losing each pound at the end of the week.

You should try and keep your calorie reduction even: so if you can't exercise one day, don't be tempted to cut back more rigorously on your eating the day after. It is far more important to consistently lose weight, even if it is only a little, than punish yourself for small infractions. With the latter policy, you are likely to give up before you have even reached your goal.

Once you start losing weight, you also need to remember to revise your BMR and weight loss plan. The calorie cutback which was suitable for weight loss in a 200-pound woman will not have the same effect on a woman who now weight 180 pounds. If you find yourself reaching a plateau, where you care no longer losing, consider checking your BMR ? you may find yourself pleasantly surprised.