91 Immutable Laws of Weight Loss

# 47 - Law of Calories

�Use 500 more calories per day than you eat and you�ll lose a pound a week� � Al Berg

A calorie is a measure of how much weight you�ll gain from foods you eat and lose from the exercises you do.

A calorie is a unit of heat which is a unit of energy.

To lose weight you must use more calories than you eat. The math formula is:

C_in � C_used < 0

Where C_in is the calories you eat
C_used are the calories your body uses

The calories you use are from exercise and the functioning of your body. Your heart beating, breathing, digestion, cell processes all require energy. This energy used by your body is known as your metabolism which varies by person, weight, and age.

But no matter what your metabolism you must use more calories than you eat to lose weight.

A pound of weight is equivalent to 3500 calories. So to lose a pound you must use these many more calories than you eat. To lose a pound in one week you must use 500 more calories per day than you eat.

Target eating 1500 calories per day. This is not an exact number and you should use your scale to adjust up or down. Try not to go below 1200 calories.

At 1500 calories you can eat three meals of 500 calories each or six meals of 250 calories each.

Calorie Awareness

Learn how many calories are in the foods you eat. You should identify and track this but you don�t need to get crazy about it. Use your weight as a guideline, since you�ll be weighing yourself each day. If you�re not losing weight then track the calories accurately.

Stable Weight

To keep your weight stable the calories you consume should equal the calories you use. This is what you�ll need to do when reaching your goal and want to keep your weight stable.

Restaurant Eating

Eat at restaurants that post their calories on the menu or on their website. Know before you go. At White Castle, three cheeseburgers are 510 calories in total which is 170 calories each.

Many restaurants have healthy type choices. Select from these when you�re behind your goal. Your choice says what your goal is. If you choose the high-calorie meal then your goal isn�t to lose weight. If you choose the low-calorie meal then you�ve chosen health over illness, pain and even death. I know which one I chose. Which will you?

10 calories per day

From the time I was 18 years old I weighed 150 pounds to 53 where I weighed 185 pounds which is a 35 pound gain in 35 years or 1 pound per year. Since there are 3500 calories per pound I had an excess per 365 days. Dividing 3500/365 yields 9.8 or about 10 calories per day.

Milk and sugar with coffee or tea

One way I cut a few calories was to stop adding milk and sugar to my tea. I now drink it with adding cinnamon. This small change adds up as you find other ways to reduce the calories you eat. If I made this change alone I wouldn�t have gained as much as I did.

Calories as an obsession

You should know the calories you�re eating and choose lower calorie meals over higher calorie meals. But don�t go crazy and try to measure each day to the exact decimal. Today I had 1,423.82 calories is overdoing it. You need to accurately track your calories when you�re not losing weight. You want to see exactly how many you�re eating and try to reduce it slowly. If you want to be obsessed with something it should be weighing yourself each day and trying to reach your daily target weight.

Eat foods where you know the calories over those you don�t

When behind your daily goal always choose the foods that you know the calories. It will be easier to control your weight that way.