Weight loss: Creating a calorie deficiency

Weight loss has a lot of complicating factors, but at the end of the day, it comes down to this: you have to consume fewer calories than you burn.

When I talk about creating a calorie deficiency, I am simply referring to getting to a point at which you are consuming at least a few hundred fewer calories a day than you burn. Ideally, it should be around 500-600 calories, which should translate into 1-2 pounds a week in weight loss.

I have been telling you for a few weeks to start making two lists:

* a list of foods that are healthy that you enjoy eating

* a list of foods that are unhealthy that you are willing to temporarily remove from your diet

The truth is that those two lists are probably the key to setting up your calorie deficiency. All you have to do is replace the foods on the second list with foods from the first list. It will not even be that painful since you enjoy the foods on the first list.

As an example, candy is on my second list while fruit is on my first list. I made a conscious decision to stop eating candy and start eating a lot more fruit instead. I replaced some meats with more grilled chicken, and some lunches with protein shakes.

Simple? Pretty much.

This is the essence of weight loss. But, if I stopped here, I would not be going far enough because we really need to quantify things. We need hard numbers so you are not guessing.

For example, we need to know how many calories you burn in a day both while resting and while exercising. We also need to know about calories in food. I am going to recommend calorie counting because calorie counting really works. It does not have to be too hard though. You can easily keep up with your calories in less than ten minutes a day.

Yes, it is really not enough to just say consume fewer calories. Numbers matter. The hard numbers translate into targets and goals, and the psychology of goals makes all the difference.

We will get into those next week.