Managing your weight can be challenging, but it’s often made more complicated than it needs to be. There are many nuances to weight management, particularly when considering overall health. If your objective is strictly to move the number you see on the scale, it’s a whole lot easier than you could have thought.

Disclaimer

I am not a certified personal trainer or dietician. The information provided is for educational purposes only. A qualified professional should be consulted before making changes to your diet or workout plan. I am not responsible for any errors, omissions, or the results obtained from using information on my site. The user of this website assumes all risks associated with actions that they take.

Results are not guaranteed. Performing exercises incorrectly can result in injury. Improper management of diet can result in a range of side effects, both long-term and short-term.

Above high level – calories in practice

This post intends to streamline the necessary information to allow you to control your weight. Everyone should continually research nutrition, as it affects performance in all aspects of life. I do not hold any certifications, and I am not licensed to give advice. However, I am in control of my weight and believe that with knowledge, everyone else can be in control of theirs.

Remember the intention – this is educational content based on my own experience (and further proven by those around me with an open mind and a will to commit). Things will be oversimplified moving forward so that what matters sticks. You’ll be responsible for optimizing the “health” side of the equation, and you’ll be assigned some tasks for this sure-fire strategy to produce the results that we know it can.

The simple equation

Weight is the lagging result of a diet that is in excess of, below, or equal to an individual’s maintenance calories (we’ll shorten this to “maintenance” moving forward). Everything that you consume contains calories, and any form of activity that you do burns calories. You maintain your weight by consuming calories equal to your maintenance. You gain weight by consuming more than your maintenance. You lose weight by consuming less than your maintenance.

Understanding your maintenance

So, how do you determine your maintenance? Your metabolic rate, often referred to as your metabolism, is the number of calories you burn daily, excluding all movement. If you were stationary all day, your base metabolic rate determines the amount of energy used just to keep you breathing. Energy used through daily activity affects your maintenance heavily and is extremely hard to estimate without using tools to track it. Your base metabolic rate, plus your average calories burned through movement, equals your maintenance calories. Eating this amount maintains your current weight, excluding factors such as temporary water retention due to sodium intake and other short-term fluctuations.

Use a generalized calculator for a starting point. This one’s as good as any: Maintenance calorie calculator. Here’s your first of many tasks – how badly do you want to be in control? Use the calculator as a reference and understand that you will need to make adjustments. Your base metabolic rate is predictable based on your height and weight and varies only slightly per individual. Calories burned through movement from person to person can vary significantly.

How to track and measure

You’ll need to track your calories consumed, your calories burned, and your weight. You can try to cut corners, but realize the foolproof, guaranteed method is available. If you need this to work, you need to do the hard things that allow it to.

Tracking calories consumed

You can track calories consumed using an app like MyFitnessPal. You could use a notebook, or you could prepare meals beforehand and do your tracking in advance. I’ve found the app approach easiest because it allows for flexibility. It helps to see your pacing to avoid over- or under-eating throughout the day. Produce a database to look back on, holding you accountable and highlighting trends.

Use the calculator’s recommendation as a starting point. Be honest when estimating your activity level to achieve results faster. Write this number down and set it aside; we’ll need it again shortly.

Tracking calories burned

I prefer tracking movement by using an Apple Watch. You can use your phone to track steps per day to prove you’ll stick to the program and get value out of investing in a smart watch. The more data you can produce, the more inputs you can track, making outputs increasingly more predictable. Become obsessed with inputs rather than outputs – you want to focus your efforts on producing results rather than putting all of your time into reviewing results.

Understanding calories burned is the 2nd most impactful part of the equation. Having the option to adjust either expenditure or consumption will create a more sustainable system and make for an overall more enjoyable experience in managing your weight. Also, it unlocks the fastest path to change, leveraging adjustments to both.

Create a target step goal per day. This is the only “non-negotiable” regarding exercise. We need some idea of average calories burned so that your maintenance remains reliable. I would suggest shooting for 10k steps/day. This is an ambitious aim, but steps per day is an even more important metric than workouts per week in relation to weight management. It’s more important that you can achieve your goal daily than it is to be proud of your number. Write down the minimum number of steps you’ll get per day next to your “calories consumed” number.

Putting it all together

You’ve come a long way in a short time. You have a number of calories that you’ll stick to, and you know how many steps you’ll get per day. Don’t make any adjustments to these numbers for the next 3 weeks. Weigh yourself at the same time every day, in similar circumstances. I suggest the first thing when you wake up. Write your weight down, and don’t allow a single day’s number to affect you mentally. Average your weight at the end of each week, and by week 3, you will have enough data to consider changes. At week 3, with averages in hand, ask yourself the following questions:

• Did my weight increase or decrease?
• Is this number of calories sustainable?
• Is this number of steps sustainable?

If you’re in it for the long haul, it would be wise to determine your maintenance calories first, before trying to change your weight. Continue this strategy, reevaluating and making small adjustments until your weight averages are the same for 3 weeks. You’ve found a number close to maintenance.

Now that you’ve built your foundation and habits are automated, you should have freed up some bandwidth to handle further change. There are about 3,500 calories in a pound. Use this to plan exactly what changes you’ll make to your weight, over exactly what timeline. If you plan to lose weight, evaluate where you have room to cut those calories. Will it be through less consumption, additional expenditure, or a combination of both? Write down different ways you could accomplish your goal. Here are a few examples:

Example 1 (- consumption):

Example 1 is only willing to adjust calories consumed as they’re finding time to be tight. They don’t want to exercise more than they already do, and they’re not tempted to overeat as they’ve been satisfied with their current amount of food. They’ve determined their maintenance is around 2,500 calories. If they plan to lose weight, cutting calories will be easier for them than burning more. They’ll want to keep the system sustainable above all – what’s the fewest calories they could cut, while achieving their goal in a timeline they’re happy with?

If they decrease calories consumed to 2,300 calories, a 200 difference per day, they will lose 1lb (create a deficit of 3,500 calories) every 17.5 days. 3,500 calories, the amount of calories in a lb, divided by 200 calories, the amount they are eating below their maintenance, equals 17.5. 17.5 times 15, the total amount of lbs they plan to lose, equals 262.5. It would take 262.5 days to lose 15 lbs., eating in a deficit of 200 calories per day.

Adjust the daily deficit to 300, and a lb is lost in 11.67 days. A deficit of 500 calories per day would result in 1lb lost per week. You can apply this principle to gain weight, too. A surplus of 500 calories would gain you a lb per week.

Example 2 (+ expenditure):

Example number 2 might as well be me! I love eating, and don’t want to decrease the amount of food I eat – even when I’m ready to lose a few lbs. I would rather increase my steps or consider some way to burn more calories, so that without adjusting my calorie intake, I can still create a deficit. My maintenance is around 2,700 calories. Assuming I move a similar amount per day, I can try increasing my step count from what I normally get by +5,000. Using my watch to track calories burned through movement, I can understand that this burns an additional 150-200 calories per day. 3,500 (amount of calories in a lb) divided by 150 (calories burned walking 5k more steps per day) shows that it would take me 23.33 days to lose a lb in this way. If I don’t have time to increase steps daily, I could instead eat and move roughly the same as I have been, but implement a jog twice a week that burns 300 calories. If I burned an additional 600 calories per week, I would lose about a lb in under 6 weeks without spending much more time exercising.

You can “pull both levers” so that neither change feels drastic. You could cut calories by 150 per day and burn an additional 150 per day for a net deficit of 300 calories. There are all sorts of approaches that would work, and you should tailor the plan to your own preferences, making it as seamless as possible. You may even enjoy the game you’ve built.

Additional considerations

You’ve been provided all the information you need to manipulate your weight. Here is a list of things that you should look into next:

• Nutrition
• Side effects of cutting calories too rapidly
• Signs of overtraining
• Weight training’s effect on metabolism

It’s especially effective to have goals that branch off from the fundamentals of weight management. Research VO2 maximum to pull more benefits from cardio. Implement weight training to invest in a higher base metabolic rate. Understand that “health” is much, much bigger than weight management and that you should consult with a professional when creating a diet plan. Nutrition is a topic of its own, and one well worth putting time into. An unbalanced diet can result in major side effects and hurt hormone balances. The list goes on and on, but we’ve accomplished what we set out to do – you can successfully move your weight to where you would like it to go, and you’ve gained exposure to other key elements to consider.

Weight management summarized

We’ll end this post with a recap of what you need to be effective and how you’ll take control of your weight.

What you’ll need:

• Smartwatch or smartphone
• Weight scale
• Some level of time and commitment

What you’ll do:

• Determine your maintenance
• Build a plan to reach your goal weight, including a rough deadline
• Track calories in
• Track calories out
• Continued education on health as a whole – especially regarding nutrition

Take the concepts discussed and experiment. Research further. Make these ideas your own, iterate on improvements and efficiencies specific to your life. I hope this post provided value, and I can’t wait for you to take full control of your weight!