How To Calculate Intake and Output

To maintain a healthy weight, you must balance the amount of calories expended each day with the number of calories you consume. People gain weight when calories eaten exceed calories burned. To lose one pound, you must consume 3,500 calories less than you take in. Thus, to lose a pound per week, you have to cut 500 calories out of the diet per day, add 500 calories worth of extra exercise per day, or do a balanced combination of both, which is why counting consumed calories and doing aerobic exercise is the most efficient way to lose weight.

Instructions

• 1

  Count the calories of each meal you eat during the day. Keep a journal. A day's entry might contain, for example: Breakfast: cereal with skim milk, coffee, juice = 300; Lunch: turkey sandwich with lettuce, tomato and dressing on wheat bread = 400, glass of skim milk = 100; Dinner: salmon with vegetables and starch = 600, glass of wine = 100; snacks = 300; dessert = 200. Total = 2,000 total calorie intake for the day.

• 2

  Count the calories you expend during the day. For a 160-pound person, calories burned per hour sleeping are between about 50 and 70; sitting burns between 80 and 100; driving can burn about 90 calories per hour; walking burns 180 to 300 depending on speed and surface, and running can burn between 500 and 1,000 depending on speed and surface. So if you sleep for eight hours, record 480; sit at a desk for eight hours record 720; eat, dress, do light housework, drive, shower, shop, cook, taking up about four hours of your day, record 400. The total is 1,600 calories. You still have four hours left in the day. If you watch TV, you expend 360, making your daily total of calories expended 1,900.

• 3

  Subtract the number of calories expended (1,900) from the number of calories taken in (2,000). If your answer is negative ( -100), then you took in more calories than you expended and will gain weight. If, instead of sitting for the last four hours of the day, you exercised, burning an additional 800 calories, the number would be positive, (200) and you would have a calorie deficit and lose weight.