Best Diet to Lose or Maintain Weight

If you want to lose or maintain weight, count your calories. But first, you have to understand how your body burns those calories. Because every body is different, there is no universal "best diet" to lose or maintain weight. You have to create a specific diet just for you. The best diet to lose weight is one that correlates with your body and meets your specific needs.

Understand Your Body

• To create a diet for losing or maintaining weight you first have to understand the rate at which your body burns calories. You do this by figuring out your basal metabolic rate. Your BMR is the rate at which you burn calories while your body is at rest. This is the largest factor in understanding how many calories you need to maintain or lose weight in a healthy way. It is based on factors including age, sex, weight and height. The website bmi-calculator.net has an accurate formula that is widely used.
  For men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age in years).
  For women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age in years).
  After you find your BMR, take your daily physical activity into account to get a more accurate reading. Use this formula:
  Little or no exercise = BMR x 1.2.
  Exercise 1-3 days/week = BMR x 1.375.
  Exercise 3-5 days/week = BMR x 1.55.
  Exercise 6-7 days/week = BMR x 1.725.
  Exercise 2 times a day = BMR x 1.9.

Counting Calories

• Now, the math is easy. To lose weight, you have to take in fewer calories a day than your BMR. About 3,500 calories equals one pound of body weight. So if you want to lose one pound a week, you should eat 500 fewer calories each day. To maintain your weight, take in the same amount of calories as your BMR. A person who has a BMR of 2,000 should eat about 1,500 calories a day if she wants to lose weight and about 2,000 calories a day to maintain that weight. You shouldn't eat less than 1,200 calories a day without consulting your doctor.