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Calculators for Diet & Weight Loss

Having tools for weight loss can mean the difference between success and failure. Weight loss is a science--you need to eat less than you're burning, but you also need to know how much you're eating, how much your burning and how your body is changing. Calculators for diet and weight loss help you do all that. You can find a number of free resources for weight loss online.

  1. Food or Calorie Calculators

    • Food and calorie calculators help determine how many calories are in the foods you are eating. In some cases, this is as simple as looking at the nutrition label. However, if you're making your own recipes from scratch, things aren't always so straightforward.

      You have to add the calories of each ingredient, then divide by the number of servings the recipe creates. A calorie calculator will automatically do this for you. Some online resources even have a food database that allows it to quickly look up the calorie counts of your ingredients, a step which can save you time.

    Exercise Calculator

    • The number of calories you burn through exercise affects how much weight you lose. This is based on your body size and the intensity at which you are working. Exercise calculators help you determine how many calories you burned in a workout. You simply enter how much you weigh, how long you exercised and at what speed or intensity level you worked out.

      A heart-rate monitor can also calculate how many calories you burn, based on how fast your heart is beating. In some ways, this can be more accurate than other types of exercise calculators because it accurately measures your intensity level.

    BMI and Body Fat Calculators

    • Weight loss is about more than just the number on the scale. If you are losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time, you may not see the number on the scale go down, even though your body looks leaner and your clothes fit better.

      Body mass index, or BMI, is a measurement that gives a general idea of your body fat, based on your weight and height. It is determined by your weight in kilograms divided by your height in meters. A BMI calculator will take care of the calculations for you.

      Body fat is another measure of your success. It represents the percentage of your body made up of fat.

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