The Art of Weight Loss

The art of weight loss is a skill that many people throughout the United States lack. More than 60 million people in the United States are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Mastering the art of weight loss is important because people who are overweight have a greater risk for coronary heart disease and chronic diseases, according to the American Heart Association. This guide will teach you how to master the art of weight loss by understanding how your body works, while combining diet and exercise through a carefully synthesized diet plan.

Create a Calorie Deficit

• According to the Harvard School of Public Health, cutting calories will result in weight loss regardless of what type of food people eat. Eating a certain combination of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins has no affect on whether or not you will lose weight. However, you must determine your resting metabolic rate to determine how many calories you need to cut.

Calculating Your Metabolic Rate

• According to Net Wellness, a person's resting metabolic rate is the number of calories that their body uses without exercising during a day. The number of calories that a person burns in a day has a direct correlation with their rate of oxygen consumption. Devices such as BodyGem can be used to accurately calculate oxygen consumption and determine your resting metabolic rate. BodyGem tests involve breathing into a device for several minutes while it measures your oxygen intake. BodyGem tests cost approximately $30 and are available at some fitness centers. To get a rough estimate of your resting metabolic rate without this test you can use the CaloriesPerHour.com resting metabolic rate calculator.

Creating a Long-Term Weight Loss Goal

• If you truly want to master the art of weight loss, you'll need to create a weight loss goal. To do this, you'll need to decide how much weight you want to lose and how fast you want to lose it. Two pounds of weight loss per week is the fastest rate of weight loss that's safe. After creating a long-term weight loss goal, you'll need to create a daily calorie budget that will allow you to achieve that goal.

Your Daily Calorie Budget

• To lose 8 pounds of body fat in a month (or 2 pounds of body fat in a week), a 1,000 daily calorie deficit must be created. If you have a smaller weight loss goal, then the size of your daily calorie deficit might be smaller. According to the University of Maryland Medical Center, combining dieting with exercise is the best way to create a calorie deficit and lose weight. Some people choose to eat 500 calories less than their resting metabolic rate and burn 500 calories through exercise. However, other people may choose to cut fewer calories and exercise more.

Start a Calorie Journal

• Staying within your daily calorie budget is the most important part of mastering the art of weight loss. However, some people lose track of how many calories they've eaten throughout the day and exceed their daily calorie budget. Keeping a calorie journal is one of the easiest ways to avoid this simple problem. Calorie journals involve writing down everything you eat, as you eat it, along with how many calories are contained in the the food item you're eating. Keeping a calorie journal will allow you to stay within your daily calorie budget and lose weight successfully.