How to Stay on Top of Your Weight Loss

If you ever wanted to lose weight, logging your calories and workouts is important. While there are many tracking apps available, you still have to do most of the work. This guide will teach you how to stay on top of your weight loss by logging your calories correctly.

First of all, you need to find out what your current TDEE is. TDEE stands for “Total Daily Energy Expenditure.” Your TDEE is based on your height, weight, and activity level. There are online calculators to help you find out your TDEE. In theory, eating the number of calories indicated by your TDEE should keep you at the exact same weight. Eating under your TDEE means that you will lose weight that day. Eating over means your body will store extra weight on that day. Eating at a deficit of 3500 calories means that you will lose a pound of fat.

Secondly, you need to buy a kitchen scale. It doesn’t have to be fancy, but you will have to make a habit out of using it for every meal. Many times, the nutritional information on food packaging is per 100 grams. That means that you will have to compute your caloric input yourself.

Another important part of nutrition is keeping macros in mind. Normally, weight loss is dependent on calories, but there are certain macros you need to watch as well. Carbohydrates and sodium play a huge part in how much water your body retains. If you eat under your TDEE, but you eat a lot of carbohydrates, the next day your body may have gained in weight. The cause is none other than water weight. Even though water weight passes in time, it might be an ugly surprise to anyone who weighs daily. A helpful tip to combat water weight is to drink lots of liquids, weird as it may seem.

If you find that eating under your TDEE is too hard, you should look into taking up a sport or getting a gym membership. Every physical activity burns calories, which are subtracted from your daily consumed calories. Even better, if you eat under your TDEE, physical activity will help you get to your weight goal faster. But calorie burning is just one benefit of physical activity, but there are many others.

To make sure you lose weight constantly and avoid plateaus, there is a hidden trick. When logging your meals, you should always overestimate the calories eaten. Usually, people forget to count the oil or sauces added to their meals, only counting the base meal. However, sauces and oils are often high in calories, and may just be the thing ruining people’s diets. In the same vein, you should underestimate the calories burned during workouts. Most gym apparatus tells the user a calories burned estimate, but this is often not tailored to each user. Calories burned, just like the TDEE, vary from person to person. The golden rule is that you should cut 25% of the estimated burned calories.

Another tip in keeping on top of your weight loss is weighing yourself regularly. Some people prefer weighing themselves daily, others do it weekly. If you weigh yourself daily, try not to pay attention to weight fluctuations. Instead, calculate the weekly average. The purpose of weighing yourself is not only to keep up with your progress but also to update your TDEE. Remember that the TDEE is based on your weight, height and physical activity level. If you lose or gain weight, naturally, you should have another TDEE.

Lastly, never give up! Remember to always stay motivated, even during plateaus. There comes a time in any diet where weight loss stops temporarily. This may have many factors, but you should try troubleshooting instead of giving up. Did you update your TDEE? Did you try a new exercise routine at the gym? Did you gain water weight because you ate too many carbohydrates? Try identifying and solving the problem. If all else fails, you should contact a nutritionist. Working with a nutritionist should solve all your weight loss problems.

Losing weight is no easy task. You may have modern tools at your disposal, but everything else falls on you. You need to track your calories, as well as make an effort to eat under your TDEE. However, the goal, a healthy body, is surely worth it. If you follow the rules in this article, you should have no issues with losing weight.