So how many calories do I need every day?

I started this post last week. It's a two-parter because this is a complicated question. Everyone burns a different amount of calories and every day the amount will change. The amount depends on several factors. First and the most important is your size. Your body will burn calories to give you energy for body functions like thinking, pumping blood and breathing. Besides that, it takes more calories to walk, talk, bend over, etc. Also, the more muscle you have, the more calories your body has to burn to maintain those muscles. About 30% of the calories your body burns comes from fat, 20 percent from protein and the other 50% from other foods your eating.

Science claims that we eat too many calories, actually, North American on average eat twice the amount of calories we should. How can that be you might ask? Because we eat mostly processed foods and we drink too many high-calorie drinks. If you eat fresh and cut out the processed foods and high-calorie drinks you will cut your calories in half.

If you track your calories by using a food journal for one week before you start a new meal plan you'll see what I mean. You can lose body fat just by eating real food instead of processed food. Buy your food fresh, and stick to real food. Fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, nuts, seeds, fish, poultry and lean meat. Only eat red meat once or twice a month. Red meat has animal fat and your body will store it in fat cells.

After you start to eat only fresh foods you won't eat as much and there are fewer calories in real food than processed food. On average,  women should be eating about 1200 to 1500 calories a day. A man about 500 more calories a day. These are averages and it all depends on your activity level. The averages are pulled down because most people spend most of the day sitting.

Even those people who workout every day for one hour will only burn about 300 calories at most which shouldn't make a big difference in your diet. On my heavy workout days, I'll have a protein shake after the workout which does add almost 300 calories but it helps the aching muscles recover.

Two heavy workouts a week or maybe three if you're under 30 and then go easy on the recovery days
swimming or yoga; let your muscles recover and keep the calories under 2000 a day and you'll lose body fat.

If you really want to lose your body fat than look for my e-books at the websites listed below. You'll get information on Healthy eating, exercise, and diet. Instead of spending hours on the internet reading dozens of posts, you can save time by picking up one of my e-books. 

There are two e-books. “How Bad Do You Want To Lose Weight?” is available at all the online bookstores selling for $1.99. Go to any of the websites below and search the title to find my e-book. This book gives you all you need to lose weight without spending money on gym memberships, diet plans or meal plans. Look for my book. at Amazon.com, B&N.com, iBooks, Kobo.com, Scribd.com, or Gardner Books in the U.K.

My new e-book is available on Smashwords.com, just type “getting to a Healthy Weight” in the search box at the top of the home page.