If I Weigh 300 Pounds How Many Calories Should I Eat To Lose Weight? The amount of calories you should eat and the rate at which you’ll lose weight depends on a variety of factors and can vary widely based on individual circumstances – so first you have to find out more about yourself, including where you are now nutrition-and-healthy-living-wise. You can calculate how many calories you need to lose weight using the Harris-Benedict Equation.
Estimating Calorie Needs for a 300-Pound Man
A quick way to estimate calorie needs for a man is to multiply weight in pounds by a number between 14 and 18, depending on his activity level. Using this estimate, a sedentary 300-pound man would need about 4,200 calories per day to maintain his weight. To lose each pound of fat, you need burn 3,500 calories more than you eat. Eating 500 fewer calories each day can help you lose about 1 pound per week, or 1,000 fewer calories per day will result in about 2 pounds of weight loss per week. This would generally mean eating between 3,200 and 3,700 calories per day.
While this won’t result in extremely fast weight loss, it is a healthy rate of weight loss, and it can be easier to stick with a diet that doesn’t require drastic cuts in calories. Faster weight loss than this may also mean you lose a greater percentage of muscle, which can slow your metabolism and make it more likely you’ll gain the weight back. Don’t eat fewer than 1,800 calories per day, as this could cause your metabolism to slow down.
You may lose weight more quickly at first, but at some point in your weight-loss journey, losing 2 pounds each week might become too aggressive. As you get closer to your goal weight, smaller weight loss will become the norm. Also, keep in mind that as you lose weight, your calorie needs go down, so at some point you may need to recalculate your caloric needs to keep losing weight.
Recommended Dietary Changes for Weight Loss
Avoid skipping meals, and limit foods high in fat or sugar, including sweetened beverages, candy, ice cream, snack foods and baked goods. Instead, eat mainly whole foods, such as whole grains, lean protein foods, vegetables and fruits.
Start your meals off with broth-based soup, nonstarchy vegetables or other foods that are low in energy density, or calories per gram. A study published in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics in 2012 found that diets low in energy density may help with weight loss. This is because low-energy-density foods can fill you up on relatively few calories, so you’re less likely to overeat during the rest of your meal.
Make sure that all of your meals and snacks contain protein, which helps to increase satiety. An article published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition recommends getting 25 to 30 grams of protein per meal for weight-loss benefits. This can be as simple as eating 1 cup of quinoa with a 3-ounce serving of tuna or 3 ounces of chicken breast with an ounce of mozzarella cheese. A 1/4-cup serving of dry-roasted soybeans and a cup of milk will also provide about 25 grams of protein.
Aerobic Exercise Plan for Weight Loss
Increasing the amount of exercise you get throughout the day will help you burn more calories and potentially speed up your weight loss. The American Heart Association doesn’t recommend large increases in the amount of time you spend exercising until after you’ve lost at least 10 percent of your current weight, or about 30 pounds for a 300-pound man, if your body mass index is 40 or above.
Those with a lower BMI should aim to get 30 to 60 minutes of low-intensity, low-impact exercise most days of the week. This could be swimming, cycling or walking. These workouts offer a safer alternative to high-impact exercise like step aerobics or running, which can stress your joints if you have overweight.
You can break exercise sessions into smaller blocks of 10 minutes or so and gradually work up to longer periods of exercise and exercising at a higher intensity. Walking for 30 minutes at a pace of 3 miles per hour burns about 245 calories for a 300-pound man. Other options if walking is too tiring include modified jumping jacks where you raise your arms while tapping out to the side with alternating feet or boxing workouts where you practice the various types of punches to get your heart rate up. Find a few aerobic workouts you enjoy and rotate them in your routine to avoid boredom.
Adding Resistance Training to Increase Weight Loss
Although resistance training doesn’t burn a lot of calories, it can help make sure that you lose mainly fat instead of muscle. The more muscle you have, the more calories you burn even when you’re at rest, so resistance training can also increase weight loss. A study published in Diabetes Care in 2010 found that resistance training paired with a high-protein diet helped increase weight loss and improve body composition in people with type-2 diabetes compared to a high-protein diet alone. Aim for two workouts per week including exercises that focus on all of the major muscles in the body.
Modified versions of body-weight exercises can be a good place to start, such as sitting in a chair and getting up again, wall pushups and stepping on and off of a step, and as you get more fit you can do a more difficult version. For example, squats onto a stability ball against the wall and then holding onto a chair back or wall for balance instead of sitting and getting up.
Other options include using soup cans or light weights to do arm curls, side arm raises and front arm raises, using heavier weights as your muscles get stronger. There’s no need to use fancy exercise machines or get down on the floor if this is difficult for you.
A fitness professional can help develop a program tailored to your physique and fitness levels to help you safely retain muscle as you lose weight.
How Many Calories Should You Eat To Lose Weight?
The following article is a quick step-by-step guide to estimate how many calories you should eat to lose weight, which is a question I’m asked all the time. When someone says lose weight, I take it to mean “lose fat without losing muscle”, so the following takes that into account.
In my article How To Break A Weight Loss Plateau, I describe the #1 reason why people do not lose weight is because they are eating too many calories. In order to lose weight, you must eat fewer calories than you burn. This is a scientific fact!
Eating fewer calories than you burn is easier said than done, which is why we’ve written so many articles on BuiltLean.com to make this process easier for you.
Here’s the basic equation to calculate how many calories you should eat to lose weight:
Calorie Burn – Calorie Deficit = Target Calorie Intake To Lose Weight
Seems simple enough, right? In order to solve this equation, we need to estimate your calorie burn and calorie deficit, which is Step 1 and Step 2.
Step 1: Calculate How Many Calories You Burn Per Day
While calculating your calorie burn can be tricky as I describe in detail in How to Calculate Your Calorie Burn, here’s a quick way to estimate your calorie burn:
Body Weight (pounds) x 14 = Total Daily Calorie Burn
Or in kilos:
Body Weight (kilos) x 31 = Total Daily Calorie Burn
The equations above assumes (1) you have a sedentary job, (2) you exercise moderately 3-5x per week and (3) your body fat is around 20%-25%. Don’t worry too much if you are not perfect with your estimate, just move to the next step.
Step 2: Determine Your Calorie Deficit Per Day
Many people will choose a random daily calorie deficit say 500, or 1000 calories, but I strongly recommend NOT doing this, because you can easily put yourself in starvation mode. Instead, choose a calorie deficit percentage range of 20%-35% fewer calories than your total calorie burn.
For example, take a guy who is 190 pounds and wants an aggressive calorie deficit to lose weight. He would take his total daily burn of 2,660 (190 pounds x 14) and apply a 30% calorie deficit, which would be 800 calories (30% x 2,660). His target calorie intake to lose weight is 1,860 calories per day (2,660 daily calorie burn – 800 calorie deficit).
Now if you multiply your daily calorie deficit by 7, you get your total weekly calorie deficit. Since 1 pound of fat has 3500 calories, you can estimate how many pounds of fat you can lose each week (usually 1-2 pounds) based on your weekly calorie deficit.
If these equations are starting to seem too complicated, a shorthand method to arrive at your target calorie intake to lose weight is multiply your bodyweight x 10 in pounds, or bodyweight x 22 in kilograms. You will arrive at a very similar number as going through these 3 steps. I think going through these steps, however, helps you understand the process of losing fat better.
Most health organizations recommend men don’t eat below 1,600 calories and women don’t eat below 1,200 calories, but keep in mind this is a law of averages approach. It really depends on how many calories you burn
So how large of a deficit should you create? The leaner you are the lower your calorie deficit percentage should be (15-20%) whereas for people who have a lot of weight to lose, a 35% deficit could work well.
Step 3: Track Your Progress
In order to validate that you have estimated your calorie burn properly and are eating the right calorie level, we need a way to track your progress. I’m a big fan of tracking body weight with Monday Morning Weigh Ins for all guys and some women (depends on if you are comfortable). If you have any issues with weighing yourself, then monitor how your clothes are fitting, or use a body fat caliper to measure body fat changes over time.
Weighing yourself is a proxy for body fat loss. If you are eating ample protein, moderate carbs, and strength training, it is highly likely if the number on the scale creeps downward that you are losing only fat while keeping your valuable muscle. Measuring your body fat percentage too frequently, such as once per week makes it difficult to discern changes.
So have we found the holy grail of losing fat? Simply choose a target calorie intake and voila, you get a lean body?
Losing fat is more complex than simply “calories in and calories out” and establishing a target calorie intake. For optimal fat loss, you should also consider the quality of calories, timing of calories, and breakdown of calories (protein, carbs, and fat). Finally, positive hormonal and metabolic changes from exercise can accelerate losing fat and have a HUGE impact.
The 5 Simple Tricks That Helped Me Lose 300 Pounds
1. Every Day Is A Fresh Start
When her progress stalled, or she made mistakes, Reed did not despair. “Small changes eventually add up to big results,” she says. She thinks that you do not live in the gym or spend too much money. You need to focus on your daily habits, diet, and moving more; your weight will gradually reduce.
2. It Takes A Village
The crowd that followed Reed on the social channel and that looked to her for inspiration is another major contributor to her success. “When I started documenting my journey, I wasn’t looking for a following, but to help just one person—myself,” she says. “The fact that I have a million people [1.1 million followers and counting] to help pushes me to live by example every single day.”
3. Don’t Diet
Reed did not follow any meal plan. She just aimed to consume more vegetables, protein, and fewer carbs. Foods that are naturally colorful tend to be rich in fiber, vitamins and minerals, and low in calories and fat. Fill your plate with yellow, red, and green vegetables and salad for minimum fattening potential and maximum nutrients. She often eats salad daily. “I eat salad almost daily as either a snack or a way to get my vegetables in. To be honest, I didn’t eat any salad at the beginning of my journey or any vegetables before, and at one point I thought to be healthy meant living off of salad,” she says. She took the foods she loved and made healthier versions.
4. Patience Is Paramount
You should remember that change will not happen overnight. “The first place I saw change was in my face, but since I had so much to lose, it wasn’t for about a month before I saw results. I just had to remind myself that change takes time and it’s a marathon—not a sprint,” she says. Reed dropped 224 pounds in the first year of her weight loss journey.
5. Change Your Therapy
Reed has to change her relationship with food. “Previously, I was an emotional eater and loved anything fried. I learned that the gym could be a better form of therapy than food ever made me feel,” she explains.
If you are planning to lose fat, you can follow these five tricks of Reed to help achieve your goal. For more other such articles, you can visit our main News & Facts. If you know other ways for weight loss, please share with us in the comment box below.