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[quote=Anonymous]Calorie tracking, done accurately, is a guaranteed method of weight loss.

1. First calculate your TDEE. You can google and use a free TDEE calculator. Put in your height, weight, and for the love of god please be realistic about your activity level. Most of us are sedentary. I am 5’3, 115 lbs, female, sedentary, so my current maintenance calories are 1,435 calories per day OR more accurately, 10,045 per week. When I was 160 lbs, my maintenance calories were about 1,700 per day or 11,900 per week. So at that time, my deficit goal was 1,200 calories per day (8,400 calories per week), a deficit of 500/day or 3500/week. **A 500 calorie deficit per day (3500 per week) equals 1 lb of weight loss per week.** To achieve this, it is super important to (a) know your actual maintenance calories and (b) know and stick to your deficit calories if you want to see results. The weekly calories matter a lot. If you eat at a deficit 5 days a week but at a surplus the other 2 days, you will maintain (not lose!) because you cancel out your deficit for those five days.

2. Buy a food scale. We are all terrible about guestimating serving sizes. Blame your own denial, American portions, whatever. But buy a cheap food scale and weigh all of your ingredients (weighing is massively more accurate than volume).

3. **Track everything!** Some things that seem very small are HUGELY calorically dense. Cooking and finishing oil, salad dressings, butter, etc have so much more calories than you’d expect. Just two tablespoons of olive oil is 240 calories. If you don’t track stuff like this, you are likely eating over your allotted calorie amount.

4. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Be honest with yourself about what you are eating. Maybe even confront why you are eating it. Understand that you will often feel hungry while in a calorie deficit. That is OK.

5. If all else fails, get on a GLP-1.

Food journaling can be nice and maybe it has its own value, but nothing will beat tracking and counting calories. If you actually want to lose weight, that’s the way to do it. [/quote]

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