The low calorie diet (under 1200 calories per day) is still one of the most popular ways to lose weight. Whether it’s an online plan, the latest fad diet, or a plan designed on software, most of these diets drastically cut calories to produce quick results. These plans often help you achieve your goal weight and do it quickly but at what expense? It’s common knowledge that cutting back on calories is necessary in order to shed pounds but an extremely low calorie diet is your metabolism’s worst enemy. Your body needs a certain amount of calories to survive (basal metabolic rate) plus a little more to support your activity level (active metabolic rate). When you severely restrict calories your body resorts to using lean muscle mass for fuel because it’s not getting enough from your diet. And contrary to popular belief, no amount of exercise or protein will help you maintain muscle if you’re starving yourself.

Some people don’t seem to have a problem with this but they don’t realize the impact that muscle loss has on weight maintenance and weight gain. Once you lose the weight and a good amount of lean muscle mass you become a thinner but fatter person. Your body composition will show that even though you’re at your desired weight you have more fat than muscle which means that your body needs even less calories to survive. If you plan on maintaining a low calorie intake for the rest of your life this may not be a problem but most people can’t do that. They go back to their normal eating habits and soon enough they gain the weight back in the form of fat. The task of losing the weight again then becomes even more difficult because there is a lot more fat and a lot less muscle to help burn off that fat.

Another problem with low calorie dieting is that it triggers your body’s starvation mode. Your body perceives a famine so it conserves energy by slowing down your metabolism. In addition to this, low calorie dieting teaches your body to be more efficient at fat storage in case of future famine. So once you go back to your old eating habits, which most people invariably do, the weight gained will most likely get stored as fat. So how much can you cut back without triggering a fasting state, turning on fat storage, burning off valuable muscle, and depressing your metabolism? A 500-calorie a day deficit is the best way to safely and effectively lose weight long term but first you have to determine your ideal calorie intake by using a bmr/amr calculator. This will tell you how many calories your body needs to survive (bmr) and how many calories your body needs to support your activity level (amr). Once you have your number subtract 500 calories a day from your amr (not your bmr) and you have your ideal calorie intake.

Most women need at least 1300 calories just to survive so don’t be surprised if your ideal calorie intake (amr – 500) is a lot higher than to what you are accustomed. Women who exercise often have even higher numbers. An amr of 2400 is not uncommon for someone who strength trains 4-5 times a week and does cardio 4-5 times a week. A 500-calorie deficit for someone like this would equal to 1900 calories per day and although it sounds like an outrageous number of calories for weightloss it’s necessary. Just think of it this way, if you don’t eat enough you don’t lose weight, plain and simple. The advantage to calculating your ideal calorie intake this way is that you will no longer need to starve yourself in order to lose weight and your body will function better and work with you instead of against you.

If you're really looking to burn off that fat the best strategy is to begin strength training and add some fat burning muscle. 1 lb of muscle burns 50 calories and muscle in general helps you burn more calories all day (even while you sleep) while fat is metabolically dead weight. Get started by checking out the free workouts on this site or by visiting the exercise site