Diet Plans

Lots of people tend to be relatively lost when it comes to creating a diet. Overall this does not need to be that difficult of a task, however. The following are the steps you need to take to get your diet in line this New Year.

• 1. Determine the number of calories you need to consume each day.

The best way to go about doing this would be real life observation, however often this is impractical. There are a variety of specific formulas you can use as well, many of which are online, but there is a more simple way.

Just take your current body weight and multiply by 9-12 calories per pound for weight loss, 13-14 for weight maintenance, and then 15-17 for weight gain.

This should give you a rough approximation on how many calories you need per day and after two weeks or so at this level, you can see if you are making progress and if not, either slightly reduce or increase them accordingly.

• 2. Determine if you'd prefer to go low-carb or high carb.

This is probably where most people get confused. The truth is that low-carb and high-carb can both work for weight loss, so long as total calories are in line (see above point). As long as this is the case, you will have no problems.

The trick is finding out which you feel better on. The reason some people do so well on low-carb is that this generally tends to blunt their hunger so they eat less. Couple that with it causes you to retain slightly less water and you will lose weight faster (although this water weight is temporary).

A good question to ask yourself to see which approach to use is how you feel after you eat a very large-carb-heavy meal. If you tend to feel sluggish and want to sleep, then you would do better on low-carb. If on the other hand you feel energized and fine, then you will likely do best on a moderate carb approach.

• 3. Set protein levels.

Aim to consume one gram of protein per pound of body weight. This is the best way to ensure you don't start to lose muscle mass and provide your body with enough amino acids. You can go up to 1.5-2 grams if you wish, however the extra will not be all that beneficial and will likely be just used as energy.

Keep in mind that each gram of protein has 4 calories total. So, if you are eating 140 grams of protein (you weigh 140 pounds), this would constitute 560 calories towards your daily total figured out above.

• 4. Determine remaining fat and carbohydrate totals.

The next step is formulating the rest of your diet. The make-up will now come from either fat or carbohydrates. You do not want to bring fat any lower than 15% however, so right now, multiply 0.15 by the total number you got in step one. This gives you how many fat calories minimum you should eat per day. Divide this by 9 (how many calories are in one gram of fat) and you now know the bare minimum grams of fat per day you should eat.

The remaining calories can be divided into fat or carbohydrates to suite your preferences. Keep in mind that there are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrates as well.

• 5. Ensure your set totals are correct.

Once you have that figure out, then simply ensure that all the numbers add up.

Take your total number of fat grams you're aiming for and multiply by 9.

Take your total number of protein grams and multiply by 4.

Take your total number of carbohydrate grams and multiply by 4 as well.

Then add up all these numbers and they should equal the number you figured out in step 1.

From here you now just need to start formulating your individual meals by doing research on the various calorie counts of foods and working them into your plan.

While this mathematical approach to dieting is slightly more work, it will definitely increase the chances that you experience success on your diet.