Calories vary from person to person but there's an average that can go up or down a bit. To know calories, you must consider age, gender, daily effort, weight, height, and age. After adding all these, you'll know how many calories you need to keep your current weight. If you want to lose weight, you need to cut 500 calories.

Scientists say to lose 1 kilo of fat, you need to burn 3500 calories. So cutting 500 calories daily will make you lose 1 kilo of fat weekly. But the human body doesn't work that precisely because, like we said, it depends on other factors too.

The sure way to lose fat is to burn it during workouts, eat healthy and useful foods, and count the nutritional values. There’s a famous saying about weight loss: "Burning fat is better than starving."

There are some points we'll talk about when calculating calories ...
 

Point one: Weight stability

Many people complain about this issue: after a period of healthy eating and exercise, the body stops losing weight and stays steady. This happens because the body gets used to the calories it absorbs and the effort spent burning them, so it stops burning stored fat. At these times, there are some solutions you should try to get your body burning again. They are:

1- Increase aerobic exercises.

2- Weight training might help break weight loss plateaus.

3- Cheat meal (it's a meal outside your diet plan containing a large amount of calories).

4- A change in fat, protein, and carb ratios.

You'll notice as your weight and body fat drop, losing more gets harder, and your body needs some tricks to keep losing weight. The weight loss journey isn't a straight line. it goes up and down constantly.

Element two: the minimum daily calories your body needs

It's tough to set a max calorie limit for daily intake, but there's a minimum no one should go below daily. This helps you keep doing your daily activities, focus, and have enough energy. That minimum is 1200 calories for women and 1500 for men.

So, don't follow any diet below these calories since it can harm your health and cause problems like stopping your period, losing muscle mass, constant tiredness, and lack of focus.

Element three: exercise level

Since burned calories during exercise are counted in daily calories burned, it's really hard to calculate this exactly because burn rates vary from person to person and time to time. But to keep exercise effective, you should do 20 minutes of cardio like brisk walking or jogging, then weight training. Weight training works better if done in shorter time with small rest periods.

Weight training will help you build muscle and tone your body to look fit. Weight exercises cause a calorie deficit that boosts your burn rate. This helps you lose fat faster and more.

Fourth element: Macro counting

Macros are the nutrients in food like fats, proteins, and carbs. Some nutrition experts rely on counting macros during weight loss. Keto diet is one that needs this trick. Some pros use this method to avoid depriving someone of any food. They just have them count macros of all foods they eat. So in the Fitness Garage app, we list all recipes and write the macros for each meal.

Fifth element: The solution for fat loss and muscle building

Most people on unhealthy diets lose muscle mass because they eat too little and lack nutrients. This is a big mistake. Sports and nutrition experts say muscles are the health organ, protecting the skeleton from injury. The common US diet has high protein, more than healthy fats and carbs, with calories over 1200 per day.

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