When embarking on a weight loss journey, it’s important to keep balance and moderation in mind. By cutting out too many calories, your body will go into starvation mode, meaning it tries to hold on to fat by slowing down metabolism, thanks to our caveman ancestors for that! Therefore, making weight loss even more difficult. Your metabolism will usually start to slow down after a week of strict dieting. To lose a kilo a week you must eliminate 3500 calories a week from your diet. This can be broken down into 500 cal per day. Whether it’s cutting 500 calories from your diet per day, or exercising that burns 500 calories, or even better cutting 250 calories from your daily requirement and exercising that burns 250 calories.

Therefore, on days you don’t exercise, you should cut 500 calories from your diet for that day. See below to calculate your current daily requirement and then do the math to calculate your new daily requirement to lose one pound per week. in general losing 1-2kg is healthy, more than that and you are mainly losing water and muscle. To help increase metabolism it is important to do weights, this helps to increase muscle which in turn chews up fat, 1 pound of muscle will burn 50 calories at rest! so get those muscles pumping! Don’t worry ladies, the most muscle a woman can build is 2-4kg. Men have the added benefit of testosterone to help increase the size of their muscles! If you’re a woman and find that you can gain muscle easily, it’s important to increase your cardio, such as running (best), walking, and cross-training, and do high reps of 12-20 reps for weight-bearing exercises.

Simple ideas to reduce calorie intake:

• cut white potato, eat only sweet potato
• cut out all processed foods like bread, cereal, cookies, candy, chocolate, ice cream (if it’s in a package, it’s usually processed)
• cut white rice and pasta
• Cut back on sugar (Just one teaspoon can weaken your immune system for up to 4 hours!) Use stevia instead (a natural sweetener found in health food stores)

Mainly eat:

• vegetables
• lean meat: steak, fish, chicken (without skin), kangaroo, turkey (size of a deck of cards, women weigh about 150g and men 200g)
• eggs
• plain low-fat yogurt, not vanilla!
• whole wheat muesli or whole grain porridge with cinnamon and stevia for taste (no honey or sugar)
• 2 pieces of fruit only

Some exercises that burn: (for a 70 kg person, if you weigh less you burn less, weigh more and burn more)

• 265 calories burned during 35 minutes of light jogging
• 420 cals burned during 1 hour of cycling
• 330 calories burned during 30 minutes of boxing
• 450 calories burned during 1 hour of high-intensity aerobics
• 370 calories burned during 30 minutes of jumping
• 260 calories burned during 30 minutes of moderate swimming
• 110 calories burned during 30 minutes of weights (remember this increases your metabolism so you end up burning more after you’ve done the work!)

To find out your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR):

• Your weight in kilos x 24.2 (for a 20-year-old woman)
• your weight in kilos x 24.2 – 2% (for a 30-year-old woman)
• your weight in kilos x 24.2 – 2% – 2% (for a 40-year-old woman) (for each decade minus another 2%)

For men:

Your weight in kilos x 26.2 and for each decade over 20 years – 2%

that is: if you are a 40-year-old woman and weigh 70 kg

70kg x 24.2 = 1694 – 2% = 1660

1660 – 2% = 1629 calories

1,629 – 500 = 1,129 calories on non-exercise days

1629 – 250 = 1379 calories on exercise days – 250 calories burned during exercise.

Do that every day for a week and you should lose 1kg.

note: 1 kg of fat = 3500 calories!