According to preventative medicine specialist, Donald Hensrud, losing weight is quite simple if you observe one simple rule. You must burn all of the calories that you consume in one day, and then burn some extra calories. In order to achieve this, you must carefully monitor what foods you eat and how big the portions are.

How Much You Should Eat

The first step in weight loss is to use a free calorie calculator to determine approximately how many calories you burn in one day. Type "calorie calculator" into the search bar of your favorite Internet search engine. Click the most relevant search result, and you will come to a screen that requests your height, weight, age, gender, and exercise level. Enter these figures and click the "Calculate" button. Now you know how many calories you burn in one day. The next step is take the number you received from the calculator and subtract 500 calories. Write that number on the first page of a brand-new journal and circle it with a marker. This is your new daily calorie intake, which will allow you to lose one pound of fat per week provided you maintain your current exercise regimen. Use your new journal to write down everything you eat and the number of calories in each item to ensure you are meeting, but not exceeding, your daily intake goal. Kim Roach of the "American Chronicle" recommends eating six small meals a day to ensure maximum weight loss. To figure out how much you should eat per meal, simply divide your target number of calories by six. This does not account for snacks. However, an article written by Anahad O'Connor for "The New York Times" confirms that the process of eating celery burns more calories than you are actually consuming. This is considered a "negative calorie food." Many fruits and vegetables are negative calorie foods, and they are a good choice if you want a snack but have no calories left to spare.

Source:

MayoClinic.com: Which is better for weight loss --- cutting calories or increasing exercise?

StraightHealth.com: Calorie Calculator

American Chronicle: Eat 6 Meals a Day for Maximum Weight Loss

Resource:

Health magazine: 50 Ways to Cut 500 Calories a Day

"The New York Times": The Claim - Some Foods Have Negative Calories