Body composition

When it comes to counting the calories you ingest in order to lose weight there are a number of things to consider.

The first is body composition. Basing calorie intake purely on body weight is wrong. Your body composition, lean muscle tissue to fat ratio, is far more important.

The more lean muscle tissue you have the more energy (i.e. calories a.k.a. food intake) you use up just to maintain that tissue.

I believe the bodybuilding lifestyle is ideal for attaining ideal weight and health. Resistance training will actually build muscle (provided you get sufficient protein and nutrients) so that your body burns more calories even while resting.

So if you’ve got some scales you also need a set of body calipers to get an assessment of your body fat percentage. These can be very expensive but you can get a very simple set for about $20 which are pretty good. They are the Accu-Measure body fat calipers. Simple to use on yourself and with easy to understand instructions.