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One of the biggest things that is going to affect how much you lose is going to be what you eat, it is very important keep track of what you’re eating so that you have something to go by. So make a list of everything you eat in a day, do this for five days and average out the amount of calories you took in over those days. This will give you an idea of how many calories you get daily. Now calculate your daily caloric needs by using this daily caloric needs calculator. This is going to give you an idea as to how many calories you should be getting.

Now that you have these 2 figures the idea is to reduce you caloric intake by 250 calories a day for the first 2 weeks and then we will reduce it another 250 calories every week after that until you’re down to 500 calories below your daily caloric needs. This slow process will help your body to avoid going into shock from a sudden drop in calories and wanting to store more fat. This process may sound complicated but it’s not, take a look at the example below.

Let’s say we have a 26 year old male, 6’ 0”, 280 lbs. According to the Ideal weight calculator he should be around 140-186lbs. On average he is eating 3300 calories a day. According to the calculated daily needs he should be getting around 2965. So he is taking in 435 extra calories on average a day at this rate he would be gaining around a pound almost every two weeks assuming that his activity is low. So going by the above guidelines he would cut down his daily calorie intake to 3050 for the first 2 weeks, the next week after that he would drop his calorie intake to 2800, and the next week after that down to 2550 and so on and so forth until you’ve reached the goal of 500 calories below your daily need.

When cutting out food from your diet it is very important that you focus on high sugar/simple carb foods (candy, pop, cake, jam, donuts, any other sweets, etc). These types of foods will raise your blood sugar levels very quickly, promoting the release of insulin to regulate your now too high blood sugar. This release of insulin as stated in the Food Basics section will cause your body to convert any extra sugars not burned off into fat. Fast food and the sweets are in my opinion one of the biggest reasons why people who want to lose weight end up failing and giving up when they notice no change.

The foods that you want to stick to are foods that contain complex carbs like whole grain breads and cereals, nuts/seeds, vegetables, fruits, etc. and high protein low fat like chicken, turkey, and tuna. The reason you want to consume a higher amount of protein is because you’re going to be breaking down your muscles during your exercises and since protein is what repairs your muscles your going to need it.

As weird of a concept as this may seem, you also want to eat about 6 times a day instead of 3. The reasoning behind this is that by eating smaller meals 6 times a day it will keep your body’s metabolism speed up. The reason for this is that if you eat say one meal a day for example your body has to adjust and store more food so that it burns only that many calories a day where as If you eat 6 meals a day your body is getting almost constant food so it feels less need to slow down and conserve the food your eating as fat.

The order in which your body burns nutrients is carbohydrates, fats, and protein. So the idea is to eat enough carbohydrates to get your get your body started and then after those carbohydrates run out, your body will start burning off your stored fat. For this reason I would suggest getting a ratio of 50% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 20% fat. Using the above example you would take your targeted 3050 calories and break it down into the specified percentages. 3050 X 0.5 =1525 calories, 3050 X 0.3=915 calories, 3050 X 0.2=610calories. Then convert these calorie values into gram values(4cal=1gr carb/protein and 9cal=1gr of fat). The total ends up being roughly 380gr of complex carbs, 228 gr of protein, and 152 gr of fat.

A sample diet based on the above targeted values is shown below. The results are close and with exercise it will push it to where it’s supposed to be. Remember this is just an example diet If you would like to style one to your liking I got all the nutritional information from CalorieKing.com

Name of Food	Calories	Carbs	Protein	Fat
Meal 1
4 egg whites, 1 whole egg	143	2	21	5
2 slices of toast	130	24	5	2
½ tbsp margarine	50	0	0	5
375ml orange juice	208	40	3	1
Meal 2
Large Apple	125	30	1	1
Protein powder(45g)	180	4	37	1
8oz water	0	0	0	0
Meal 3
8oz chicken breast	373	0	72	8
1 cup corn	135	34	5	0
1 potato(mashed)	120	27	3	0
1 cup milk	120	12	8	5
Meal 4
1cup fruit sal.	120	29	1	0
1oz almonds(24-26)	169	5.5	6.3	15
8oz of water	0	0	0	0
Meal 5
1.5 cups spaghetti,meatballs,tomato sauce	495	60	30	18
1 cup Cooked from frozen mixed vegetables	105	24	5	0
Can pepsi	136	35	0	0
Meal 6
6oz Low fat fruit yogurt ½ oz chopped black walnuts	260	33	11	9
Protein powder(30g) + 1 banana	240	31	25	1
TOTALS	3109	391	233	71

The above meal plan is solely meant as a guide, and a visual example to help you create one of your own. You may use it as a template, you'll notice that recommended supplementations have not been added into the plan as I did not want to make it any more confusing than it already may be. Again if you have any questions make sure to go to the contact us section and drop me an email.