The amount of calories you need depends on what physical activity you do daily. Today we’re going to look at how many calories you need to lose weight. This amount varies depending on your unique lifestyle. We can generally categorize what your calorie intake should be based on these 5 different activity levels. Those that would receive the most benefit from these tips are those wanting to lose up to 10-25 pounds.

No Job and no Extracurriculars

This level is the most sedentary level, this person does almost no activity daily and usually doesn’t go out much. At most, this person just eats, sleeps, and walks around the house.  If you fall in this activity level, you’d have to highly restrict your caloric intake if you want to lose weight. Take your body weight in pounds and multiply that by 9, and that’s your daily caloric intake goal.

The Office Job

This person has a typical sit-at-work type of job, with minor movements to go to meetings, file papers away, drive to and from work. If this level of activity happens to describe your daily life, then you will need take your body weight in pounds and multiply that by 9 and make this your average daily caloric intake spread from 4-6 meals per day.

The Fast Food/Retail Employee

A little bit more activity, this level of activity almost lets you eat as much as you want without worrying about gaining weight. If you fall under this category of physical of activity, take your body weight in pounds and multiply it by 12, make this your daily caloric intake.

The Stay at home Mom with lots of Children

The fast-paced individual, this person is wildly busy everyday, running around making errands, taking care of multiple issues at once, all day everyday. If you fall in this category, I honestly don’t know how or why you’d be having trouble with losing weight and getting a nice set of toned six pack abs.  But if you are having trouble losing weight still, you might not be eating enough, take your current weight and multiply it by 15, and make this your daily caloric intake you busy person you.

The Athlete/Trainer/Labor Intensive Worker

The super busy and highly active individual, if you happen to fall under this level of activity you should be posing for all kinds of fitness magazines left and right. This person is doing a lot physical exercise and can pretty much eat whatever he or she wants barring the very bad stuff like fast food and microwaved foods. If you fall under this category, congratulations you don’t really have to restrict your caloric intake much, but if you do still have trouble losing weight, restrict your calories to 17 times your weight in pounds and use this as reference for your daily caloric intake.

Remember, fat burn doesn’t just deal with how many calories you need to lose weight. To make this guide more effective in helping you lose weight, try to get your daily calories from “smart” foods that taste great. I put together my personal list of foods that work great, you can read about it here: Foods That Burn Belly Fat.

For specifics on tasty and healthy foods to make, I always highly recommend Isabel De Los Rios’ The Diet Solution, it’s loaded with tons of information about food types and why you haven’t been able to lose weight and how to counteract it.

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Contrary to popular belief, exercising isn’t the only way to lose weight, it is in fact something you should indeed do though if you want to burn fat. But it isn’t required for you to get in the slimmest body of your life.  In this article we’re going to look at how to lose weight without exercise.

This is great for those who are pressed on time and can’t squeeze in time to workout.  First, you need to find out what your target daily calorie intake is. Mine is about 2,000 calories. Take this number and subtract 500 from it, this way, if you maintain that daily caloric intake, you will lose one pound of fat per week, it’s not fast weight loss, but that goes beyond the scope of this article.

So if I wanted to lose one pound per week, I’d consume 1,500 calories daily, spread from 4-6 small meals a day, which brings up my next point.

Did you know that the more times your body takes in calories, the more calories your body burns? One of the ways how to lose weight without exercise is to plan out 4-6 meals during the day, it stimulates your metabolism to burn more fat. This works well for those who work  a lot, just take a few small snacks and homemade lunch to work, keep your calories low!

Here’s something most people are NOT going to like, but it’s absolutely important, reduce your sugar intake! Why? Sugar is one of, if not, the primary reason people just can’t seem to lose weight. The more sugar your ingest in your body, the more insulin your body produces and releases.

What is insulin? It’s a natural hormone your body releases, its function is to make your body RETAIN fat, not expend it as energy. Sugar also causes fatigue, as explained by world renowned nutritionist Isabel Del Los Rios. You don’t have to completely remove sugar, just reduce it.

Increase your hydration, one of reasons people can’t rid their bodies of impurities is because they lack water! Drink more water to lose weight and clean out your system. Most people need about 100 ounces of water daily for optimum health, shoot for that. It’s not entirely necessary to buy tons of water bottles, even tap water is okay if you use an average boiling pot as it kills all bacteria found in tap water.

Get plenty of sleep! Lacking sleep can greatly affect your body’s natural ability to function properly and burn fat. Try to get 8-9 hours of sleep nightly, it can be difficult for very busy people but it’s most definitely worth the rewards.

Be active! I know you are probably thinking “I wish I could, I’m so busy so I can’t be active!” but that’s not exactly what I’m referring to here, I’m saying that you should keep your body moving until it’s time for bed. This increases your metabolism and stimulates your mind and awareness level.

Eat the right foods, eating is the other most important step to lose weight other than exercising, but by eating certain foods you will not need to exercise to lose weight. Here you can read more about my list of the top 10 foods that burn belly fat. Weight loss is determined 80% by eating and 20% from exercise so this is absolutely vital for what we’re working on here.

If you’d like more specifics on foods and recipes, I highly recommend taking a look at Isabel’s wildly successful Diet Solution.

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For the longest time, I would do my runs without any music, I figured I didn’t really need it since I’m running to better myself, not to enjoy music.  But as I saw more and more people running with music players I wanted to try it so I did a lot of research on which music player is the best mp3 player for running.

I basically had two options, either I go with the iPod Nano or the Sandisk Clip +. After looking at both players, according to many many reviews I found on forums, I found that the iPod is more pricey, has a cool factor to it, but also the battery tends to drain fast.

The Sandisk Clip + received very good reviews and was a lot more affordable compared to the Apple product, both players are great for general use, but I wanted one that would go great with indoor and outdoor training/running. I ended up going with the Sandisk Clip + because of the great reviews, looks great, is long lasting, and the price is just right.

I’ve had it for about a month, and this little device is a real winner, I’ve only had to recharge it once this whole time though I really only use it for my running exercises, I only loaded it without about 40 songs.

I was surprised how much listening to music can have an impact on your running performance, needless to say my speed and endurance increased and my 3 mile run was cut by 3 minutes upon first use! I guess the constant exhilaration and adrenaline really helps.

So I recommend that if you haven’t already picked up an mp3 player, I say the Sandisk Clip + is the best mp3 player for running hands down.  If you are in the market, go get one!

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