It is as simple as that. Monitor your calories for food intake and monitor your calories burned during daily exercise activity. Just make sure that the calories burned are greater than the calories eaten!
Tracking Calories
How can I do this you say? Well, there are a number of FREE websites/apps out there that allow you to accomplish this rather easily.
There are many calorie counting web sites/apps out there such as caloriecount.com. Some track only calories and not exercise. Some do track them, but not very well. I have yet to find one that tracks both perfectly. However, there are some that make a valiant attempt.
I personally don't like the name of the site, but fatsecret.com offers a way to log your daily food intake via web or a free app Calorie Counter, that actually will allow you to scan a bar code with your phone and instantly give you the nutritional breakdown of the item. Simply modify your potions and enter it into your daily log. The app also allows you to track daily exercise by adding an activity and choosing the amount of time spent.
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| Fat Secret's Calorie Counter app |
MapMyFitness.com offers daily food consumption tracking, but lacks a barcode scanner to make it more precise. It also maintains a daily target calorie budget which seems a little high to me if you want to be losing weight. What it does have though, is the ability to track outdoor exercise relatively precisely via GPS through the phone app. That is, if you go for a 4 mile walk and track it with the app, it will closely calculate the calories you consumed and log it for you. It also has a very extensive list of exercises to choose from. Including sex! Afterall, you can burn almost 80 calories per hour depending on your sexual prowess.
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| MapMyFitness exercise and food consumption tracking app |
MyFitnessPal.com is another good food consumption tracker in that it allows you use a scanner to quickly calculate calories consumed and the nutritional breakdown. It also accurately calculates your daily target calories which is important for losing weight. Where is lacks is tracking exercise. However, when you sign up you are given the option to link your account with various other exercise tracking accounts/apps such as Endomondo.com which also features GPS tracking ability of many exercises. Although the list of exercises offered are not detailed, which, if you like to keep it simple, is a good thing. I personally use Endomondo and I find that it more accurately calculates calories compared to others.
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| MyFitnessPal calorie tracking app |
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| Endomondo exercise tracking app which can be linked with MyFitnessPal which tracks calories consumed |
There are many others out there, you just have to find the one that suits your needs the best which may differ from someone else's!
