It's Not in Your Jeans, But it's in Your GENES

Age, your sex, and your metabolic rate help determine how many calories are needed to maintain your current state of health and weight. Let's uncover other factors that are important in determining your caloric needs and healthy weight. Your genes play a huge role in determining your BMR and body's caloric needs. And you can't really change this factor. This is why two people with the same height, weight, and activity level can have different caloric needs. So when your friend who's the same size, height, and weight as you can eat just about anything they want and not gain weight, while you struggle with that extra piece of fruit you know why.

2) It's Your Shape (How You Look) that will SHAPE You!
As we discussed earlier, if you have more muscle you will need to burn more calories just to meet your basic caloric needs. So if you're solid and built like a weight lifting linebacker, you'll have a greater portion of muscle to fat. If however, you have more fat than muscle, you'll require less calories. If you're built larger than most, you'll need more calories than a person of average size of the same sex and age. The more you weight the more calories you'll need to burn.

Simple Equation - Calories In to Calories Out
The more active you are, the more calories you will burn. If you're burning more calories than you take in, you'll lose weight. It's a simple formula. So depending on your activity level, you may be increasing your caloric needs, even beyond the actual exercise itself, because of the added benefit of an increase metabolism during the day. Resistance training, in particular, is very useful in helping to develop muscle which burns more calories.

Keep It Simple and See Your Results Happen

Your overall level of health and ability to lose weight is tied fairly closely to the amount of calories you ingest everyday. The simple formula of less calories in vs. calories out will put you in a slight caloric deficiency that will allow you to lose weight. The reverse is also true. So take into account your age, sex, metabolic rate, shape, and activity level in helping to either maintain your ideal weight or to help you lose those unwanted pounds.