By the numbers ...

So if you do not know it already, I want to ensure that you do. If you want to lose weight, you MUST burn more calories than you consume. Yes, there is such a thing as nutritional value but you have to start somewhere. If you consume 2300 calories today and you burn 500 calories, then your net total for the day is 1800 calories. But how do we know if that is enough to help us lose weight? Great question!
Here is a general rule of thumb:
Take your current weight and multiply it by 13. This will be your caloric total to maintain your current weight. Your daily net total must fall below that line if you want to lose weight.
For example: My starting weight was 215lbs.
215 X 13 = 2795
Thus, if I wanted to stay 215, I could eat 2,795 calories every day and do so. However, I wanted to lose weight. In order to lose 1lb/week I would have to eat 500 calories less each day. So, my net total would be 2,295. If I wanted to lose 2lbs per week, I had to be 1,000 calories under each day. So my new total was 1,795. Now, does that mean I could ONLY eat 1795 calories each day?
Not necessarily. It all depends on how hard I want to work. If I wanted to skip working out all together, then I could only consume that many calories, 1795. However, If I ran for 1 hour and burned 600 calories, then I could eat 2,395 calories that day because my net would still equal to 1795.
2395 (consumed) – 600 (burned) = 1795 net total.
This is the most basic and straight forward science to weight loss. You must start here. If not, it will be like trying to do calculus before learning to do fractions. We will eventually talk more about nutritional value. We all know that 250 calories from fruit and vegetables is much better than 250 calories from bacon. However, you can still lose weight if your net total is lower than you current allotted calories. I promise! I was 215lbs on Thanksgiving Day. This morning I weighed 179lbs. That should be enough proof! Trust me.