For most of us, our food choices will have the biggest impact on whether or not we will loose weight. In general, we know that daily caloric intake should be our weight multiply by 10. Then you throw in some multipliers such as your activity level plus your age, and voila! You arrive at your “magic number” on what you need to eat in order to loose weight. You can either eat less or burn more (exercise) to reach the “magic number.”

As a teen, I was lazy. So I would always choose to eat less. As a slightly overweight adult, I would always choose to eat more (and think that it is okay since I am exercising). I probably had it right as a teen.

What 200 calories look like?

For those of us within 10-15 pounds of our highest acceptable weight, eating 200 calories less a day would cause us to start shedding weight at a healthy rate. If you yo-yoed with your weight previous, you know that loosing 5-10 pounds a week means you will gain it all back once you stop. That is not acceptable. We want to loose it permanently and we never want to re-gain it. Slow and steady like the tortoise will win this race.

So what does 200 calories look like? It is easier than you think.

Half of a store brought muffin.

4 lollipops

8 kisses

Half of a Jack in the Box chicken sandwich

For more pictures of what 200 calories look like, you should check out Wise Geek. If you are only eating 200 less everyday without exercise, that means we should loose 1 pound every 18 days at a 200 calorie daily deficit.

What 300 calories look like?

What if you are willing to eat 300 calories less everyday? It should be no real hardship either if we are willing to give up some junk food.

17 gummy bears

4 slices of white bread

About 2 oz of potato chips

1.5 Snickers bar

If you are only eating 300 less everyday without exercise, that means we should loose 1 pound every 12 days at a 300 calorie daily deficit. For more pictures of what 300 calories look like, you should check out Health Assist.

If your current diet consists mostly of the items in these pictures, you might want to try eating some vegetables or fruits as replacement. If you look at the other pictures from the sources I linked, you will see that you need to eat A LOT of vegetables or fruits in order to reach 200 or 300 calories. Here’s an idea, why not replace some of the food you eat with 200 calories worth of vegetables or fruit each day? Do not, under any circumstances, use this information to learn to “cheat the system” like Goodbye to All Fat. But then again, I cannot say with a straight face that I have never cheated either.

Most people will find it a difficult to decrease their daily caloric intake from eating less by more than 300 calories. It is recommended that for people seriously trying to loose weight to decrease any additional calories by burning it off with exercise. How much exercise? A good start would be to match the calories you burn with the calories you are not eating. 200 calories is about 30-40 minutes of walking at a moderate pace (meaning you can still talk, but slightly breathless). 300 calories is about 40-50 minutes of walking at a moderate pace. Do not have that block of time to walk? Break it up.

Until next time and thanks for stopping by.

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