The average American has no idea at all what the numbers on the side of the box stand for, and do not care. This is the reason we are the fattest people on Earth. It is lack of knowledge and desire. So let's start with knowledge of what's on the wrappers of food.
If you are not overactive, old, crippled or anything else that would keep you from hitting the average criteria for a human being, these statistics will be true. Everyone else must make adjustments to suit their needs. I can recommend using this page as Gospel until told otherwise by a professional that isn't taking your money to give you advise. Because if you pay for advise, then just send me some money and I will tell you anything you want to hear. The more you send me, the better the story will sound. Now back to the government statistics.
The average person needs to eat 15 calories per day to keep each pound of weight on them, so if you calculate your perfect weight at 100 pounds, then you need to eat 1500 calories. Easy huh? Not quite, but close. A shot of vodka has the same calories as a glass of beer, but one will get you a beer belly while you will starve to death trying to live on just vodka. Stupid, but true. A calorie is a mathematical calculation to determine how long it takes to melt a ton of ice. It is part of a BTU. You know, the numbers on your air conditioner or furnace. Confusing? Not really.
Your body burns fuel like a fire burns fuel. The difference between wood and coal may not be obvious to you at first, so let's compare tobacco and gasoline. These two fuels are burned and put off heat. Mostly tobacco is used in cigars and cigarettes but can also be used as chewing tobacco or snuff. If you have ever tried eating tobacco you will feel the burn, but I digress. Fuel is something that produces heat. A cigar burns at a different rate than gasoline and you can see that easily, so why would you be so argumentative about eating properly, when you know you would never heat your house with gasoline?
Take your desired weight and multiply it by 15 and that is the amount of calories you are supposed to eat each day to reach that weight eventually. Then you will have to eat that many calories per day for the rest of your life. Or at least this is close enough for the calculations we are doing here. If you disregard all drinks, and do not add in stupid things like chewing tobacco, you have a decent number to shoot for with a diet. But remember that each calorie you drink has to be taken off what you eat, so no Pepsi, Coke, Budweiser, milk, chocolate shakes, orange juice, tea with honey, coffee with cream, ice cream after it has melted, or anything except pure booze, because that has no nutritional value whatsoever.
Now you know how much to put in your mouth. But how do you know which food is the good stuff and which is the bad stuff without asking? Sure you think you know, but you were the person who didn't even know how to read the label, remember? Did you know you could chop down a tree and eat it? What part is best for you? Which is more fattening, the squirrel or the nuts it eats? And can humans live off hot fudge Sundae's exclusively? I have a better question. How many starving children can be fed by a fat person? The answer is "none, the fat person always eats the food".
So now when you go on a diet, you do not have to have a calorie counter because you know how to do it your self. For weight loss, just calculate whatever you feel is a fair way to go about dieting and do it.
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