If I was to make you a simple, 5 step, low-cost, nutritional lifestyle starter kit, it would be this. 3

I really want to help people. I want to help people to lose weight or gain weight, or manage their weight and health and life to get to their goals, but people’s history, culture, and experience with weight management and the rest often gets in the way of their progress. I want to say “It’s so easy!” but in reality, getting started is kind of not-easy. People tell me that the 10 steps I proposed make sense, but are perhaps a little too complicated for their nutritional lifestyle.

I hear you.

You have to learn a few things about yourself. You will likely have to read. Be vigilant about what you put allow in your mouth and mind, and you have to know what’s best to put allow there. Perhaps most importantly, you have to be honest with yourself, which may also mean forgetting what you ‘know‘ about weight, eating, and nutrition. None of this is easy, and it’s really hard to not do those things and be successful. It gets easier as you go though.

The rest is a lot simpler than I’ve proposed it here. I’ve written a few posts that go into fine, glorious (some have said ‘too much‘, whatever that means) detail of what to do to get started, but in this post I want to try to simplify what you need to do.

A simple 5-step starter kit to managing your weight, health, and life (with suggested solutions).

1. Use your existing scale, or get a good scale and weigh yourself, at least once a week. Write it down, every time. Then, use weight x 10 to find your generalized metabolic rate.

My scale is amazing. It tells me my weight and body fat content, and wirelessly reports it to a chart on a website, but you don’t need my scale to lose weight. [EDIT: I use the Fitbit Aria Wi-fi Smart Scale, Black]

Let’s say you discover you are 200 pounds with your scale. With some disregard for height and other factors, an easy rule of thumb is that to stay at that weight, you have to eat about 10 times your numeric weight (pounds) in calories. So 200 x 10 = 2000 calories a day will keep you at about 200 pounds, if you don’t go out of your way to exercise, but rather just go about your day. There are far more exact numbers, but this is the simple, generalized  version of your metabolic rate. I’d suggest this scale for $30.

Ozeri Precision Pro II Digital Bathroom Scale, 440 LB Capacity Tempered Glass Platform with Step-on Activation

2. Use the formula (weight x 10) – 500 to find your calorie deficit and lose a pound a week.

Use the metabolic rate you determined above (in our example, it’s 200 x 10 or 2000 calories) and subtract 500 from it (a result of 1500 calories). In our example above, the 200 pound person should eat about 1500 calories to lose about a pound a week. There are better, more accurate options for determining this, but this should still work for most. When this imaginary person gets to 1500 calories in a 24 hour period, they should stop eating. One warning: unless you are especially short, like 4 feet tall, don’t eat less than 1200 calories, please. Also, if you exercise, you’ll likely lose more per week.

3. Get a very portable notepad, and write what you eat, every little thing. everyday.

I record all my calories on a web site, but you don;t need to do that. But you must know what you are eating to assess whether it is too much, too little, or just right for your goals. Your notepad will tell you how much energy you still get to eat for the day, and how much you have already consumed. Here is a ledger style pad, which speaks to my calories as money analogy, for about $4.

Wilson Jones Line Memo Book, Dollar and Cents Format, 144 Pages (WS50A)

4. Get a good calorie count book to discover the calories in the food that you are eating. Write those calories down next to the foods you eat.

I use a web site for my calories, but you don’t have to. There are many, but I would get a more recent one, after some of the calorie posting laws have gone into effect for chains, many more calories are now available. This one is for 2012, and has just about everything you need to know now for about $9.

The CalorieKing Calorie, Fat, & Carbohydrate Counter 2012

5. Find out how much you should weigh for your height, weight, age, and gender.

I use a web site to manage my weight monitoring, but you need not do this. Here’s a chart from the generous friends at http://www.disabled-world.com/ that tells you what you should weigh.

Simplified male and female height to weight ratios for adults, copyright with implied permission to share and re-use with attribution. ©disabled-world.com

6. That’s it. There is no 6.

Go get your $30 scale, $9 book, and $4 notepad, and start losing a pound a week. It could not be simpler than this.

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