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Although there are general guidelines, about how many calories a male or female should eat, there are some variations. A lot depends on how much you already weigh and if you are overweight, if you are simply aiming to maintain your present weight, or if you want to put on or lose weight.

TRYING TO LOSE WEIGHT.

The more extra weight that you carry, the higher the amount of calories you can consume, initially, and still lose weight. If you are more than a couple of stone overweight you will probably start your diet at around 1500 to 1800 calories a day. This is for women and will give you a healthy, regular weight loss of a couple of pounds a week. A man would be more likely to be allowed 2000 to 2200 a day in the same situation.

It is best to allow yourself more calories at the start of a diet as, because you have more weight to carry around, you will burn of more calories daily. However, as your weight decreases, so will your calorie intake. If you have a stone or less to lose from day one of a diet then your daily intake shouldl be around 1,000 to 1,500 a day, if you are a female, and 1,500 to 2,000 a day if you are a male. These amounts are flexible as a lot will also depend on how old you are, how tall you are and whether your life is sedentary or active.

Women should never go below 1,000 calories a day, nor men below 1,500. If you lose weight with a weight loss of regular small amounts you are more likely to keep the weight off long term and also stick to your diet. A more stringent diet will be hard to maintain. Also very low calorie diets can be harmful to your health ,long term ,and you run the risk of causing yourself many health problems. Low calorie diets can also be lacking in some of the vital vitamins and nutrients that a healthy body needs to work well.

Once you have reached your target weight you should be able to follow a maintenance diet. This will mean that you keep an eye on your weight and calorie intake without being too strict. Having had the struggle to lose weight you don't want to put the weight straight back on, do you?. Usually a maintenance diet will be about 250 calories more than when you were dieting. Over the following weeks and months you will be able to monitor your weight and adjust your daily calorie intake, for example, increasing the amount of calories, if necessary.

TRYING TO PUT WEIGHT ON.

For all of us who struggle with keeping our weight down this is hard to understand. However, there are people who desperately want to gain

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