Please give me some tips improve my marks?

How am I doing so far with this? Please give any tips on how to improve!?

• So my goal is this Summer to lose 20-30 pounds. I dont know ANYTHING much about losing weight and I especially dont know a thing about diet. Today, I woke up late. At 10:00 I ate oatmeal- 130 cal. And an apple- um IDK how many calories that was. Ive been drinking water. I havent got my excersize in but will very soon. It is 1:35 now and my stomach has been grumbling- they say you only eat when you are hungry. I prepared 1 serving of grilled chicken and Im gonna eat that. It is around 200 cal. And as I said, I am only drinking water.... And I ate a serving of fat free, sugar free vanilla pudding- that was 80 calories. Am I doing good so far? Any tips? In about 20 minutes I am going walking/jogging.... Any suggestions on what I SHOULD eat and WHEN? Thanks!!!

• Answer:

  Healthy weight loss usually is slower than most people would like. You don't say how much you weight already but a general rule of thumb for healthy loss is no more than a pound or so a week. If you figure out how many calories a day you need to maintain your weight and then subtract 500 you will lose a pound every week (1lb fat=3500 cal). Any fast than that and you risk losing muscle. To figure out your base, take your weight and multiply by 10. Thats about what your body burns sitting on its butt, doing nothing. Then you would add to it what you do in activity. So for example: I'm 130lbs so my basal metabolic rate is about 1300kcal. If I walk 3 miles, I burned about 200 kcal. And then I did some housework-maybe 100 kcal. So if I did nothing else, and I'm fully grown and not a kid still growing, my need to maintain my weight would be 1600kcal. If I subtract 500 then my goal would be 1100 cal for that day. Now, most people recommend that you don't go below 1200 kcal a day since your body will compensate by decreasing its metabolic rate, thinking its being forced into starvation. I think it would be better to shoot for a calorie range of 1200-1500 kcal a day and add both cardio and some strength training. Doesn't have to be heavy weights, doing squats or pushups count. This will build a little bit of muscle mass and muscle burns more calories, even when its resting, than fat.