If you feel your own weight loss efforts require the discipline of counting calories to keep you on track, but you’re not too keen on spending a lot of time figuring out complex formulas and ratios, then you might want to give the simple 10x rule a try.

With the 10x rule, you pay attention to total daily calorie intake and meal to meal distribution. Here’s how it works:

Let’s say you’re a 200 lbs. male looking to go through a restricted calorie phase to help motivate some stubborn fat to drop. Using the 10x rule, you want to consume 10 times your body weight in total daily calories.

So in this example you should shoot for 10 x 200, or 2000 total daily calories. Easy.

Here’s the tricky part. In order to get and keep your metabolism burning on high, you want to make sure you divide these calories as evenly as possible over 4-6 meals per day. So our 200 lbs. male could eat 5 meals of about 400 calories each, or 6 meals of around 330 calories each, etc.

As always you should organize your meals around lean sources of protein, keep the processed carbs (sugar) to a minimum, and drink plenty of water.

For women looking to successfully drop some weight, you might find that an 8x rule works best. So you want to consume 8 times your current body weight in calories per day. And, of course, you also need to stick to the 4-6 meals per day routine.

Counting Calories
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