When it comes to losing weight, it’s pretty simple – you need to burn more calories than you eat. That might seem easy, but if it were really that easy, none of us would be overweight. There are many shortcuts that people try to take in order to lose weight instantly, such as diet pills, strange fitness machines that are advertised on television every so often, and diets. These might work in the short term, but when you discontinue them, you will typically gain that weight back, and then some.

The key to losing weight is to do it in baby steps, so that it is longer lasting. Here are some tips that will help you in doing so:

• Keep track of your activity level. There are a few ways of tracking how many calories you burn. You can wear a heart rate monitor that calculates how many calories you have burned. Another option is to use a calorie calculator to determine how many calories you burn while doing various activities. Try doing this for a set period of time, say 5-10 days, and then adding up the total number of calories you burned and divide them by the total number of days to figure out how many calories you have burned each day.

• Calculate how many calories you eat. Simply log the number of calories you eat in a journal for that same period of time. At the end of that period, determine the total number of calories you consumed and divide them by the total number of days to get the average number calories consumed per day.

• Make sure to calculate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). This is the minimum amount of calories that your body needs to function. Not all calculators will be completely accurate, but they will be close enough.

• Now add your BMR total to the total number of calories you burned. Then compare that total to the number of calories consumed. If it is higher than the number of calories you consumed, then you are on the right track!

The challenge is to be consistent every week and just keep making those baby steps. Losing a ton of weight in a short period of time is not healthy. If you can knock off 5 pounds per week, and reach your optimal body weight, you will be golden!