Weight, calories and tracking
Plain answers about losing weight, each with the research behind it.
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Why your weight changes every day, and what to watch instead
Your scale can jump a kilo overnight with no change in fat. Here is what moves the number from day to day, and how a trend line shows where your weight is really going.
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Calorie deficit: how much less to eat to lose weight
A calorie deficit means eating less energy than you burn. How big to make yours, what the 3,500-calorie rule gets right and wrong, and why your loss slows down over time.
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How many calories do you burn a day? The Mifflin-St Jeor equation
Estimate your daily calories in two steps, your resting burn from the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and then an activity factor, with worked examples for a woman and a man.
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BMI chart for adults, with the lower cut-offs for Asian backgrounds
What your BMI means on the WHO scale, the lower cut-offs that WHO and NICE use for South Asian, Chinese and other Asian backgrounds, and what BMI cannot tell you.
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How often should you weigh yourself? Every day, if you read the trend
In a six-month weight loss study, people who weighed every day lost about 6 kg more than people who weighed on most days. How to weigh daily without letting one number ruin your morning.
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Weight loss plateau: a real stall, or water hiding your progress?
Two weeks without progress on the scale is often water masking fat loss. How to tell a real plateau from noise, why loss slows as you get lighter, and what to change when the stall is real.
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Which diet is best for weight loss? What two big trials found
Low-carb or low-fat, Atkins or Weight Watchers? Two well-known trials found small differences between diets, and that sticking to the plan mattered more. How to use that when you choose yours.
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Waist-to-height ratio: keep your waist under half your height
One number from a tape measure that says more than BMI about fat around your middle. How to measure it the way NICE describes, and what 0.5 and 0.6 mean.
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How to estimate body fat with a tape measure (the US Navy method)
All you need is a tape measure. Where to measure your neck, waist and hips, the Navy equations in centimetres with worked examples, and how far off the answer can be.
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What to look for in a weight tracking app
Most scale apps show you a noisy daily number. What a good weight tracker does instead, from a trend line to an honest goal date, and why your data should stay yours.