So you want to shed of that extra fat in you are carrying around.  There are two ways to go about this.  First is to exercise so that you can burn more fats.  You will notice that once you are more active you will lose fats easier.  The other is to restrict your calorie intake.  This means you need to know your maximum calorie intake to lose weight. 

First things, first, calories are very important to your health.  Contrary to popular idea, calories are actually good for you – you need them in order to live.  But you need to burn more than what you have in store if you want to lose the extra pounds.  As a guide, a pound of stored fat can have as much as 3,500 calories in it.  So this means when you burn 3,500 calories you will actually lose 1 pound from your weight.  Here's the catch, it's not just the fats that is sacrificed here.  On the average, when you burn calories, 75% is fat, and 25% is from lean tissue.  With this in mind, you will have a better idea of your target calorie intake to lose weight.

There is actually no specific number of calories that you need to eat or burn to lose weight since every one has specific caloric needs to maintain.  You need to consider many factors such as your activities, foods you eat, eating habits, and others.  But experts say that to lose weight you need to 500 less calorie intake to lose weight.  So if you are used to eating 3,500 calories a day, then you should just cut it down to 3,000.  An important note here is that you should not cut more than 1,000 per day as this can surely wreak havoc to your health. 

Another way of getting a reasonable value is to cut down not more than 20% of your daily calorie intake to lose weight.  Just remember that you don't need to automatically drop it down by 20%.  You can gradually decrease it over time.  Be wary though that your calorie intake does not drop below 1,200 per day for women and 1,800 per day for men (based on the recommendation of the American College of Sports Medicine).

Losing weight can be safely done with the supervision of a doctor or a health professional.  Just keep in mind that the two factors that will greatly affect your success is the amount of calories you eat and the amount of activities you do to burn them.  The right combination will lead you to a healthier life safely.