How to Fill Up and Not Fill Out by Wendy Moyer

Anyone who wants to lose weight will need to consume three hundred to five hundred less calories per day than their body burns. The amount of calories that you burn ultimately depends on your current weight and the amount of physical activity you participate in during the day. The more active you are the more calories you will burn.

For example, if you weigh 160 pounds and are not very active - in other words you spend most of the day sitting down and do very little exercise - then your body will burn just over 2100 calories a day. So, if you want to lose inches and weight you will need to cut your caloric consumption down to between 1600 and 1800 calories a day.

In order to do that you may want to have three meals of approximately 450 calories each and enjoy two snacks during the day of roughly 125 to 175 calories each. The easiest way to figure out how many calories of prepared food you are eating is to look at the labels that your food is packaged in.

Just compare the number of calories per serving with the size of each serving and take it from there.

If you prefer to make your meals from scratch you might want to try one of the following low calorie suggestions.

You can enjoy an omelet made of six scrambled egg whites, mushrooms, and low fat cheese. Accompany it with a slice of whole wheat toast and a baked apple with cinnamon and, believe it or not, you will have eaten only 321 calories.

Or, how would you like some pancakes and eggs? You can pile a cup of strawberries atop two whole wheat pancakes and have a side of three scrambled egg whites and an apple and consume only 474 calories.

Or, if you would like to keep the calorie level down, try an open faced cheese melt made with a slice of low fat cheese atop a slice of whole grain bread. You can start the meal with an orange, have ten baby carrots on the side, and wash it all down with a glass of non-fat milk. And this filling meal is only 303 calories.

To put things in perspective, on the other end of the spectrum is a breakfast that consists of a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, a side of fries and a soda.

If this is the normal way you start your day you are putting close to 1,000 calories into your body each and every morning. That's way more than half of what your target is for the day. Eat like this and you've got to know that you're going to have a tough time taking off those unwanted extra pounds.