How many calories do YOU need to cut each day to lose weight?

We all know that to lose weight you need to eat fewer calories and move more.

But there are several factors – including the sight of a delicious-looking doughnut or juicy burger - that can hamper even the most determined dieter.

Now, a new calculator shows exactly how many calories a person needs to cut to hit their goal weight.

It also factors in how much an exercise a person does.

The Body Weight Planner, created by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), asks people to enter in their weight, age, sex, height and exercise level.

It then comes up with a plan of how many calories they need to eat a day to achieve their goal weight in a specific time frame.

For example, if a person wants to lose a stone in weight in a year, it calculates how many calories a day they will need to eat to achieve this.

It also tells them how many calories they will then need to eat a day to maintain their goal weight.

It uses a mathematical model created by analysing all the latest research on weight loss, and so gives people a realistic goal, the researchers claim. 

'We originally intended the Body Weight Planner as a research tool, but so many people wanted to use it for their own weight management that we knew we needed to adapt it with more information about how to achieve a healthy lifestyle,' said Dr Kevin Hall, a senior investigator at NIH who led the creation of the tool.

It links to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)'s SuperTracker, another tool which encourages a healthy lifestyle by tracking food, physical activity and weight.

People can add their meals for the day into the SuperTracker and it will add up the total calories, and amount of each type of food, from protein, dairy, vegetables, grains and fat.

That way, they can develop meals which help them stick to their daily-calorie goal.

Dr Hall continued: 'The Planner is a natural fit within the SuperTracker as it lets people accurately determine how many calories and how much exercise is needed to meet their personal weight-management goals.'  

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