It has been in the mythology of exercise for what seems like an eternity. This or that exercise will make help me lose the fat around my … whatever. The fact is no exercise will help you lose fat in around that body part. Exercise makes muscles work. That work burns calories. If you burn more calories than you take in*, your body will go to your “fat bank” and make a withdrawal. That withdrawal doesn’t come from any one area. It comes from all over the body.
 
Men and women carry fat differently and the fat stores aren’t evenly distributed. Men carry more fat around the waist and women carry more around the hips/thighs and shoulders/arms. If you believe that spot reducing works, this explains why men always want to do abdominal work and women want to do inner/outer thigh and triceps. But, it just doesn’t work that way. You can’t change the fat distribution. We don’t lose the fat cells. They simply decrease in size as we lose weight. Your “trouble” areas, because you have more fat cells there, will always be the last area to appear lean.
 
So what’s a person to do? Focus on full body workouts, keep the intensity high, minimize rest between exercises, and follow a well thought out eating plan. As you continue to lose fat, even your “trouble” areas will become lean.

*There are other factors, such as meal timing, adequate recovery, etc. that come into play.

Let’s talk about calories. You can lose weight without counting calories, and we’ll discuss that, but I believe that you should understand the whats and whys of calories.

Daily Caloric Needs – DCN – How many calories you need to maintain weight (this is where we start) is made up of your Resting Metabolic Rate – RMR (the amount of calories you would burn if you slept all day), your Activity Level – AL (the amount of calories burned from additional movement and exercise), and the Thermogenic Effect of Food- TEF(the amount of calories that it takes to process the food that you eat.)
So, DCN = RMR+AL+TEF
Now, for weight loss, you reduce the DCN by 500 calories or 15% (whichever is less) Research shows that by reducing the calories just enough to initiate weight loss you keep your metabolism higher, your energy is higher, you feel better, you’re more likely to move around more, you burn more calories and lose more weight.
Your calories come from the macronutrients: protein- 4 calories/gram, carbohydrates-4 calories/gram, fat-9 calories/gram, and alcohol-7 calories/gram.
What percentage of your calories should come from each? General Healthy ranges are:
Carbohydrate range 45-60%
Protein range 15-25%
Fat range 20-29% – Saturated Fat <10% – Trans Fat as low as possible
Within these ranges research does show that a lower carb, higher protein diet is more effective for fat loss. I would additionall say to keep the saturated and trans fats as low as you can. They are the harmful fats. On the other hand, unsaturated fats are heathy and essential to have in our diets. Fish oil has actually been proven to aid fat loss.

Now if you actually want to figure this out those calories, here’s how you can do it:
DCN= RMR+AL+TEF
To figure out the RMR you can go to this BMR calculator (BMR is often used interchangably with RMR. Technically it’s not the same, but it’s close enough for our purposes here)
AL is a percentage of the RMR. It ranges from 0.25xRMR – 0.75xRMR(0.25 is for a couch potato and 0.75 for a high end athlete.) You pick where you believe you fall.
TEF is also a percentage of RMR. I’ve seen it range from 8-10% RMR. I tend to chose the more standard version of 10%.
So that’s your DCN. Now you can adjust it for weight loss.
Again, you don’t have to count calories. This is simply an FYI.