Even the rate at which you’ll lose weight is easy to calculate scientifically. You will lose approximately one pound for every 3500 calories you cut. So if you would like to lose a pound of weight a week, which is a reasonable goal for a diet, you need to eat 500 calories less than your body naturally burns per day.

The next question to answer is how many calories you burn every day. Luckily, our bodies burn quite a lot of energy, even when sleeping or resting. Calories are the fuel that your heart needs to beat, that your eyelids need to blink, that your lungs need to breathe, that your brain needs to think clearly, and so on. On top of that, you’ll burn calories whenever you move. The more aerobic the exercise, the more calories you’ll burn.

To get a starting point for your diet, you can use a chart that lists basal calorie rates. This will give you a general idea of how many calories you probably burn per day, based on your height, gender, body type, and activity levels. While these charts may not be 100% accurate for you, you can fine-tune your calorie plan later, once you have collected some data that tells you how your diet is going.

For example, if you are a woman with a medium frame and a height of 5’5, then you probably burn between 1620 and 2025 calories per day, depending on your activity level. If we take a mid-range guess of 1800 calories per day, then you would need to stick to a diet of 1300 calories per day to lose a pound a week.

Note: When it comes to losing weight and keeping it off in the long run, you’ll have a much better success rate if you take it slow and easy. It’s far better to lose a pound a week, or even half a pound a week, and to reach your goal than to lose more weight quickly and then give up because you feel too stressed or too hungry.

Trying to lose too much weight at once not only makes it tough to stick to your diet, but it also increases the risk that you won’t be able to consume the nutrients that you need to stay healthy. Remember that a woman’s diet goals should never dip below 1000 calories per day, and men should stay above 1400 calories per day, minimum.