One of the mistakes people make when trying to lose weight is they fail to change their calorie intake. You must change the amount of calories that you consume due to the fact that as you lose weight you are burning fewer calories than when you began. For example, if your body is burning 3,000 calories at the start of your diet you may only be burning 2800 after a couple of weeks. You also have to set realistic weight loss goals of no more than two pounds a week.

Now you must understand that if you want to succeed in losing weight, you have to make changes in your nutrition plan. I recommend burning more calories, because being more active facilitates smaller calorie restriction and milder calorie expenditure drop.

It is very difficult to estimate the rate of the metabolic drop. Here is the general rule: the bigger you are, the smaller the rate of the metabolic drop. The more weight you lose, the more you have to cut calories or increase exercise. If you are overweight you might need to cut just 10 more calories for every lost pound, while if you are lean you might have to cut 60 calories for every pound lost.

Another mistake people make is to overestimate the calories they have burned from exercise as extra calories and think that gives them some kind of cushion to cheat.

Calorie counters mindlessly add the calories burned exercising as "extra" and in some cases, this practice can significantly influence the calorie calculations. Hence, calorie software counts the part of your usual activities that overlaps with the extra activities twice. I recommend ignoring them and just counting that as a bonus.

Training with light weights and endless reps is another big mistake that people make. This is especially true of women who use the lightest weights they can find in many cases and just do as many reps as they possible can. This will not burn as many calories as heavier more intense training will and the more intense training will build muscle giving you an increased metabolism.

Lastly, you cannot use average tables to estimate calories. You have to calculate the calories for your body. Men and women differ. Men burn more calories at rest than women due to more muscle mass in most cases. Combine this with the common mistake of counting all burned calories as "additional calories" and you have a wide range of possible miscalculations.

Glenn Freiboth is a Certified Health Advisor lives in Illinois and has helped many overweight and obese people lose weight and keep it off. Get Medifast diet and weight loss products at www.GetYouHealth.com