Many people want to do a better job managing their weight but aren’t sure how. Whether you’re trying to maintain your weight, lose weight, or gain weight it can be challenging to figure out how to get started.
USDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) teamed up to bring you a simple new tool that can help you set, reach, and maintain your goal. Using science-based technology, the NIH Body Weight Planner calculates how many calories you need to eat and how much exercise you need to achieve a goal weight within a specific time period. You set the goal and decide what timeframe makes sense for you.
The NIH Body Weight Planner is now available as a goal-setting resource within USDA’s SuperTracker interactive food, physical activity, and weight tracking tool, so you can create a personalized meal plan based on your Body Weight Planner results.
Here’s how to use SuperTracker to put your Body Weight Planner results into action and reach your goal:
- Use the Body Weight Planner to find out how many calories you need to eat each day to reach and maintain your goal weight.
- Enter your Body Weight Planner results in SuperTracker.
- New users: Create a SuperTracker profile and enter your Body Weight Planner calorie results into the “personal calorie goal” field which appears after you enter your height and weight.
- Current users: Enter results into the “personal calorie goal” field on the My Top 5 Goals page under the Calories tab.
- View the My Plan section of SuperTracker to get your daily food group targets, including what and how much to eat of each food group in order to get the nutrition your body needs while staying within your calorie allowance.
- Reach and maintain your goal weight by tracking your dietary intake and physical activity and weight from your desktop, phone, or tablet.
