Tom, agreed on the point that there are individuals that have a natural ability to hold onto weight longer than others. My point however was just to illustrate that given a strick enough 'diet' anyone will lose weight.
My biggest concern is LBM (lean body mass) and what a lot of people fail to understand is that nothing is static in the body. They think its possible to lose fat by restricting calories and their LBM will remain the same while they burn off that pesky flab. It just isnt so and this is why all the low protein and exercise devoid diets will result in net weight loss, and usually as a % of body weight their fat% can actually climb, and in most cases it does, dramatically when they revert back to old eating habits because they have reduced their ability to burn calories.
Again, I am a little rusty at this and I really need to hit the books, but for the most part this is right
A relatively simple way to calcualte how many calories you need is to calculate how heavy your LBM is. Remember its only your LBM that needs nutrition. Fat is just like a sweater, it adds to your total weight, but not to your caloric needs, other than the effort needed to carry it around.
There is something called your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) this is how many calories per hour you need to for regular function and maintenence.(F&M from now on)
When you wake up first thing in the morning you are at BMR1
So, if you weigh 100KGS and you are 30% fat, your LBM is 70KG
70KGS x 1 (BMR1= Being away but not moving) you need 70 cals an hour for F&M
BMR 2 - Sitting at the PC, reading
BMR 3 - Light work as you would see in an office or some light housework chores like dusting
BMR 4 - Jogging, high RPM low resistance cycling etc
BMR 5 - Weight training, heavy manual work
So, all you need to do is
1: Calculate what your BMR is.
2: Find the BMR level for a full 24 hours
3: Calculate total calorie needs
4: Translate these needs into Carbs, Protein and Fat grams per day
Example.
22:00 ~ 06:00 Sleep (Sleep is .9 of BMR1) If I weigh 100KGS and 30% fat that = 70KGS.
70KGS *8 (number of hours of sleep) *.9 = 504 calories for F&M
06:00~09:00 At the PC drinking coffee and catching up on work emaul ( I work at home)
140 (Remember its BMR2 so double your LBM number) * 3 = 420 calories
09:00~10:00 cycling, I run pretty fast so a BMR of 4 is about right, so 280 * 1 = 280 calories.
And so on, and go and calcualte total calorie needs for each day (of course each day is different, so work it out for a week)
If people are interested I will add more, please let me know.