How Many Calories Are You Eating? The Importance of & How to Calculate Caloric Intake

How many times have you tried to lose fat, only to gain it all back within a couple weeks? There are several reasons why people fail to lose fat and keep it off. Here We’ll discuss important topics that make up the broad concept of calorie tracking.

1. Resting Metabolic Rate

The first topic you’ll need to understand is Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR.) This is important because this tells us how many calories your body needs in order to sustain essential bodying functions; e.x. blood flow, digestion, respiration. In order to find your RMR we’ll need to use the following equation(s):

• Men: RMR = [9.99 x Weight (kg)] + [6.25 x Height (cm)] — [4.92 x Age (yrs)] — 5
• Women: RMR = [9.99 x Weight (kg)] + [6.25 x Height (cm)] — [4.92 x Age (yrs)] — 161

For women the equation does have a different variable at the end typically due to them needing a higher level of fat which is associated with child baring. Now since the United States uses the imperial system here is how we’ll convert pounds into kilograms and inches into centimeters:

• lbs ➗ 2.2 = kg
• in X 2.54 = cm

Here a visual guide on how to solve the equation.

2. Total Daily Energy Expenditure

After we calculated your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) we would then use that value to determine your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). The TDEE value will represent the amount of calories your body uses when exercising. You’d multiply your RMR by these activity correction multipliers:

• Sedentary (little to no exercise): 1.2
• Lightly Active (light exercise/sports 1–3 days/week): 1.375
• Moderately Active (moderate exercise/sports 6–7 days/week): 1.55
• Very Active (hard exercise/sports 6–7 days/week): 1.72
• Extra Active (very hard exercise/sports 6–7 days/week & a physical job): 1.9

The equation would look like this:

3. Caloric Maintenance/Surplus/Deficit

Awesome, now we know how many calories you should be eating to sustain your current body weight and activity level. But what if you want to lose or gain weight? In order to figure out how much weight you should be losing or gaining per week we would need to know how many calories is equal to one pound of fat. That would be:

• 1 (lbs) = 3,500 (kcal)

If we divide 3,500 by 7 days per week that would equate to 500 calories per day. There are three different categories we can fit your weight goals Into:

Caloric Maintenance:

• This category is simple. Once you’ve figured out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure your done… for now.

Caloric Deficit:

• Now to lose weight, what I can responsibly recommend for the amount of weight you lose per week should be between 0.5 to 2 pounds.
• Any more than that you run the risk of losing muscle.

Caloric Surplus:

• Now to gain weight, what I can responsibly recommend for the amount of weight you add per week would be between 0.5 to 2 pounds.
• Lower than this your progress will be extremely slow. Anymore than this and you would be adding fat instead of muscle.

So depending on your weight goals you’d subtract or add factors of 500 to your Total Daily Energy Expenditure. If you are not seeing the desired progress after 2–4 weeks subtract or add 100 to 200 calories to your TDEE. Your current caloric intake goals are not concrete, you’ll need to recalculate your TDEE every 2–4 weeks to see steady progress.

4. Macronutrients

Macronutrients are what make up calories and are split into three category’s; proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. These are tracked using grams. We’ll breakdown everything down below:

Protein:

• 1 gram = 4 calories
• 10–35% of your caloric intake should be proteins.
• One thing to keep in mind is if you are losing weight, your protein intake should be at the higher end of this range to ensure muscle protein synthesis can occur.

Carbohydrates:

• 1 gram = 4 calories
• 45–65% of your caloric intake should be carbohydrates.
• Most people believe carbs are your enemy. This is false, carbs are your body’s preferred source of energy. Anyone who says so and doesn’t explain the specific nutrition style they’re following isn’t being thorough.

Fats:

• 1 gram = 9 calories
• 20–35% of your caloric intake should be from fats.
• Most people believe fats are your enemy. This is false, fat consumption is necessary to maintain joint health. There’s also the fact that the body needs a healthy percentage of body fat order to sustain life.

Before I sign off, there’s two important pieces of advice that I want to give you. If you happen to over eat the previous day, don’t under eat the next day to try and “balance out” your calories. Just continue as normal, you over ate, so what, it happens. Now I’m not saying to eat without consequence. I’m saying to accept the results of your actions and learn from them. The more often you go off track from your caloric intake the further you’ll be from you weight goal.

The second piece of advice is to not “crash diet!” When you crash diet you lower your calories to such a low quantity that when you inevitably stop loosing WT, you then have to lower your calories even further. When before you were hungry at multiple points throughout at the day, now your starving yourself. Loosing weight yes, but that doesn’t mean your loosing fat. It’s much easier for you body to breakdown muscle than fat. This results with you staying at the same body fat percentage but lower muscle mass, i.e. still appearing overweight even though you lost weight.

With this plan you can literally calculate how many calories you should be consuming to reach your weight goals and maintain your activity level. Remember your fitness journey should be viewed as a marathon not a sprint. While you should aim for a long proactive life style, realize that your journey will have portions where motivation will be nonexistent, but this is where discipline and consistency comes into play. Three hundred good days will always out weigh sixty bad days, so keep moving and remember “it starts with you.”

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