How to calculate your daily calorie intake to lose weight and not hurt yourself

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Eating right and cutting calories is the safest and surest way to lose weight. But how many kilocalories to take for a landmark? It all depends on your gender, age, weight, height and physical activity. In this article, we'll show you how to calculate your personal daily calorie intake. You will need basic knowledge of algebra and 10 minutes of time.

We calculate the need for calories

At the first stage, we calculate the basal metabolic rate (BMR) - the number of calories that the body needs to get during the day for normal functioning at rest. That is, this is the amount of energy spent per day for breathing, digesting food, repairing and growing tissues, as well as blood circulation. This quantity can be determined in two ways: by the Harris-Benedict equation and by the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation.

Take, for example, a couple of young people with 27, 78 (a young man of 30 years old, 1.8 m tall and weighing 90 kg) and 25, 71 (a 25-year-old girl 1. 65 m tall and weighing 70 kg). According to the WHO definitions, they are overweight, or even pre-obese. Surely in clothes it is not very noticeable, but the "ears" on the sides will not let you lie.

Harris Formula - Benedict

Francis Gano Benedict is an American chemist, physiologist and nutritionist, one of the pioneers in the study of metabolic rate and oxygen consumption. In 1919, he published the scientific work A Biometric Study of Basal Metabolism in Man, which later became an absolute classic in his field. The work was co-authored by Francis's compatriot, botanist James Arthur Harris. Scientists stated that the approximate value of BMR can be determined based on the surface area of the body, and have proposed a corresponding formula.

In 1984, changes were made to the original calculations. By the way, many online calculators of daily calorie intake have not heard about these adjustments. We will provide an updated version. Just read it and take your time to count.

Calculation for men: 88, 362 + (13, 397 × weight [kg]) + (4, 799 × height [cm]) - (5, 677 × age [years]).

Calculation for women: 447, 593 + (9, 247 × weight [kg]) + (3, 098 × height [cm]) - (4, 33 × age [years]).

The confidence interval with a 95% confidence level is ± 213.0 kcal / day for men and ± 201.0 kcal / day for women.

Mifflin's Formula - Geora

This formula was created in 1990 in accordance with the lifestyle that has changed over the past 100 years.

Calculation for men: 5 + (10 × weight [kg]) + (6, 25 × height [cm]) - (5 × age [years]).

Calculation for women: (10 × weight [kg]) + (6, 25 × height [cm]) - (5 × age [years]) - 161.

Subtotals

As you can see, different approaches give slightly different results. Which formula should you prefer? For the answer, I turned to the professionals - the company's employees.

Natalya Nefedova Nutritionist, nutritionist, psychologist, author of scientific papers. There are many more formulas (for example, The Institute of Medicine Equations, Danowsky Equation, and others) for determining the daily calorie limit, and each of them is good for the nutritionist in its own way.

For example, I use separate formulas when evaluating a patient in a hospital. Any serious illness is stress, which increases metabolism and, as a result, calorie expenditure. Not to mention if the patient has a fever. There are formulas that should not be used on obese or overweight patients. The Harris-Benedict formula is just one of them. She overestimates the daily calorie limit by 5-15% (and for men over 65, on the contrary, underestimates).

At the moment, researchers are inclined to believe that the Mifflin-Geor and WHO formulas give the result that is closest to the truth. These formulas should only be used by healthy people of normal body weight. However, I advise you not to consider the obtained value as a panacea. There are many factors that can affect metabolism, shifting it in one direction or another, for example, medications, muscle mass, spicy food, smoking, and so on. Calculating your daily calorie limit is just one tool to help you stay fit and healthy.

By the way, Natalia graduated from McGill University (Canada) and has been working in her specialty for nine years. Let's use her advice and dwell on the Mifflin - Saint-Geor equation. Let's move on to the second step.

Making allowances for physical activity

As much as we want an eternal Saturday, it happens only once a week. And the rest of the time we work, do our housework and, in general, overcome laziness. This takes forces that need to be taken into account in the total amount of energy consumption. For this, correction factors are applied:

• 1, 2 - if your activity is mainly reduced to moving from bed to sofa;
• 1, 375 - if you are more active and drown out your conscience with light workouts 1 to 3 times a week;
• 1, 55 - if you are not alien to moderate sports from 3 to 5 times a week;
• 1, 725 - if you load yourself with heavy workouts 6-7 times a week;
• 1, 9 - if you give your best (work physically, train twice a day, do strength exercises).

Let's assume that our fictional characters are typical office workers. Their sedentary lifestyle meets the first point. We will use it in our calculations.

But how do you manage these numbers wisely? Let's explain now.

Reducing calorie intake

We are all adults and we are aware of the fact that too drastic weight loss will worsen the state of health, especially if it is not Siberian at all. You need to lose weight gradually so as not to expose your body to stress. So how much should you cut ration? We will turn to specialists again for advice.

The simplest rule used by nutritionists (at least in North America) is minus 500 calories per day, or 3,500 per week. Such a deficiency will lead to a loss of 500 g of fat mass per week. However, it is recommended to lose weight over a period of six months. Then the daily calorie limit is recalculated and the weight is maintained for another six months. The algorithm is repeated if necessary. Thus, 250-500 g (depending on the initial body weight) is the maximum safe weight loss per week. Exceeding this figure means a loss of muscle mass and water. Again, this is not a panacea. Metabolism is changing and will constantly and rapidly increase if, in addition to modifications in the diet, a person regularly goes in for sports. Therefore, this figure will need to be changed as well. I advise you to use this rule yourself for those for whom the desired weight loss is no more than 5 kg of fat mass. The rest, unfortunately or fortunately, it is better to consult a specialist. I would also like to add that you should not consume less than 1200 kcal per day. This will surely lead to a shortage of both micro- and macronutrients.

Natalia Nefedova

We get that our fictional couple should reduce the daily calorie intake to the following indicators:

Please note that the figures obtained are less than the base metabolic rate, and the girl generally approached 1,200 kcal per day. This can be dangerous: the body will burn muscle mass. Therefore, our heroes should increase their daily calorie intake to the BMR level, let the weight loss go a little slower.

If our young people were more active, their daily calorie requirement would look like this:

Subtract 500 kcal and get values above BMR:

How to keep track of your diet

Research shows that people who keep a food diary follow their diet more strictly and lose fat faster than those who do not. Having a clear idea of the calorie content of food sent to the stomach, it is easier to pull yourself together and close your mouth in time.

Record each meal in your diary and calculate the total calorie intake. You don't have to memorize the energy value of all products. It is enough to know about the calorie content of popular dishes, imagine 200 calories in pictures or capture the highlights from the video "What 2,000 Calories Look Like". Although, of course, it's easier to keep an electronic calorie calculator close at hand, for example, Dialife for iOS.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I will give an opinion, the author of many publications by Lifehacker on the topic of healthy eating, which noted: “All formulas have errors. Simply because they generalize all people. And the level of personal metabolism is individual. It depends on both physical form and heredity. Not to mention the fact that, for example, spicy food increases metabolism. A formula is a formula, but all this is purely individual."

Therefore, you should not take the calculation of the daily calorie intake for a "diet pill" - it may simply not work due to your physiological characteristics and state of health. It is worth trying, but if you feel worse or if there are no results, you need to seek help from a nutritionist.