Complete guide of – How Many Calories Should I Eat Daily
People now a days are searching out for ways that will help them lead a better and a healthier life. This includes people of all ages. Right from school going kids to elderly people, fitness is an important factor that everyone needs to think about. Exercising the way others do and following a diet that has helped others, is what most of the people think they should be doing. This has been the most common myth that many people tend to follow and also advice others to do so. Each individual is made up with a unique body structure. Although they may look the same, the internal metabolism of each individual is different. There are no two individuals; even twins that can be considered to have the same metabolism. It is thus important that each of you know what is best for your body and the things that can get you maximum benefits.
What are the things that you need to focus on? Are you looking for a weight loss plan, a muscle strengthening plan or simply a fitness regime? What are the best exercises that will help you reach your goal? What kind of a diet do you need to follow? Most importantly, how many calories do you need to consume and how much should you burn? All these are factors that cannot be simply predicted or assumed according to your wish. You will have to look into different other things that will help you calculate the above mentioned factors and thus will help select the most suitable method to stay fit or even lose weight.
The Harris-Benedict equation that was created for women can help considerately to calculate the amount of calories a woman can consume. Before you know the equation, the basic things that you would have to know are the age, height and weight. These are the most common things that every woman knows about herself. You simply need to add these numbers in the equation mention below:
BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 * weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 * height in inches ) + ( 4.7 * age in years )
BMR stands for basal metabolic rate. This equation helps you to calculate the number of calories that you would need to consume per day. You would be wondering about how to go about calculating the BMR. Let us see an example for the same. Suppose you are a lady whose age is 50 years and the height and weight is 5’ 7” and 160lbs respectively, according to the Harris-Benedict equation, the standard amount of calories that can be consumed in a day are found to be 1441.
Maintaining ones weight:
Let us now take a look at the calculations for women who would want to maintain their weight. It is a matter of fact that an average person usually burns out more calories than the above mentioned number. Thus, one should consider the amount of work done in a day or the number of calories that one tends to burn to conclude with the final number of calories that can be consumed. There are a number of activities that one would be performing in a day. We need to calculate the activity factor of each activity that we take up in a day.
Let us consider activities in which we include minimal movements, such as watching television, reading or simply listening music. The activity factor here would be about 1.4. The activity factor of an entire day spent in office work with approximately 1 hour of moderate exercises or an activity can be said to be 1.5. Similarly, the activity factor of more activity and an active lifestyle will be about 1.6. Finally the most active people who are athletes or are involved in military activities will have an activity factor of 1.9.
The total number of calories that need to be consumed in a day in order to maintain the energy and weight is calculated by multiplying the activity factor with the BMR obtained above. Let us consider the activity factor to be 1.6 and the BMR 1441. The amount of necessary calorie intake could be stated as 2305. You can consume about 2305 calories in a day if you tend to be active throughout the day at the age of 50 years and your height and weight as mentioned in the example considered above.
Calorie Count for Weight Loss:
There are many people who prefer losing weight by adapting to methods that will help burn calories. You need to make sure that the calorie burning methods that you use help in burning fat and not muscles. If you are on a weight loss regime, all that you have to do is consume fewer amounts of calories.
While one is focusing on weight loss, it is important to focus on many other factors that contribute to the entire regime and thus you can calculate the calories taken in and the amount that needs to be burnt.
Factors that your calorie intake depends on:
Type of Exercises: The amount of calorie being used up depends a lot upon the type of exercise that you do. If you have included vigorous forms of workouts or aerobics that help burn more calories as compared to mere walking or yoga, it means that you would have to consume a few more calories than the others.
Diet you follow: A high protein diet usually takes time to digest and thus burns a lot of calories during this process. Proteins not only help you burn calories in the process of digestion, but also help in enhancing ones metabolism and provide enough strength to work out more vigorously.
Individual Metabolism: Every individual has different levels of metabolism. The intensity in which one can perform an activity can be determined by the level of metabolism. There are many health supplements that claim to enhance weight loss, actually follow the principle of increasing the metabolism levels. Some of these are Raspberry Ketones, Dendrobium and green coffee beans.
Although all these above mentioned methods and factors may help you calculate an amount of calories that you can consume in a day, you cannot rely on any particular factor or method. The BMR calculated using the Harris-Benedict equation mentioned above can also be considered to be just an estimate amount of calories that one can consume.
The best practice is to consume food and drinks as supplements and green tea that give us more energy without adding to the calorie content in the body. This will help us workout more vigorously that will increase the amount of fat being burnt and thus enhance weight loss.
Author: James Hundson is a certified personal trainer. He earned the reputation as an expert in the field of weight loss, health and fitness. James helped many peoples to achieve their personal goals through private consultations and training, as well as public speaking and numerous publications.
Also if you would like to learn more about our certification in Health Care Life Coaching, then please review the program and see if it matches your educational and professional needs.