Although “eat calories” sounds a bit strange, we can still try to provide an answer to the most common question asked by people struggling with obesity these days – how many calories should I eat a day? Before we continue, we need to say that “eating calories” refers to “calorie intake” because the food we eat is processed in our body and energy is created. The most well-known unit of energy is calories.
Although the number of calories you need per day depends on many different factors, there are still some average values that we can rely on. More specifically, this number varies from 1500 calories per day for women to 2000 calories per day for men. The factors we have mentioned are as follows:
– physical activity
– current weight
– age
– Lifestyle
– gender and so on.
However, there are people who want to know this number in order to gain weight, not just to lose something. Well, we can try to give a satisfactory answer to both questions. When it comes to losing weight, you need to burn more calories than you take in. This means that the number of calories we take in from food must be less than the number of calories we burn in some physical activity. A very valuable fact to know here is that the number of calories in 1 pound of body fat is 3500. What does that mean? That means if you want to lose 1 pound of fat you need to burn 3500 calories. Of course, we haven’t forgotten about weight gain – here the ratios are quite opposite.
Let’s see how the weight loss process can be divided into phases. First we need to calculate our BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate. BMR is actually the number of calories our body needs for everyday activities, and by that we mean for the proper functioning of our organs. There are many online tools to help you calculate these numbers, so don’t hesitate to google them on the internet.
Then we need to calculate our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Physical activity plays a key role in this. Therefore, the TDEE for inactive individuals can range from 1.2 x BMR to 1.9 x BMR for very physically active individuals. So if you are physically inactive your TDEE is 2160 kcal/day if your BMR is 1800. More precisely, your normal calorie requirement is 2160 kcal/day.
After that, you need to understand that rapid weight loss can cause serious health problems, so it is best to lose 1 pound a week. Since there are 3500 calories in 1 pound, this means that 500 calories per day must be excreted either through food or through physical activity, ideally both. Using the example above, with a TDEE of 2160 per day, we need to consume about 1660 calories.
Thanks to William Z Taylor
