Daily calorie needs: how many calories do you need?
Daily calorie needs for weight maintenance
There are various ways to count and calculate calories, both those you consume and those you burn. One way to estimate your daily calorie needs is through laboratory measurements using sophisticated equipment; another is to use various formulas. Whichever approach you take, the result will never reflect your actual day-to-day needs. Your actual needs change because your daily physical activity can vary considerably, as can the circumstances of everyday life.
To calculate your energy needs in calories as accurately as possible, you need to account for your basal metabolic rate; the calories used to digest the food you eat; variations in calorie needs due to changes in climate; and your daily physical activity. Pinning all of this down and calculating it precisely is quite difficult. Fortunately, practical experience over time has led to simpler ways of determining daily energy needs. The average adult with a sedentary lifestyle and little physical activity generally seldom needs more than 20 – 25 kcal/kg of body weight. This should maintain their ideal weight. Adults whose lifestyle is somewhat more active than a typical sedentary lifestyle need an average of 25 – 30 kcal/kg of body weight. Those who are highly active may need as much as 30 – 35 kcal/kg of body weight to maintain their ideal weight. Athletes and people doing very strenuous physical work may need as much as 40 kcal/kg of body weight per day to maintain their weight.
How many calories do you need to lose weight?
To maintain your weight over the long term, you should not exceed the energy amounts per 1 kg of body weight given above. For weight loss, you should create an energy deficit of around – 500 kcal through dietary adjustments and physical activity. If you do this and keep everything precisely controlled, you should, at least in theory, burn around 0.5 kg of body fat each week. Since mobilizing (using up/burning) 1 kg of fat takes about 7500 kcal, then 7 x (-500 kcal) = -3500 kcal, which is equivalent to around half a kilogram of body fat.
Translator’s note: similar recommendations for average daily energy needs
Recommended daily calorie intake for weight loss
• Sedentary lifestyle: 20 kcal/kg of body weight
• Average or moderate activity level: 25 kcal/kg of body weight
• Physically active lifestyle: 30 kcal/kg of body weight
Recommended daily calorie intake for weight maintenance
• Sedentary lifestyle: 25 kcal/kg of body weight
• Average or moderate activity level: 30 kcal/kg of body weight
• Physically active lifestyle: 35 kcal/kg of body weight
Recommended daily calorie intake for gaining weight through muscle growth
• Sedentary lifestyle: 30 kcal/kg of body weight
• Average or moderate activity level: 35 kcal/kg of body weight
• Physically active lifestyle: 40 kcal/kg of body weight
The recommendations above come from [url=http://www.fitho.in/how-many-calories-do-i-need/]here[/url].
Translator’s note: I have come across these recommended calorie intake “figures” many times, and they generally hold true. Of course, it is naive to expect everything to work exactly as predicted every time. You can take any recommendation and start following it, but if it does not match your actual circumstances and needs, you have to make adjustments and be flexible enough to respond to your situation. This is the first thing anyone dieting for results needs to “get their head around”. You cannot simply say, “That article recommended 20 kcal/kg for weight loss for someone with a sedentary lifestyle. I’ve followed that advice, but my weight is going up instead.” Even a small difference in your metabolism (for example, a very slow metabolism) may mean you need to cut that recommended amount further, perhaps to around 17 – 18 kcal/kg.
These figures seem to hold true for me too, and I can see that 30 – 35 kcal/kg of body weight is my threshold. Since I weigh almost 100 kg, my weight starts to drop when my intake falls below 3000 – 3500 kcal. Why do my needs fluctuate? They just do—that is real life. Days vary considerably in terms of activity levels, what you do and how much energy you expend. On some days, an intake of 2900 – 3000 kcal is enough to create a calorie deficit that promotes fat burning, while on others even 3500 kcal may be insufficient, leaving too large a daily deficit. So, after a great deal of practical experience, I have concluded that on certain days and at certain levels of physical activity (during the competition season, when energy expenditure is higher), 30 – 35 kcal/kg of body weight is definitely a calorie intake at which I lose weight.
The idea for this article originally came from an English-language source (the link no longer works).
Author: translated and compiled by Janar Rückenberg
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