How Many Calories Do You Need?

Finding how many calories you should eat each day is not as hard as many of us make it out to be. Most people who spend time trying to find the exact amount of calories they should eat either go on food binges which throws water on their metabolism fire, or chronically undereat because they never believe they can truly eat that much and lose weight.

Before I explain how to come up with a good calorie range for you to lose fat, I want you to stop and do a couple of things:

1. Get out your food journal. Yes, you need to log what you eat if you have not done so. Give yourself 3 days to really pay attention to what you are eating, how many times in the day you are eating, the time of day and the approximate amount. This can be hard because we sometimes underestimate our serving amounts. Be honest with yourself. Purchase a journal or just write it in a notebook so that you can have a good vision for what you are actually putting in your mouth. Many people will look back after those few days and say "Wow! I ate that?"

2. Accept the fact that to lose fat and not just weight you have to eat. I don’t want a single person trying to lose fat by starving or undereating and feeling miserable.

3. Your goal to lose weight is to create a daily 500 calorie deficit by combining calorie reduction with daily activity. If you cut 3500 calories in 7 days, you will lose 1 pound naturally and effectively.

Determine Your Daily Caloric Intake

We will estimate your daily calorie needs to maintain your current weight.

• Take your present weight and multiply by 11. That number covers your metabolic needs for the day if you are presently sedentary. If you are a recreational athlete or weekend warrior, multiply your weight by 12. If you weigh 140 pounds, you need about 1540 calories per day if you are sedentary. If you are an inactive 200 pounds, you need 2200 calories per day of NUTRIENT DENSE foods. Did I say nutrient dense? What does that mean? Foods that provide have a higher nutritional value and content such as your fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grains, low fat dairy with minimal added fat intake. Good fats from sources such as olive oil, RAW nuts or salmon is where your fat intake should come from.
• To create your calorie deficit, subtract 500 calories from your maintenance number on non-workout days and 200 calories from your number on workout days.

Your goal is to create the bulk of your deficit through your activity and not through reducing the energy you put into your body. For calculations above, I factored in you will burn on average about 300 calories per workout. That could be 30 minutes or running or 45 minutes of walking. You have to include strength training to build lean muscle, as well. This will help burn calories at rest.