By
William Z Taylor
Although 'eating calories' sounds a little funny, we can still try to give an answer to the most frequent question today asked by people having troubles with excess weight - How many calories should I eat a day? Before we continue we have to say that 'eating calories' refers to 'calorie intake' since the food we eat is being processed in our bogy and energy is created. The best known unit for energy are calories.
Although 'eating calories' sounds a little funny, we can still try to give an answer to the most frequent question today asked by people having troubles with excess weight - How many calories should I eat a day? Before we continue we have to say that 'eating calories' refers to 'calorie intake' since the food we eat is being processed in our bogy and energy is created. The best known unit for energy are calories.
Although the number of calories needed per day depends
on many different factors, there are still some average figures we can
rely on. To be more precise this number varies from 1500 calories for
women, to 2000 calories per day for men. The factors we have mentioned
are as follows:
- physical activity
- current weight
- age
- life style
- gender and so on.
However, there are people who want to know this number in order to gain weight, not just to lose some. Well we can try to give a satisfactory answer to the both questions. When losing weight is in question, you have to burn more calories than you consume. This means that the number of calories we get from food has to be smaller than the number of calories we burn with some physical activities.
A very valuable fact here is to know that the number of calories in 1lb of body fat is 3500. What does this mean? This means that if you want to lose 1lb of fat you have to burn 3500 calories. Of course, we didn't forget about weigh gain - the ratios are quite opposite here.
Let's see how the weight loss process can be divided in 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 this we mean for proper functioning of our organs. There are many online tools to help you calculate these numbers so feel free to Google them on the net.
Then we have to calculate our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Here the physical activity factor plays a key role. so the TDEE for inactive people can be 1.2 x BMR up to 1.9 x BMR for people who are very active physically. So if you are physically inactive, your TDEE is 2160 cal/day, if your BMR is 1800. To be more precise your normal calorie requirements are 2160 calories per day.
After this you have to understand that rapid loss of weigh can cause severe health problems so it is best to lose 1lb per week. Since 1lb contains 3500 calories, this means that 500 calories per day have to be eliminated either through food or with physical activity, ideally both. Following the example above, if our TDEE is 2160 per day then we have to get about 1660 calories.
- physical activity
- current weight
- age
- life style
- gender and so on.
However, there are people who want to know this number in order to gain weight, not just to lose some. Well we can try to give a satisfactory answer to the both questions. When losing weight is in question, you have to burn more calories than you consume. This means that the number of calories we get from food has to be smaller than the number of calories we burn with some physical activities.
A very valuable fact here is to know that the number of calories in 1lb of body fat is 3500. What does this mean? This means that if you want to lose 1lb of fat you have to burn 3500 calories. Of course, we didn't forget about weigh gain - the ratios are quite opposite here.
Let's see how the weight loss process can be divided in 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 this we mean for proper functioning of our organs. There are many online tools to help you calculate these numbers so feel free to Google them on the net.
Then we have to calculate our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Here the physical activity factor plays a key role. so the TDEE for inactive people can be 1.2 x BMR up to 1.9 x BMR for people who are very active physically. So if you are physically inactive, your TDEE is 2160 cal/day, if your BMR is 1800. To be more precise your normal calorie requirements are 2160 calories per day.
After this you have to understand that rapid loss of weigh can cause severe health problems so it is best to lose 1lb per week. Since 1lb contains 3500 calories, this means that 500 calories per day have to be eliminated either through food or with physical activity, ideally both. Following the example above, if our TDEE is 2160 per day then we have to get about 1660 calories.
If you want to learn much more about how many calories should i eat a day you can visit this link: http://www.intelligentmag.com/how-many-calories-should-i-eat-a-day/
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