How to determine your daily calorie needs #3

Let’s review everything I’ve told you up until now.

We have a female teacher, who is 30 year old, 156cm tall and weighs 70kg. Her BMI is 28.76 and her BMR and AMR are 1476.8 and 1772.16 kcal respectively.

To lose 9 kg of body fat she needs to create a calorie deficit of 69300 kcal during her weight loss journey, with as little loss to the lean body mass as possible. If she creates a 500 kcal deficit every day, she will lose the weight in 138.6 days or roughly 5 months. But if she creates a deficit of 750 calories she will achieve her goal in 92.4 days or roughly 3 months.

But how can she create a calorie deficit? Think of calories as a currency. You have 1400 calories you can spend each day. If you spend more than that, you’ll be in a calorie debt to your body (you’ll fain fat) and if you manage to save a few calories, the bank (your body) will reward you with interest in the form of a slimmer and a healthier body.

For that she has 3 options and all three of them are very specific.

1.       Reduce her calorie intake

2.       Increase her physical activity

3.       Reduce her calorie intake and increase her physical activity

Let’s look at how to reduce your calorie intake.

You can reduce it simply by knowing how much energy your body needs during the day with your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and active metabolic rate (AMR).

If you don’t move around the whole day and just stay in bed, you need to consume the exact amount of calories as your body burns to keep your weight the same. If you consume more than you need, you will gain weight, but if you consume any less, your metabolism will start to slow down and your body will be in a state of shock. This happens with most people on diets. In this case the body shuts down and stores every calorie that it can get, because the metabolism switches to “survival mode”.

If our teacher eats 1476.8 calories she won’t gain weight, if she has more, she’ll gain weight in the form of fat. And if she has, let’s say, 1000 or even less calories, her whole metabolism will slow down and go into “survival mode”

[IMPORTANT NOTE: The lowest calorie allowance I would even dare to put a client is 1600 for men and 1200 for women. Still, this is done only for a short period of time and for clients that have a lot of weight to lose.]

If she is active that day, her calorie allowance is 1772.16 calories. If she eats more than that, she will gain weight. If she eats that exact amount she’ll stay the same and if she eats less than that, she’ll lose weight.

Simple isn’t it.

Onto the other option. What should her calories be, if she decides to move more during her day and decides to burn 500 extra calories with jogging?

In this case if she eats the same amount of calories as her AMR every day she will definitely lose weight on the days when she is running, because she has created a 500 calorie deficit.

And if she decides to watch what she is eating and is physically active with jogging and a bit of weightlifting?

In that case we add those 500 extra calories burned to her AMR (2272.16) and we get her modified AMR during the days when she works out. The same rule applies here, if she wants to lose weight, she needs to create a calorie deficit. If she wants to maintain her weight she needs to eat exactly that amount and if she wants to gain weight, she needs to eat a lot more.

But this option is the best and you know why? A part of her calorie intake goes to muscle repair and it also helps to build her muscle, which increases her lean body mass while decreasing her fat body mass (but only if she is doing some anaerobic training).

This last part is a bit trickier for people with about 5kg or less to lose, but for people with a lot of kg, regular physical activity combined with good diet is a way to go.

Until next time, stay strong and be kind. 

Picture taken from: http://tiny.cc/pgcnhw

How to determine your daily calorie needs #2

Last time I’ve told you all about the basics on how to determine your daily calorie intake. We covered the subject on basal metabolic rate (BMR) and active metabolic rate (AMR). The first one tells you how much energy your body needs just to survive during the day if you aren’t physically active (if you would just lay in your bed the whole day), and the other tells you how much energy you need if you go around your day (if you remember, I used a female teacher as an example). They both include all the bodily functions that are constantly occurring in your body (metabolism, heat production, breaking down, building and repairing cells and tissues and others).

Up until now you should have a good Idea on how your body is built. Now the real fun begins. How do we lose the most amount of weight (and when I say weight I do mean subcutaneous body fat) with the minimum loss of lean body mass, water and bone mass?

Let’s take a look back to the previous week at our female teacher, who is 30 year old, 156cm tall and weighs 70kg, but before we can determine on how she should lose weight, we need to understand where she currently is. For this we can use a number of things like the body mass index or any of the body composition measurement methods. The body mass index is not a reliable source for everyone, because it doesn’t differ fat mass form lean mass, bone mass or water. But it is suitable for an average person who just wants to lose weight.

The body mass index or BMI is a way to determine if an individual is in a healthy weight range. It can be calculated with a simple equation:

BMI = weight (kg)/height² (m)

And the number falls into one of these three categories

Underweight: < 18.0

Healthy weight – 18.0 – 24.9

Overweight – 25.0 – 29.9

Obese - > 30.0

Our teacher has a BMI of 28.76, which puts her in the overweight category.

For her to be in the healthy weight range she needs to lose at least 3.86 BMI points which is roughly 9 kg. And it would be ideal, if she could lose 9kg of fat mass and not overall body mass.

If you remember, 1 kg of fat tissue has 7700 kcal so our teacher needs to create a calorie deficit of 69300 kcal during her weight loss. Sure, she could just starve herself, but that comes at a high price, because not only does her metabolism slow down if she doesn’t eat at least the minimum amount of calories per day, she also risks death!

For a person, who has less than 10 kg to lose, I usually suggest a calorie deficit of 500 – 750 per day, but never less than 750 for the risk of slowing down the metabolism. A calorie deficit can be created with both proper nutrition and regular physical activity.

If she creates a 500 kcal deficit every day, she will lose the weight in 138.6 days or roughly 5 months. But if she creates a deficit of 750 calories she will achieve her goal in 92.4 days or roughly 3 months.

Next time I will tell you, how she can do just that, without the risk of damaging her metabolism.

Until next time, stay strong and be kind.

You can calculate your BMI here.: http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/metric_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.html

Picture taken from: http://tiny.cc/v65mhw

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_mass_index

http://www.cdc.gov/healthyweight/assessing/bmi/adult_bmi/metric_bmi_calculator/bmi_calculator.html

http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

http://cindi-slovenija.net/index.php?option=com_bmi&Itemid=36

How to determine your daily calorie needs

As I was searching for literature for this introductory chapter in nutrition, I came across this question: »You've probably heard about calories. Are they good or bad for you?« Now this question had me confused and, quite frankly, dumb founded for a while. Aren't calories already common knowledge? We see them every day and they are clearly written on 95% of the food labels, surely people know what they are.

Immediately I called up a few of my friends and asked them, if they could give me a brief explanation about what a calorie is. To my surprise, none of them could give me a good explanation, even though one is a medical student, 2 are personal trainers and one is a dietitian. All of them are people, who should know almost everything about proper nutrition, especially the dietitian.

What does a car need to run? Fuel, of course. How about our bodies? Our bodies need a fuel source as well, and that fuel comes in a form of food. If you want to know what is a healthy and effective way to lose fat or to bulk up with muscle, you need to know at least the basic on calories.

Weather your goal is to lose or to gain weight, you must keep in mind one thing. Weight loss or weight gain is nothing less than. simple math. Simple addition and subtraction is all you need. But I’m getting a bit ahead of myself. Let me explain what calories are.

Let me make something really clear. Calories (kcal) are nothing more than units of energy and for this part, I’ll just focus on the calories in food. Carbohydrates, proteins and fats have a caloric value, most of us know that. 1 gram of fat has 9 calories, 1 gram of carbohydrates 4, and 1 gram of protein 4 calories. But our food is not just made up from those 3 macronutrients.

Organic acids, polyols, water soluble fiber and ethanol also have calories. 1 gram of ethanol has 7 calories, putting it in the second place, right behind fats, while the other three have less than 4 calories per gram.

[There is a big difference between calories and Calories, but unless you are a physicist, you don’t need to worry much about those. The first one means 1000 calories, because some countries like US and Canada want to make sure, that the food labels are as easy to understand as possible. In the broader context it really doesn’t matter that much how they are written, as long as you know how much energy you are putting in your body.]

Firtst thing that you need to do is to determine, how much energy your body needs during the day. This can be easily done with a simple basal metabolic rate calculation. Basal metabolic rate (BMR) tells us the amount of energy our bodies need just to survive during the course of one day. This can be done with the following formulas:

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) – (6.8 x age in years )

Women: BMR = 665 + (9.6 x weight in kg ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )

Or you can just search for one online, just be sure to type basal metabolic rate formula or BMR formula.

For example, let’s take a 30 year old woman, who is 156cm tall and weighs 70kg

BMR = 665 + (9.6 x 70 ) + ( 1.8 x 156 ) – ( 4.7 x 30 )

BMR = 665 + 672 +280.8 –141

BMR = 1476.8 kcal

So this woman needs to eat around 1480 kcal every day, just to function normally. This is a number that tells us, how much energy her body will burn by itself just by existing.

But as we all know, there is more to life than just existing. We have jobs, kids, friends, we go out, exercise, clean… our lives are not just stuck in one place. And by doing the things that we do, we need more energy (because every move that we make requires a certain amount of energy).

This is why we need to know our active metabolic rate (AMR). AMR is the amount of energy we need to function through the day. It includes everything from our internal metabolism (nails and hair growing, keeping our bodies warm, transportation of different substances in and out of the cells) to our daily actions.

I prefer to use the Harris Benedict equation which states:

1.       If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : = BMR x 1.2

2.       If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : = BMR x 1.375

3.       If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : = BMR x 1.55

4.       If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : = BMR x 1.725

5.       If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : = BMR x 1.9

Let’s go back to the woman in the previous example and say, that she is a teacher and doesn’t move around a lot during the day. So we just take her BMR and multiply that by 1.2

AMR = 1476.8 x 1.2

AMR = 1772.16 kcal

This woman must eat around 1780kcal to be able to function normally through the day and to keep her current body weight.

But this woman wants to lose weight, so what do we do now?

Well, 1kg of body fat (notice how I said body fat and not body weight) has 7700 calories stored in it, and I’ll tell you more on that next week.

Until next time, stay strong and be kind.

Picture taken from http://tiny.cc/wgvmhw