How many Calories per day do i Actually need?
Curious about how much energy (food) your body needs??
When figuring out someone's Total Daily Energy Expenditure there are a few things that are taken into account.
Let’s break them down quickly:
Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)- Think of this as your time at rest, your body isn’t doing much of anything. The bare minimum to stay alive basically, best measured in a Lab.
Resting Metabolic Rate ( RMR)- another measurement taken while at rest, although easier to calculate vs. the BMR because you don’t need to be measured under extreme conditions. There are several formulas used to help calculate this number, none of which are 100% accurate though.
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF)- Digestion of the food you intake, which means when we eat our metabolism increases =
Exercise Activity- varied greatly from person to person. How intense are your workouts? Are you sedentary or highly active daily? Somewhere in between? All of these factors will contribute to your metabolism and dictate how much energy you need each day
Non- exercise Activity Thermogenesis aka N.E.A.T - all your daily moving around. Laundry, chasing the kids/ dogs around, cleaning the house, mowing the lawn, etc.
All of these factors contribute to your
Total daily energy expenditure aka your TDEE.
As you can see there are a lot of factors that contribute to the whole and this will vary vastly from person to person, and if you haven’t caught on yet all of these things are very complicated and difficult to measure 100%.
With that being said the free resources I am going to share will again provide estimates for your daily totals. These estimates should be monitored, and adjusted regularly. Everyone is different and the way our body reacts to what we do day in and day out is so unique. BUT this is a good place to start if you’ve never really checked it out before. In my experience, these calculations are usually a big eye-opener for people. If you are unsure about your activity level I would recommend going on the lighter side, because sometimes we arent moving around as much as we may think, especially if we have desk tops.
I know this will come as no surprise but I am going to say it anyway :
If you take in more energy than you spend…. You gain weight
and
if we take in less energy than we spend we lose weight
Basic laws of thermogenesis
If you are curious about finding out an estimate for how much energy (food) you should take in day to day here are a few free resources.
Precision Nutrition Calculator
Again both of these tools are estimates and require close monitoring and adjusting as time goes on.
Got the info and not sure where to start or how to implement this new-found knowledge? That is where I come in, together we will make a plan that has you fueling your body appropriately while still reaching your health and wellness goals.
Resources:
“Energy Balance in the Body .” The Essentials of Sport and Exercise Nutrition: Certification Manual, by John Berardi, 3rd ed., Precision Nutrition, Inc., 2017, pp. 132–148.