The one aspect of your diet to master before you look at anything else. You want these two things to be equal (to maintain your current weight) or for Energy Out to exceed Energy In (to lose weight).
Whether you eat nothing but crisps or nothing but vegetables if you eat more calories than you burn you will gain weight – regardless of what you eat, when you eat it or how you eat it.
Your Objective:
Understand how many calories you should be eating, how to work that out and why that’s important.
To workout how many calories to eat you need to know your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). This gives you an idea of roughly how many calories you burn in a day INCLUDING your normal activity… this means that you don’t need to add on exercise calories to this number. That’s important because who has time to work out a different daily calorie expenditure? You want an overall figure you can use every day.
The equation is
M24/F22 X Bodyweight in KG = BMR
e.g.
24 X 90kg = 2160 calories per day.
This is the BMR – Base Metabolic Rate. The absolute minimum calories the body needs to wake up, do nothing all day except for breathe.
To find how many calories you should eat for your activity levels multiply this figure by 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4
1.1 – lightly active – moderate exercise but sedentary job
1.2 – moderately – active intense exercise but sedentary job
1.3 – Very Active – Moderate exercise and active job
1.4 – Extra Active – intense exercise and active job
e.g.
2160 X 1.3 = 2808 calories per day
Now…If you are here for fat loss you need to get in a calorie deficit by around 10- 20% the sweet spot!
e.g.
2800 calories X 7 = 19,600 calories per week!
80% of this is 15680 calories per week OR 2240 calories per day.
If you want to lose weight this is the absolute foundation of doing so. Without this anything else you do is a bit pointless as the foundations just aren’t there to support it.
Heather Sherwood Fitness 