I’ve decided to write a more detailed post on each the three aspects that comprise a successful weight loss program. Today’s post will deal with calories. The post on exercise will follow next Wednesday and accountability will appear the Wednesday after that.
Calories, calories, calories. We love to eat them but we hate what they do to us. We need them to survive but they can kill us if we aren’t careful. Calories are the reason we’re too big, or too small, or just right. But how much do you really know about calories? Read on to learn more.
What is a Calorie?
A Calorie is a unit of energy. It is the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by one degree Celsius. In terms of nutritional science, however, it is the amount of energy stored in our food. The food is broken down and the energy is used to power our bodies. If you eat more calories than your body can burn, then your body stores them as fat and you gain weight. If, however, you do the opposite, you lose weight.
How to estimate your Caloric needs
Unfortunately, the average person at home doesn’t have the equipment to accurately measure how many calories they burn each day. Nor do they have the ability to determine exactly how many calories they eat. So everything we do on our weight loss journey is based on a series of best guess estimates. This can be frustrating for everyone trying to lose weight. But there are ways to improve our chances of being successful in our quest to get rid of that excess weight and become healthier individuals.
The first step is to determine how many calories we need in order to maintain our current weight. This number, called the Resting Metabolic Rate,or RMR, can be calculated using the Mufflin equation for RMR where “w” is weight in kg, “h” is height in cm, and “a” is age:
Men: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) – (5 x a) + 5
Women: (10 x w) + (6.25 x h) – (5 x a) – 161
Example:
When I first started out, I used the following equation:
(10×100.24)+(6.25×177.8)-(5×34)+5=1949 calories per day
That 1,949 calories is the number of calories my body would burn, just by being alive. Of course I would burn more than that in a day because I walked around, chased my kids, and even exercised a bit. All this movement burns calories and those calories need to be accounted for. So based on your activity level, use the following table to determine how many calories you are actually burning on a given day:
[Table=6]
At the beginning, I picked the lightly active multiplier and came up with 1949×1.375=2,680 calories as my calorie allowance to maintain my weight.
Now what?
Now we know how many calories I should have been eating to maintain my weight. But since I was gaining weight at the time, I was actually eating more than that on a daily basis. Now here’s the hard part, I didn’t want to maintain my weight, or gain any more weight, I WANTED TO LOSE WEIGHT.
I’ve said it before, one of the many keys to losing weight is to count your calories and create a deficit each day. When I was just starting out, I was in terrible shape. I couldn’t count on consistent exercise as a way to create a calorie deficit because I hated doing it so much. The way that I chose to create my deficit was to actually reduce my food intake by 500 calories per day.
That’s it! Create a 500 calorie deficit per day and you’ll lose 1 pound per week. How you manage to make that deficit is totally up to you. I set my caloric intake to 2100 calories per day at the beginning of my weight loss journey. I logged everything that I put into my mouth in Dailyburn. And I mean everything. 1 candy corn? 5 grapes? 25 mini-snickers? They all went into the computer. I didn’t care about fat, carbohydrates, or protein. The only thing that I cared about was the total number of calories that I ate each day. I truly believe that creating a food log is the single most important tool that you should use when trying to lose weight.
On the days that I exercised, I actually replaced the calories that I burned during the exercise by eating more food. I found that rewarding myself with food after exercise was a great way to get me up off the couch and moving. Now I love to exercise and I don’t make a conscious effort to replace those burnt off calories. I just follow up each workout with a snack high in protein and complex carbohydrates to fuel the recovery of my tired and sore muscles.
A few reminders and footnotes
Remember, the calculators that I used (found here) to help me set up my calorie goals are just estimates based on the average person. Since there is no average person, your numbers may be slightly higher or lower than what the calculator tells you. Do the math, observe the results after a few weeks, and make adjustments as necessary.
Also, if you choose to reward yourself with food after exercise like I used to do, please be careful. The calorie counters on gym machines are known to be terrible over estimators. It sure does feel good when the machine tells you that you’ve managed to burn 1000 calories during your workout. But don’t head over to McDonald’s for a super-sized #2 with a hot fudge sundae for dessert. It is very easy to over eat your exercise routines–I’ve done it many a time.
Please provide feedback
Hopefully this post provided you with some information that was missing from your weight loss arsenal. I know it worked for at least one person (me)and hope that it works for you if you choose to adopt it. Did you find this post helpful? It sure took a long time to write. Was it too basic or too detailed? Did you like the examples that I gave or were they unnecessary? I know where I am on my quest to get fit slowly, but I don’t know where all of you are. I’m trying to remember what I would have liked to read back at the beginning of my journey in the hopes that there are other people out there who will be able to use the information. Please stay tuned for next Wednesday’s post about my perspective on exercise and it’s role in a weight loss program.
{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting. My RMR is 2140 (without any multiplier). It’s also interesting that your RMR falls as your weight decreases — seems that you have to cut even more calories to continue losing weight as your weight decreases. Makes sense, but I’d never really thought about it before.
.-= fit36.com´s last blog ..Easy Lap Counting With Pebbles =-.
Fit36–You’re totally right. The three things that slow your metabolism the most are increasing age, decreasing weight, and being female…Sorry ladies
If you’re talking about food calories, it’s the amount of energy required to raise the temperature of one *kilogram* of water by one degree Celsius. It’s a little confusing, but there are a bunch of different types of “calories”. The food calorie is the most common one (especially in this type of blog), and it’s the same as a “kilocalorie” in other scientific fields.
Alex–You’re absolutely right. Food calories are kilocalories because an actual calorie is such a tiny amount of energy. It’s not confusing. I should have used the food calorie definition but the chemistry teacher in me just spewed out the definition without really thinking about it. Thanks for the comment!
If you gain muscle as you lose fat, you may not have to decrease your caloric intake to continue losing fat. A muscular body burns more calories. And some of the calories burned will hopefully be building a little more muscle! If you include resistance exercise in your workouts, this should be the case.
It’s much easier to decrease your food intake than to increase your exercise enough to try to compensate for the overload of calories! It can take an hour of HARD exercise to give you a 500 calorie deficit, or you can just eat a little less.
I’m glad you pointed out that the calorie counters on exercise machines are often unreliable. So are the “calories burned” sections of the websites where people often keep track of calories in vs. calories out. They’re great for keeping track of what you’ve consumed, but lousy for keeping track of what you’ve burned. Just pay attention to your results and you’ll know what you need to do.
Finally, remember that cardio exercise often makes you feel hungrier, so in addition to the reward that many people want to give themselves for working out, they are often truly hungrier, so they eat much more than they just burned. This is your body’s survival mechanism at work. Unless you have an eating disorder, you can safely ignore this and be hungry for a bit. In fact, if you are eating fewer calories than you burn, expect to be hungry sometimes. It’s normal.
Good post, Mac. I’m looking forward to the others.
.-= Anne Keckler | ACSM Certified Personal Trainer´s last blog ..What Is Fitness? =-.
I thought this was a great post! I’ve been working on keeping track of what I eat, but haven’t gotten to the level of detail of # of calories, or measuring exact portion sizes. I’ve found it challenging to keep a consistent habit of keeping my food diary, so I’d love to hear more tips about getting into this habit and what you’ve found successful!
While I understand the science behind calorie counting, the scientist in me finds the idea of calorie counting extremely …. difficult? I cook the vast majority of my dinners (and hence lunch, since it’s usually left overs). Unless I’m making a recipe for the first time, I don’t usually measure everything out. So I’m left with an imprecise idea of how much of each ingredient is actually in my food. How do the hell do you count calories on that??
.-= Alissa´s last blog ..Hodge podge =-.
Fantastic explanation……I created a spreadsheet for me since we are losing weight with the help of all kinds of ideas.
I also added the 500 calorie loss factor into it.
The forumla in Kg and Cms was killing me even though I know the metric system well.
Thanks.
Kenny
Kenny–whenever I want to do a conversion, I type it into google and the first result is always the answer…”70 inches to cm” for example.
Alissa–That’s a tough one. Remember, estimates are ok if you’re getting the results you’re looking for. If you’re not, then you might have to start measuring more precisely. As with many things in life, it all boils down to how bad you want to lose the weight. This works–it may take some tweaking to get it working perfectly, but it works.
Lauren–Regarding the food diary: You just have to jump in. The first day is really hard. The second is easier. After a week, it’s almost second nature. You find yourself eating foods based on how easy it is to record your calories which in most cases means you’re eating healthier. It’s a lot easier to write “apple=80 calories” than “1.5 servings of 100 grams of wheat thins for 250 calories”
Anne–Great points Anne! I’m glad we agree
I think that when a man or woman starts seeing that everything that you eat or might eat will add to your fat store, you really decide to answer the question properly of “will I eat this?”
When you get to this point, you are on the way.
.-= Frank Dobner´s last blog ..Diet Pills! Are You Kidding Me? =-.
I think this is a great post. Informative but not overwhelming. Here in NZ most foods are labelled by kilojoule. It might be handy to provide the conversion for that too.
.-= AndrewENZ´s last blog ..What is my goal weight and how did I set it? =-.
Mac wrote: It’s a lot easier to write “apple=80 calories” than “1.5 servings of 100 grams of wheat thins for 250 calories”
I call B.S. on this one. As a chronic food diarist, it’s much easier to log the wheat thins than the apple. But then I don’t write, “1.5 servings of 100 grams of wheat thins”. I just write, “150 grams wheat thins = 250 calories”. I find that logging packaged food is much easier than logging whole food.
Why? For one thing, packaged food is uniform. If you eat a Snickers bar, you don’t have to measure anything. You know it’s 280 calories. If you eat a can of Nalley’s chili, you know it’s 425 calories. An apple? Well, it depends on the size. It’s not always 80 calories.
Also, I don’t base what I eat on how easy it is to record the calories. I don’t think that’s ever influenced my decision once. Also also, while keeping a food diary does become easier with time, it never becomes second nature to me. Plus, it’s something that has to be maintained constantly. I find that if I let myself lapse for even a couple of meals, I lose the habit, and then feel flustered.
I think food diaries are a great idea, but I don’t think they work the same for every person.
I use sparkpeople.com to log calories and man dont i LOVE it.
I am an Indian and cook 80% of the food that i eat.
So everything is ‘custom’ so to speak
In SparkPeople, i can create a recipe (in sparkrecipes.com), and add the each ingredient that i put into the recipe and then it tells me exactely how many calories each serving has.It even breaks down the nutrient content.
Did i say i love it.
Great post Mac. I think a lot of people don’t understand, or simply overlook, the important role that calories play in weight loss. So many of these specialized diet plans just focus on carb or fat consumption, and kind of gloss over the calories part. Since I started tracking my calories on DailyBurn, I’ve had a much greater awareness of exactly what it is that I’m stuffing down my gob.
In reply to JD’s comment above, I actually have (on occasion) based what I eat on how easy it is to record. There have been a number of times where I go to eat something and think to myself “I don’t want to have to record that“, and so I put it back. The times that this has happened, it’s always been something that probably wasn’t the best choice health-wise anyways, so this was probably a good thing in those cases.
.-= Brandon´s last blog ..Weekly weigh-in #12: Star Wars Edition =-.