Get an app that helps you track calories. You can also visit their websites on your computer.Ģ. Our favorite is CalorieKing, with MyFitnessPal a close second. Get an app with a vast registry of the calorie composition of both whole and processed foods. The standard way to go about tracking your calories is toġ. The best way to figure this out is to get your hands on the following: Apps It can be daunting to look at a number of calories and task yourself with turning that number into a meal plan.
CALORIE CALCULATOR TO MAINTAIN WEIGHT HOW TO
Alexander Kozlachkov/Shutterstock How to Track Calories So, again, try to weigh yourself every morning for a week or two, after you wake up, to get a good handle on how much your calories are affecting your weight. This isn’t even taking into account the fact that people who have a habit of fidgeting can burn hundreds more calories every day than non-fidgeters.( 3)
Some exercise with strength training - short bouts of lifting with long rest periods - while others run hard, which burns far more calories. Ticking “I exercise 4 to 5 times a week” is very helpful, but some people exercise thirty minutes at a time, others do so for two hours. Once again, these numbers are a rough estimate. Daily intense exercise could burn an extra 500 calories for a 185-pound man or 300 calories for a lighter woman. The amount that each option - sedentary, intense daily exercise, and so on - adds to your calorie burn depends on factors like your height, age, and weight. This is why you’ve been asked to input a rough estimation of your daily activity level. Dragon Images/Shutterstock Your Daily Energy Expenditure Sometimes called the Cunningham formula, this is considered by many to be the most accurate way to work out your BMR, but only if you actually know your body fat percentage - as in, you’ve had it tested with a DEXA scan in a lab.( 2) If you can only guesstimate your body fat, it’s best to click ‘no’ in the calculator and get your Mifflin St Jeor number. Here, ℓ represents your lean body mass, or your total weight minus the weight taken up by your body fat. If you did know your body fat percentage, we used Katch-McArdle, which looks like this: Of the two formulas people use to work out their BMR without their body fat (this one and Harris Benedict), Mifflin St Jeor is considered a little more accurate.( 1) Here, s is +5 for males and -161 for females. If you hit “no” when asked if you know what your body fat percentage is, then you used Mifflin St. In the calculator above, you’ve got the option of using one of two formulas to work out your BMR: It’s your base: it’s just the amount of calories you need to keep your organs functioning and it’s what you’d burn if you just lay in bed all day, not fidgeting, and not getting out of bed to pee. This refers to the amount of calories your body burns doing absolutely nothing. Alexander Raths/Shutterstock Your Basal Metabolic Rate That’s why we came up with this nifty calorie calculator that takes your basal metabolic rate - the amount of calories your body burns at rest - and combines it with the number of calories you burn when you go about your daily routines and workouts. Sure, you can guess at how much food you need, but hunger isn’t always a good indicator of energy requirements, and a cavalier approach to body composition will produce less than ideal goals: less muscle and more body fat than necessary. If your weight hasn’t changed, you’ve been eating the right amount of calories for your activity level. If your weight has changed, toggle the number as needed. In other words, read this article, stick to your number, weigh yourself every day, and see how much your weight changes over a week or two. It’s a very good estimate, but because we all have slight differences with regard to how we metabolize food, how much energy we require to perform certain tasks, and so on, the intention of these (very highly regarded formulas) are to give you a place to start from. If you’re wondering how we took that information and turned it into an amount of energy you need, well, for starters you should know that this number is a rough estimate. Speak with your physician if you have any concerns. The opinions and articles on this site are not intended for use as diagnosis, prevention, and/or treatment of health problems. Very intense exercise: 2+ hours of elevated heart rate activity.Įditor’s note: The content on BarBend is meant to be informative in nature, but it shouldn’t take the place of advice and/or supervision from a medical professional. Intense exercise: 45-120 minutes of elevated heart rate activity. Exercise: 15-30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity.