Tuesday, February 01, 2011

Calculate your energy/caloric requirements easily

We know a healthy diet will help you reach your goals
OK, it is the 1st of February and I know that losing weight is a big new years resolution and I have also tried to get some weight off since December 26th and so far it is going well.

Fundamentally to lose weight you need to reduce energy in and increase energy out BUT it is a known fact that you need to concentrate on energy in to get the results. As an athlete you may need different needs during competition phase as opposed to training so how much do you need to eat?

You can estimate how many calories you need a day in 3 easy steps:-

STEP 1:- Calculate your base metabolic rate (This is BMR - Not to be confused with your BMI)

WOMEN BMR = weight in kg x 22 (eg a 70kg women would be 70x 22)
MEN BMR + weight in kg x 24 (eg an 80 kg man would be 80 x 24)

STEP 2 - Workout how active you are - Your activity multiplier
The activity multiplier is based on your level of activity
If you are mainly inactive or sitting  then your activity multiplier = 1.2
Fairly active so you exercise 1-2 times per week and do some walking = 1.3
Moderately active so you exercise 2-3 times per week = 1.4
Very active meaning you exercise vigorously daily = 1.7

STEP 3 - Multiply your results from step one by your activity multiplier

If you are an 80kg male who rides a bike 3 times a week your result will be
80 x 24 = 1920 then multiply this x 1.4 = 2688 calories per day.

To convert to kilojoules, multiply your calorie requirement x 4.184 to get your kilojoule requirement
NOTE  - This is the most basic way of calculating your calorie requirement and may vary between individuals as "level of activity" is quite variable due to human nature and our level of reference. IN our peer group we may be the slug but actually be quite active.....

This calorie guideline will not mean you will lose weight, it is a guidlien on how many calories you need each day to maintain your weight. A healthy weight loss is around 1% of your weight per week as a maximum, so if you weigh 90kgs, you could aim to lose 900g per week.

BUT CALORIES ARE NOT JUST CALORIES:

 Energy (or calories) comes in three forms

1. Carbohydrate
Carbohydrates like pasta
2. Protein
Proteins like eggs
and 3. Fat

and then we have Vitamins and Minerals contained in foods which are important in considering whether the food is a good or a bad food...oh and there is Alcohol which is actually the 4th energy supplier, but as you may be aware, it is not an ideal source of energy.

My next post will talk about Carbohydrates solely and the benefits and drawbacks of Carbohydrates. If youhave any questions about them, contact me on judithdove@bigpond.com
As I have already mentioned I am not an expert, but I am studying to be a dietician and using my blog as a means of study...All information comes from a variety of text books, journal articles and from next week will be referenced.
Some of my text books......and other references, this is the tip of the iceberg and I havent bought this years books yet?

3 comments:

John Berry said...

Nice article...thank you ;-)

I may have misread or the example may be wrong...The article says BMI + Weight * 24 multiplied by active multiplier

So wouldn't an 80kg male with BMI of 21 be..

21 + 80 * 24 multiplied by active multiplier?

Judith said...

Hi John,

For this calculation we dont need BMI as BMR refers to base metabolic rate, not to be confused with you body mass index.

So you multiply your weight in kg by 24 (as a male and 22 as a female) and then multiply that final answer by the active multiplier.

Does that make sense. I will tweak the article a bit to make sure that it makes sense.

Thanks John (nice to know somebody reads it)

Vibey said...

That is super handy, thanks!

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