Finally An End To Your Confusion!
Jordan Patrck, B.S. Kinesiology & Nutrition, Certified Sports Nutrition Specialist, Certified Strength & Conditioning Specialist
If you’re reading this you’ve probably heard a time or two “calories in, calories out” as the golden rule to losing weight. Yet when you ask anyone what their calorie requirements are, more than 95% of them have no idea how much they should be consuming.
And who can blame them? Unfortunately this isn’t taught in schools and even many trainers or well meaning friends can’t give you an accurate range. There’s so much information out there about calorie requirements that it can be hard to decipher and even trust the source.
The good news is that all it takes is a few minutes of your time, some tracking, a LITTLE bit of math (don’t freak out english nerds) to figure out your calorie requirements and then how to adjust them for your goals. Whether your goal is to lose weight, gain weight, or body recomposition (staying relatively the same weight while losing fat and gaining muscle at the same rate).
Let’s start: what is a calorie?
A calorie by definition is the amount of energy it takes to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree celsius in temperature. Simply put, it’s a unit of energy. (Just note: the term “calorie” is often used interchangeably with kilocalorie, which is why you may sometimes see calories (cals) referred to as kilocalories (kcal))
A calorie itself is not a tangible object, you cannot pick up and hold a calorie any more than you can pick up an amp of electricity or a lumen of light. They are measures of something, not the thing itself.
We use calories to determine how much energy is in a given food. Consuming food is how we get our energy, and each of us needs a certain amount of calories from food each day to stay alive and maintain body weight.
The foods we get our calories from are further broken down into categories referred to as macronutrients (aka “macros”). Those macros are known as Proteins, Carbohydrates, and Fats.
- Proteins contain 4 cals per gram (meats, beans, tofu, eggs etc.)
- Carbs contain 4 cals per gram (fruits, vegetables, grains, starches)
- Fats contain 9 cals per gram (nuts, seeds, oils, avocados, butter, animal fats, etc)
Another one that gets left out is alcohol. Alcohol contains 7 calories per gram. It is not categorized as a “macro” because it is not considered a “nutrient”. But it’s important to know that it contains calories, although I wish it didn’t ;(
Side note: When it comes to tracking alcohol in moderation, you can track it alongside your macros with a little coaching.
We won’t go in depth about macronutrients in this article, but I wanted you to have a brief overview of them so that you know where calories come from.
Keep an eye out for my next article about How to Determine Macronutrients so you can get a much better understanding, but for now let’s focus on overall calories and where to start.
Step 1: Understand What Your Baseline Calories Are
Your baseline calories, otherwise known as maintenance calories are the amount of calories you need to consume in a day to maintain your current body weight.
Don’t skip ahead, regardless if your goal is losing or gaining weight, you NEED to find out step 1 before you can determine what you should be intaking for your goals.
Keep in mind that even when you eat maintenance calories, your bodyweight can still fluctuate day to day due to a number of variables that affect your water retention. This doesn’t mean you’ve gained or lost weight.
Your baseline or maintenance calorie intake is determined by four variables that add up to a number called you Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). The four variables are:
- Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), which is the minimum amount of calories you need to survive and carry out functions while you’re at rest (talking, breathing, sitting, standing, i.e. not much of anything). BMR is determined by your overall body weight and mass, your gender, height, as well as your lean body mass. I’ll show you how to get this number more accurately later because it’s very important.
- Activity Thermogenesis, the calories you burn from exercise.
- Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT), the unconscious energy you burn from everything that’s NOT exercise (fidgeting, cooking, cleaning, moving around throughout the day, using your hands to talk, how loudly you’re talking, blinking, etc). You cannot consciously improve your NEAT output by thinking you’ll fidget more, blink faster, or use more hand gestures etc. It’s a natural adaptation to your environment and energy intake. It doesn’t get talked about as much when it comes to weight loss but if we could talk about it more it would end a lot of confusion. It’s been estimated in studies that NEAT can range anywhere from 100-500 cals a day depending on several activity factors.
- Thermic Effect of Food (TEF), the amount of energy required to break down and absorb certain foods to use for energy. Protein has the highest TEF of all macronutrients coming in at 20-30%. Whereas carbs are 5-10%, and dietary fats at 0-3% respectively. This means that when you consume 100 cals of a pure protein source, about 20-30 cals from that protein will be used to break down the remaining 70-80 cals to be stored or used for energy in the body. Leaving you with a net calorie intake of about 70-80 cals instead of the original 100 calories you consumed. (note; this doesn’t mean you need to consume ALL your calories from protein, but it is an important factor that gets missed)
Add up those 4 numbers, and you have your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)
- If you eat more calories than your TDEE, your body holds onto that extra energy and stores it as mostly body fat, leading to weight gain.
If you eat less calories than you TDEE, your body will use that stored energy instead, leading to mostly fat loss or weight loss.
Important Note: Your calorie requirements to maintain weight can change!
This is not a permanent number because your baseline calories are dependent on several varying factors.
I often see this with clients who seek my help after trying to lose weight on their own. After a long diet, they might try to take their intake back up to what they thought their baseline was, only to end up gaining weight (mostly body fat) back. But Why?!
When you diet and lose weight your body will inevitably undergo a few changes. One of those changes is that your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) can decrease a little because you have less body mass to carry around. For example, it will take you less energy to move around and function a body that is now 170 lbs compared to when it was 200lbs.
This point has been shown in several studies, 2 of which are the “MATADOR” study:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2017206
and the “Biggest Loser 6 Years Later” study:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538
In the MATADOR study, published in 2017 by the International Journal of Obesity, the researchers placed 51 men into 2 random groups and had them follow certain diets for 16 weeks to analyze the effects on caloric restriction on metabolism. At the end of the dieting phase, they found substantial drops in their BMR than in the beginning of the study.
In the Biggest Loser 6 Years Later, published in 2016 by a Research Journal called the Obesity Society, the researchers conducted an initial investigation as well as a follow up study of 14 participants of the competition reality show called “The Biggest Loser”. The purpose of the follow up study was to determine changes in the BMR before the show, after, the show, and 6 years later. Here’s what they found:
- Average BMR before filming: 2,607 kcal burned / day.
- Average BMR after 30 weeks on the show: 1,996 kcal burned / day.
- Average BMR six years after final weigh-in: 1,903 kcal burned / day.
As you see, even as the participants lost weight and got stronger, they’re bodies were now burning less at rest than when they were obese and sedentary!
Another change that your body undergoes while dieting is an adaptation to your NEAT output (mentioned earlier). Whenever you consume less calories, you will have less energy, which could affect how much you unconsciously move throughout the day. If you’ve ever seen someone on a very low calorie diet for a bodybuilding show or sports weigh in you’ll know what I’m talking about. They will talk slower, quieter, and even blink slower! They unconsciously minimize any extra movement they might usually do with their hands or body as a result of lower energy intake. Again, you cannot consciously control your NEAT output because then you would be considered exercising. NEAT is an unconscious adaptation that almost no one knows or cares to teach people about, which is usually the culprit behind stagnation or “plateau” in the weight loss process.
Step 2: Determine Which Equation to Use
Note: You will need a tape measure to start, so make sure you get one!
Now that you understand the basics of how calories can affect weight loss or weight gain, it’s time to figure out how to figure out your number. There are several online calculators and equations you can use. Just so you’re aware the 2 big ones are:
- The Muller Equation
- The Harris Benedict Formula (revised for lean body mass)
I like to use the Harris Benedict Formula with one adjustment. Using lean body mass in the equation INSTEAD of bodyweight. The reason I only include lean body mass is because I want to feed the muscle, not the fat. If you have somebody that’s 200 pounds and they’re 50% body fat, and another person that’s 200 pounds and 10% body fat, they are going to have very different energy expenditures. So if you plug their numbers into any equation without accounting for how lean the person is you will get the same number for 2 totally different people! I think the Muller Equation is great but it’s WAY too complicated to teach most people. I learned this simplified version from my coaches at Lockhart & Leith while getting certified as a Weight Cut Specialist. I find it just as accurate and a lot simpler.
To calculate BMR, you need the gender, age, weight, height, and lean body mass (LBM). Lean Body Mass is everything on your body that is not fat mass. It gets used interchangeably with muscle mass, but it’s more than that. It’s your total body water, dry lean tissue, organs, bones, etc. Lean Body Mass accounts for a large majority of your BMR. The more muscle mass, bone density, mitochondria etc. you have, the higher your BMR is compared to a sedentary person of the same weight (making it easier to burn calories at rest and lose more body fat). The question almost everyone asks at this step is, “How do you calculate lean body mass?”. You do it through calculating or estimating your body fat percentage. Although you can use calipers or get a DEXA scan (two methods used to measure body fat), it’s not realistic for most people or necessary. 2 tools I like to use are:
- The Navy Body Fat Calculator: (get your tape measure!) https://www.omnicalculator.com/health/navy-body-fat
- Using your best judgment by looking at the individual’s physique. If you need something to reference, use the infographics provided below as a general guide, I generally find this guide much more accurate for leaner, more athletic people.
HARRIS–BENEDICT FORMULA
Calculate BMR for Men
66 + (6.23 x Lean Body Mass) + (12.7 x Height in Inches) – (6.8 x Age in Years)
Calculate BMR for Women
665 + (4.35 x Lean Body Mass) + (4.7 x Height in Inches) – (4.7 x Age in Years)
Step 3: Calculate Lean Body Mass
Once you get the basic information, the next step is to calculate lean body mass.
To calculate lean body mass, you first need to figure out how many pounds of body fat you have.
Body Weight x Body Fat % = Body Fat in Pounds
Example Stats: Male, 30 years old, 205 lbs, 6ft tall (72 inches), 10% body fat
Example 1: 205 x 10% = 20.5lbs of Body Fat
Now you subtract body fat in pounds from the total body weight, and that will give you lean body mass.
Body Weight — Body Fat in Pounds = Lean Body Mass
Example 1: 205 — 20.5 = 184.5lb Lean Body Mass
Step 4: Calculate Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Now that you have the lean body mass, you can calculate the BMR using the Harris-Benedict Formula:
Example 1: 66 + (6.23 x 184.5 = 1149.4) + (12.7 x 72 = 914.4) – (6.8 x 30 = 204)
BMR = 1,925
Step 5: Calculate Maintenance Calories
Keep in mind that the BMR is only the minimum number of calories you need each day. It is the caloric intake needed to “keep the lights on” so to speak. BMR is the rate you burn if you were literally doing nothing all day besides resting and staying alive, then this would be your intake. It’s important to calculate your true maintenance by factoring in your activity level. This is the scale I like to use and find the most accurate:
- Sedentary: Little to no exercise; multiply BMR x 1.1
- Lightly Active: Light exercise 1-3x per week; multiply BMR x 1.2
- Moderately Active: Moderate exercise 3-5x per week: multiply BMR x 1.3
- Very Active: Hard exercise 5-7x per week; multiply BMR x 1.5
Let’s say the example guy from above is moderately active, then I will multiply is BMR (1925) x 1.3 = 2,503 kcals per dayThe resulting number will be an approximation of how many calories your body currently needs to maintain weight. But while these equations are a great place to start figuring out your calorie requirements, they may not be completely accurate. Nonetheless, this is where you should start so you can make adjustments later.
Step 6: How to calculate calories for weight loss
Once you’ve figured out your calorie requirements for maintaining your weight, you’re ready to adjust for a weight loss goal. First you need to set a goal for the rate at which you want to lose weight. It’s commonly known in the fitness and nutrition world that 1lb of body fat contains approximately 3,500 calories, so here is how you use that information to calculate a calorie deficit for weight loss.
If you wanted to lose 1 lb per week, you would want to subtract about 3,500 total calories through the week. If you divide 3,500 calories by seven days, you would be looking at a daily deficit of 500 calories per day, meaning you would need to subtract 500 calories from your maintenance calorie requirements. OR you can subtract half of that (250), and then make sure you’re burning another 250 cals per day through some sort of exercise. 250 calories per day through exercise is not that hard.
I strongly suggest you create most of your caloric deficit by increasing your output calories (exercise), instead of cutting 500 calories out of your maintenance intake right away. It is much better to lose as much weight as you can with as many reasonable calories as you can so that your metabolism adapts to its energy intake. This strategy leaves you room to drop calories after a “plateau” or just when you need to in order to lose more weight. If you drop your calorie intake too drastically and too soon, what will you do when you no longer progress but still have more weight to lose? Drop to under 1000? No way! Harvard suggests that in general, most women should consume no less than 1200 cals a day and most men consume no less than 1500 calories a day.
Step 7: How to calculate calories for weight gain
On the other hand, there are people who are looking to “bulk” in order to gain weight mostly in the form of muscle. You’ll hate to hear this, but most coaches will agree with me: It’s actually much harder for someone to gain weight eating more calories than it is for someone to lose weight. Most people who identify as “hard gainers” end up getting really full before they can finish the required amount of food they need to eat. It takes them a lot of time dedicated to their day to just eating and training their stomach to get used to the intake.
I strongly suggest starting slow and setting a targeted rate of weight gain, usually about an extra 200-300 calories per day and build from there if you can.
If this is your goal I highly encourage to download a free copy of “Bigger Smaller Bigger”
https://www.biggersmallerbigger.com/
It’s an experiment where a guy named Nate Green packs on 20lbs of mostly muscle in 28 days, cuts all the weight in 5 days, and then gains it all back overnight. He is coached by the two top people you could have in your corner. World renowned coaches Dr. John Beradi for nutrition and Martin Rooney for his strength & conditioning program.
It’s super easy and fun to read his journey, as well as gold nuggets of wisdom for gaining weight the right way. The free PDF includes copies of his entire eating regiment and training program.
Step 8: How to continue to make progress in the long term
Once you’ve established your calorie requirements to maintain, lose, or gain, how will you know if it will work and how will you continue to make progress when/if you get stuck? That is why continuous tracking is so important. This is the step most people don’t go through with long term and quit before they even really try and track what’s going on. Tracking is SO important because it gives you a collection of measurable data. With that information you can make real adjustments instead of guessing. Peter Drucker, a prominent business consultant is often quoted saying, “what gets measured, gets managed”. And what we can manage, we can change. How will you know what to change if you never track? The first thing you need to track is your food; make sure to log your food as accurately as possible by using tablespoons, cups, and weighing your food on a cheap food scale at home. This really doesn’t take as long as you think it will. Don’t leave things out like sauces, snacks, drinks etc. Log everything that goes into your mouth or you’re just cheating yourself (and you’ll know it). I like to use the MyFitnessPal App as it’s been around for several years and has an expansive database for foods and restaurants you can log. As a personal trainer for over 10 years, I still track my food so that I maintain my own fat loss and set a good example for my clients. Trust me when I say, you have the time to do it. If you login on any type of social media each day or watch any type of TV shows, then you can definitely log your food. It takes an average of 6 minutes or less to do.
The second thing you need to do is weigh yourself everyday in the morning. It’s important that you weigh yourself everyday instead of once a week or once a month. This is because your weight fluctuates daily. You might be surprised to find that you’re up 4lbs on the scale one morning after a night of chinese food because the sodium content makes you retain water weight. Just because you gained weight on the scale does NOT mean that you gained body fat. Gaining weight because of water retention and gaining weight because of body fat are two totally different things. So by weighing yourself everyday, you will get a weekly average (divide the total weights by the # of days for a weekly average). And by getting the weekly average weight you can now account for the daily fluctuations and not freak out over a 4lb jump on the scale one morning. Plotting this average over time will give you reliable and objective data to observe and determine if you’re hitting your goals or not. If your goal is weight loss, and you’re accurately and consistently tracking your food, you’re weighing yourself each morning and getting a weekly average, and after several weeks (3-6 or so) you’re still not losing any weight? It’s time to create a caloric deficit by either; decreasing caloric intake, increasing activity level, or a little of both. Again, I prefer to not drop calories if at all possible, and when I do, I suggest a small amount of about 100-200 cals or so at a time, making sure to not exceed the Harvard standards from earlier (1200 women, 1500 for men).
Another strategy I like to use with clients instead of dropping calorie intake is by adjusting macronutrients (mentioned at the beginning of the article). We process each macronutrient differently and they all have different rates of Thermic Effect of Food (TEF), so there are times when you can make some adjustments in macros and continue to lose weight without dropping calories.
Keep in mind you can and should lose weight and keep it off without having to starve yourself. In fact, starvation/ultra restrictive type diets are the worst diets to follow because in 95% of cases people gain all their weight back within 3-5 years (references cited below).
Understand this golden rule: If the method you use to lose weight is not sustainable, the results won’t be sustainable either.
People make this mistake all the time when they go on a super low calorie or restrictive diet in which they see results, but also can’t wait for the diet to be “over” so they can go back to normal eating. This is the biggest and most common mistake you could make. People overestimate their abilities and think “if I can just lose this weight quickly I can keep it off”. But I’m sorry to tell you that if you lose weight quickly using an unsustainable method, then unfortunately you will not keep it off 🙁
All in all it’s actually very simple to understand, yet hard to employ. Losing weight and keeping it off IS possible if you do it correctly and play the long game. I’m not saying you can eat whatever you want whenever you want (I mean I guess technically you can no one’s stopping you), but what I am saying is that you can have foods you want and enjoy in logical portions….just not all at once! Dieting and losing weight will take some form of cognitive restraint on your part. But the goal is to find the diet and way of eating that causes you the LEAST amount of mental fatigue so that you can sustain your results for the long term. That’s my wish for you.
If you’ve made it this far, you’re ready to understand macronutrients and how to determine how much of each (proteins, carbs, fats) you will need to reach your calorie goal and achieve the best results possible. If calories are a book, then macros are the words inside the book. A book without words will only get you so far. So it’s important to stay tuned for my next article on How to Determine Your Macronutrients, so you can unlock the nutrition puzzle and start accomplishing your goals. You’ve got this!If you need more professional help and guidance, and especially if you have certain physical limitations and need help with nutrition, I talk to all of my clients daily through my app as well make them custom meal plans, provide nutritional coaching, and hold them accountable to their goals! I make custom training plans with instructional exercise videos for my clients based on their goals, abilities, limitations, and available equipment. Click here (https://jordanpatrickfitness.com/contact/) so we can schedule a 30 min consultation call to see if I can help you reach your goals! Spots are limited.
References
- https://www.biggersmallerbigger.com/
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19587114/
- https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21538
- https://www.nature.com/articles/ijo2017206
- https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17469900/