Natural weight loss at home with diet, nutrition, fitness, and training tips from theory to practice

2 Ways to determine calories needed per day

The amount of calories needed per day by your body can be found using one of 2 basic methods. Both methods can be used in the comfort of your own home and will give you a measure of how many calories you need to maintain your current body weight and activity level.

The amount of calories needed per day for you to not lose or gain weight is called your maintenance level or maintenance amount of calories.

There are two ways you can find out your amount of calories needed per day:

1. Use a formula to initially calculate it, and then adjust the amount of calories until you aren’t gaining or losing weight on the scale.
2. Adjust the amount of calories that you’re currently eating until you aren’t gaining or losing weight on the scale.

Both methods will take you a couple of weeks to execute before you find your maintenance level. It is best to measure your bodyweight every 7 days and not daily, since your body takes time to adjust to any dietary or exercise change you implement.

1. Using formulas to find your calories needed per day

Head over to caloriecount.about.com and choose the Burn Meter from the Tools menu. Enter the required info and click Calculate.

This tool seemed pretty accurate when I last tried it, so you can give it a shot. This tool will give you a base estimate of the amount of calories needed per day. You can use this base estimate to start adjusting your daily calorie intake.

Once you’ve got this base estimate, you need to start keeping track of what you eat, by counting calories on a daily basis, and trying not to eat more calories than the base estimate prescribes.

Then at the end of the week, you should sum up the total amount of calories for all of the days and then divide that total by 7. This will give you the average intake per day for that week. The average amount of calories per day should be close to the base estimate for your calories needed per day.

Step onto a scale and see whether you’ve lost any weight during that week.

If you have, increase your base estimate by 10%, because the base estimate is on the low side. If you’ve gained weight, reduce your base estimate by 10%, because the base estimate is on the high side. If you have not gained or lost weight, you’ve found the amount of calories you need on a daily basis for your gender, age, height, and activity level.

If you’ve lost or gained weight, repeat the process every week until you aren’t losing or gaining weight anymore.

2. Adjusting calories to find your calories needed per day

The second method of finding your amount of calories needed per day is similar to the first method. But unlike the first, you don’t start with a base estimate, but you step onto a scale instead.

You should not do anything special with the way you’ve been eating or (not) exercising, but must start counting calories on a daily basis, so that you know how many calories you’ve eaten at the end of the week.

At the end of the week, sum up the total amount of calories for all of the days and then divide that total by 7. This will give you the average daily calorie intake for that week.

At the end of the week, you must also step onto the scale again and determine whether you’ve gained or lost weight.

If you have lost weight, increase the average amount of calories needed per day that you calculated previously by 10%, because you’re eating too little calories on a daily basis to maintain your bodyweight and activity level. If you’ve gained weight, reduce the average amount of calories needed per day that you calculated previously by 10%, because you’re eating too many calories on a daily basis and thus are gaining weight because of this. If you have not gained or lost weight, you’ve found the amount of calories you need on a daily basis for your bodyweight and activity level.

If you’ve lost or gained weight, repeat the process every week until you aren’t losing or gaining weight anymore.