Working out your daily caloric requirements

rainglow

I've been looking into this and have come across some conflicting opinions, so if anybody could please clear this up for me, I'd really appreciate it

I want to get an idea of how many calories I should be taking in per day, as I have no concept of portion control. I have, in the past, managed to GAIN weight while not taking in sugar, alcohol, wheat or junk food. I know calorie counting isn't for everybody, but I like the level of control it affords me.

I'm 29, 5 foot 3.5 and weigh about 9st 7lbs. My BMR works out at 1404 . Assuming a sedentary lifestyle on the days when I'm not exercising, my daily caloric needs are 1685 . I would like to lose weight (I'm getting married ) - probably 7-10lbs.

So here are my questions/ areas of confusion!

• Is it true that you're not supposed to eat less than your BMR? If this is the case, am I resigned to slower weight loss (300 cals a day = ~ 12 days to lose one lb of fat

• Let's say I workout one day and burn 200 calories. I eat 1400 for the day. My net calorie intake is 1200, which is lower than my BMR. Is this important, or once I've eaten the 1400 calories of food to fuel my system that day the only important thing, and I can burn off as many as I like?

• I met somebody today who happened to be a PT/ nutritionist, who told me that I should be eating about 1700 on a normal day and 2000 on a day where I exercise - to lose weight, not maintain my weight. How does this make sense with the above numbers?

Christ, I hope I don't sound like a complete div! I think I'm making something relatively simple more complicated than I need to....but if anybody could help I'd really appreciate it. Like I said, I just can't give myself a free rein with food, even the "good" stuff!!

El_Dangeroso

Absolutely no idea to be honest, but the eating less than your BMR thing sounds like a myth tbh. I wouldn't go below a calorie deficit of 600 though, just for sustainability and preserving muscle.

Or, you could *prepares to be flamed* try a low carb diet where you don't have to count anything, just eat to satiety. It's a natural appetite suppressant and it's pretty much impossible to overeat steak and eggs.

rainglow

I don't really eat meat! I'm borderline veggie

(and I could probably eat ham/ bacon/ cheese til it came out my ears )

El_Dangeroso

Fair enough! You can do veggie moderate carb, Karen Barnaby wrote a great veggie low carb cookbook, I love meat but her recipes don't leave you wondering where the meat is.

EileenG

You can't go by the sort of calculations you find on the internet. First, most them make no difference between someone who is fat and lazy, and someone who is muscular and active. If you know it, you can use your lean mass (bodyweight minus fat) to give a more accurate figure, but it's still just an educated guess.

Actually, the person who can tell you your calorie requirements best is you. You already have a very very good idea of how much you can eat without gaining or losing weight. That is your maintenance requirement. Open a free account with www.fitday.com, enter in the food you would eat in a normal day (all of it, mouthfuls and nibbles and bits stolen off other people's plates too), and it will add it up for you. Do this for a week or two, and you'll have a very good idea of how many calories you use in an ordinary day, and it's exactly tailored to your lifestyle and your personal metabolism.

After that, you lower it to lose weight, raise it to gain.

For what it's worth, I reckon that for most people who commute to a desk job but do work out, the calories needed for maintenance are about 13 calories per pound of bodyweight. In your case, that's about 1729, including exercise. To lose weight, about 11 cals per pound of bodyweight should work. 1463 for you.

That's a starting point. Adjust as necessary to get the results you want.

dearg lady

That site is very useful Eileen, I'm goin to use it to track my weight! This is slightly OT but I didn't think it warrented a new thread, I've set myself a calorie goal based on your suggestion but I'm unsure as a max how much fat I should take in, is there somewhere I can get a guideline on this?

EileenG

This is a "How long is a piece of string?" question. The popular theory is to keep fat low, between 20-30% of calories (this is very low, as fat has 9 calories per gram of fat). However, low carb diets have a lot more fat in them, often between 60-70% of calories (what you'd find in eggs or oily fish) and they work just as well as the low fat diets. People on high fat, low carb diets don't develop health problems, sometimes to the surprise of those around them!

The one thing about all the fat in your diet is that it should not be processed. Avoid anything with transfats, or partially hydrogenated or fully hydrogenated fats. Typically, you'd find those in baked and processed food, including some "healthy" spreads and low-fat ready meals.

Get your fats from extra virgin olive oil, oily fish, nuts, eggs, flaxseeds, avocado, fresh meat, coconut oil, seeds, etc. Not Flora or any kind of processed dressing.

dearg lady

Thanks Eileen, I guess if I keep my food diary for a few weeks I'll have a better idea. Ya know it's funny, but I think we often know instinctively which foods we should limit or avoid, but sometimes ignore what our body tells us!

EileenG

Totally agree. I can't count how many people know instinctively how much they should eat, but ignore it because some expert or even some on-line calculator tells them differently.

foodproof.me

EileenG wrote: »

You can't go by the sort of calculations you find on the internet. First, most them make no difference between someone who is fat and lazy, and someone who is muscular and active. If you know it, you can use your lean mass (bodyweight minus fat) to give a more accurate figure, but it's still just an educated guess.

Actually, the person who can tell you your calorie requirements best is you. You already have a very very good idea of how much you can eat without gaining or losing weight. That is your maintenance requirement. Open a free account with www.fitday.com, enter in the food you would eat in a normal day (all of it, mouthfuls and nibbles and bits stolen off other people's plates too), and it will add it up for you. Do this for a week or two, and you'll have a very good idea of how many calories you use in an ordinary day, and it's exactly tailored to your lifestyle and your personal metabolism.

After that, you lower it to lose weight, raise it to gain.

For what it's worth, I reckon that for most people who commute to a desk job but do work out, the calories needed for maintenance are about 13 calories per pound of bodyweight. In your case, that's about 1729, including exercise. To lose weight, about 11 cals per pound of bodyweight should work. 1463 for you.

That's a starting point. Adjust as necessary to get the results you want.

I set up a site www.foodproof.me as I could not get a site that gets me foods that are available in Ireland.
You can check the same food as on fitday but I added lots of food from Tesco and Dunne Stores + plus you can add your own food and track it daily.

EileenG

I just did a quick search on that sift for "Christmas pudding", "Christmas cake", "Brandy butter", "eggnog" and "Cadburys Roses" and got nothing for any of them.

corkcomp

EileenG wrote: »

I just did a quick search on that sift for "Christmas pudding", "Christmas cake", "Brandy butter", "eggnog" and "Cadburys Roses" and got nothing for any of them.

the roses are in there alright! in fairness it would be impossible to be putting up xmas cake / pudding calories. i know other sites do but its really a rough guide at best, the cals between two different puddings could vary widely.

op, not all calories are equal, i would be surprised if you gained much weight taking in 1700 cals of good food, where as 1200 cals of crap could do harm!

EileenG

Here's a few.


Chocolate truffle - 66 cals, 4.7g fat, 5.2g carbs.
Regular apple pie - 237 cals, 8.9g fat, 36.7g carbs.
Mini apple pie - 95 cal, 4.1f, 13.6c
Cheese twist - 41 cals, 2.3f, 4.1c
Christmas cake - 286 cals, 5.3f, 56.7c
Choc mini disc - 35 cals, 2.3f, 3.1c
Brandy snap - 66 cals, 1.9f, 10.3c
Pink & white wafer - 48 cals, 0.2f, 8.4c
Mini spring roll - 33 cals, 1.3f, 4.5c
Prawn in filo - 29 cals, 1.4f, 2.8c
After Eight - 42 cals, 1f, 8c
Cocktail sausage - 38 cals, 3.0f, 0.5c
Bresola slice - 15 cals, 0.1f, 0c
Cured ham slice - 28 cals, 1.4f, 0c
Mini sausage roll - 48 cals, 3f, 4.9c
Bread stick - 25 cals, 0.5f, 6.2c
Bread roll - 169 cals, 2f, 31.3c
One Pringle - 10 cals, 0.6g of fat, 1.1g carbs.
50ml Baileys - 163 cal, 6.5g fat, 12.5g carbs (OUCH!, I love Baileys)

foodproof.me

homemade food is difficult to add unless someone has taken an average.
I have to average values one for Christmas pudding and one for eggnog.
I added these to the search.
Anything else you would like to see you can send me or added yourself.

thanks
foodproof.me

EileenG

Most people now buy pudding and egg nog and just go by the container. Even if you make your own, you can make a good guess by looking at what's available in places like Tesco and M&S.

foodproof.me

thanks for the tip EileenG
I can check Tesco, M&S, etc and add details on Christmas food

EileenG

Gotta say, I do not like that website. I put in "Tesco beef rib steak" and got six pages of choice, most of which had nothing to do with Tesco, rib, or even steak. I tried "chicken thigh raw" and got chicken wraps and all sorts of things. At least Fitday or Lowcarber.org give you a quick click to a specific food.

And "Cottage cheese", listed as from Tesco (because it doesn't give Lidl as a choice) and listed as Cheese got no result.

foodproof.me

I appreciate your input
Rib eye and chicken thigh raw are not in the database.
The cheese search issue is noted I will get this sorted.

thanks

EileenG

I played with it, putting in various food items in the search box (eggs, chocolate, bran flakes, shredded wheat, oats, cream, raw peanuts) and never got any of them in the first page.

It seems to think that kale is a fish but has never heard of anchovies, ray, coley or monkfish.

foodproof.me

thanks
added Anchovies, Monkfish, Caley (sorry don't have ray so need to research) and changed Kale to veg. on foodproof.me

egg search term result:
Free Range Eggs, Large, Class A (Dairy & Eggs)
Free Range, Eggs, Very Large (Dairy & Eggs) (Superquinn)
Organic Eggs, Medium, Class A (Dairy & Eggs) (Tesco)
Egg, Whole, Raw (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg, White, Raw (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg, Yolk, Raw (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg, Whole, Fried (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg, Whole, Hard boiled (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg, Whole, Cooked Omelette (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg, Whole, Poached (Dairy & Eggs)
Egg Whole, Cooked Scrambled (Dairy & Eggs)
Milk, Fat 3.5% (Dairy & Eggs)
Milk, Low Fat (Dairy & Eggs)
Super Milk (Dairy & Eggs)
Slimline Milk (Dairy & Eggs)

bran search term:
Hi-Fibre Cob, Toped with Bran (Bread) (Irish Pride)
Linseed & Oatbran Bread (Bread) (Life Fibre)
Bran Flakes, Sultana Bran (Cereal) (Kellogg's)
Bran Flakes, Sultana Bran (Cereal) (Kellogg's)
Bran Flakes (Cereal) (Kellogg's)
Bran Flakes (Cereal) (Kellogg's)
All-Bran (Cereal) (Kellogg's)
Sultana Bran, Light Choices (Cereal) (Tesco)
Sultana Bran, Light Choices (Cereal) (Tesco)
Bran Flakes, Tesco Value (Cereal) (Tesco)
Bran Flakes, Tesco Value (Cereal) (Tesco)
Bran Flakes,Organic (Cereal) (Tesco)
Bran Flakes,Organic (Cereal) (Tesco)
Blueberry Bran Muffin (Cakes, Muffins and Pastries) (Tim Hor...
Wheat bran (Grains & Flour)

but yes I need to get the keywords fine tuned

thanks for the inputs
Infact, anyone who searches the site can send me inputs on what's missing or when the search doesn't perform well.
The site is only live over a week. So this needs fine tuning.
Best is if you send issues to contactus@foodproof.me
on the foodproof.me contat site.

FYI: you can add your own food to the site on

EileenG

I think you need to fine tune it so that if someone enters two words in the search box, like "duck egg" or "bran flakes" or "raw peanuts" both those words are in the first foods that come up. When there are so many websites that have good search engines, no-one is going to look past one or possibly two pages for something basic.

Also, I find that "egg" also seemed to bring up lots of food with "veggie" in them.

foodproof.me

thanks
that's all stuff that can be fixed
Good that you're reporting the issue

Search is a difficult task as you're dealing with so much data. That's why only one company Google so far got 'real' search right.

Even fitday.com can't get it always right as you get for example Mackerel and Macaroni you their search result when you search for a Big Mac.

So bid of work to do.