Whether you are looking to lose weight, maintain your weight or gain weight, calories are important. Whilst it’s not necessary to count calories in order to change your weight, it can be a useful way to:
- understand how much you consume today, and
- realise the impact small changes to your nutrition can make
First things first though. Let’s answer that original question – how many calories do I need in a day?
Calorie calculator
The simplest way to calculate this is to use a basic calorie calculator. Just pop in your details below and see what the result is.
How to use the calculator
Just plug in all the numbers the calculator asks for. It uses a formula (see below for more information) to calculate the number of calories you need each day to maintain your current weight.
What to do next
Once you know the number of calories you need to maintain your weight, you can then decide what to do:
- For fat loss: reduce the number by 300 – 500 kCal per day
- For maintenance: use the number provided by the calculator
- For weight gain: increase the number by 300 – 500 kCal per day
This number is the number of calories per day you need to aim to consume to reach your goal.
The calorie calculation
Calorie calculators use a formula to calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the number of calories your body needs just to function properly if you were lying in bed all day not moving.
Then, based on your level of activity, the calculator will provide a rough guide as to the number of calories you should consume to maintain your weight.
The level of activity is important, as the more you move the more fuel (calories) your body needs.
If you are not sure what activity level to choose, opt for a lower option. Most people overestimate how much they really move in a day.
There are a few different formulas available for the BMR calculation, each based on different research. The calculator above uses the Mifflin St Jeor equation.
Accuracy
One thing to be aware of is that all online calorie calculators are based on averages and actual calories needed can vary.
The variations come from factors such as body composition (how much muscle and fat you have), but it is not fully understood where all of the difference comes from.
When doing these calculations, you should therefore just use them as a guide, don’t cling to the numbers as an absolute certainty.
How to work out the amount you consume today
As I mentioned at the beginning, counting calories is not mandatory to lose weight.
There are soooo many different methods and techniques to manage a healthy weight. Some people do well with calorie counting, others find it way too much work, BUT it can be a good way to get started, at least to work out how much you consume today and what your typical “goal” day should look like.
Today’s consumption
To work out how much you consume today, I would recommend using a nutrition tracker, such as MyFitnessPal.
You add all the food and drink you consume and it shows you the number of calories for each item and the total for the day.
Portion sizes make a HUGE difference to calories, so if you want to get a really good idea of what you are consuming today, be as accurate as possible with the amounts when adding it to the tracker.
Bear in mind that calorie counting is A LOT of work, especially when you first start as you need to find all the items in the tracker and work out the portion sizes. It does get quicker over time though as it remembers your previously used items.
Once you have tracked a few days and have a better idea of what you are consuming today, then you can move onto the next step: what a typical “goal day” should look like.
“Goal day” consumption
Next you can start playing around with the tracker to work out what you need to consume to hit your calorie goal.
If you are consuming more than your goal
If today you are way above your “goal day” consumption, have a look at what you have consumed and find the least nutritious items with the highest number of calories.
Decide if there is something you could easily remove, reduce the portion or substitute for something else.
A good example are those mocca-chocca-latte-heart-attack-in-a-cup coffees, which have shots of syrup added and whipped cream to top it off. These contain a crazy number of calories and are easy to replace with a different type of coffee, with a fraction of the calories.
For more healthy food swap ideas you can check out this post and for ways to improve your liquid nutrition this post has got your back.
Keep doing this until the calories for the day are in line with your goal calories. This is an example of what your daily consumption should look like to reach your goals.
If you are consuming less than your goal
If today you are far below the amount you need to consume for your goal, find some nutritious additions to increase your intake.
The key here is “nutritious”. Bulking up your calorie intake with junk food and sugary snacks is not the idea. The exact detail of what you should add to your diet will depend on the reason behind your goal (do you need more calories so that you can build more muscle or to gain weight for health reasons?). Raw nuts, avocados, protein shakes and eggs are just a few ideas of nutritious foods that can add additional calories to your diet. This post on Medical News Today has some good ideas.
Add these nutritious items into the tracker, until you reach the point where the calories equal your goal number. This is an example of what your daily consumption should look like to reach your goals.
FAQs
If I do more exercise, can I eat more?
Technically speaking, yes you can.
However, be very careful with this. It is incredibly easy to overeat if you start this “compensation” mindset.
It can take 20-30 minutes of jogging to burn off one normal sized chocolate bar. So if you go for a jog and then think “woohoo, now I can eat as much as I want”, then you are in dangerous territory for weight gain.
Can I eat whatever type of food I want?
Again, in theory, yes.
Say you need to eat 2000 kCal a day to reach your goal. Technically you could eat 2000 kCal of pizza each day and still reach your goal weight.
However, in reality this is neither feasible nor advisable.
Firstly, it is not feasible because 2000 kCal of any food which is high in fat (such as pizza) is not actually going to be much food for an entire day.
For example, a large Domino’s pizza is more than 2000 kCal! This little video shows some more examples of 2000 calories in various foods.
Secondly, it is not advisable, as you should fuel your body with the nutrients it needs, otherwise you could end up sick and with nutrient deficiencies.
Junk foods are generally pretty devoid of nutrition, but are incredibly high in calories.
If you mainly eat unprocessed, natural foods, not only will you be giving your body all the vitamins and minerals it needs to function properly; you can also eat way more in a day than if you eat loads of junk and snacks.
Can I eat as much “healthy” food as I want?
This one is simple: no you cannot.
Whether food is “healthy” or not, it still contains calories. Therefore, if you eat too much of it, it will impact your weight.
Even if you never touch fast food or visit the dessert buffet, if you consume more calories than you need, then it will lead to weight gain.
There is some good news though: if you mainly stick to healthy, nutritious foods, you can definitely eat more than if you always choose fatty, junk foods.
Conclusion
“How many calories do I need in a day” is a frequent question and to get an approximate answer is very simple, just plug your details into a calculator (like the one above) and off you go.
The important points to remember are:
- the number of calories given by online calculators is just a guide based on averages, so if you are not seeing results you may need to tweak your calories up or down
- calorie counting is neither the only nor necessarily the best way to reach your goals. It can be useful, but there are other ways if you don’t want to count calories
Regardless of whether you count calories, or use another method for keeping your weight in check, calories are important.
A basic understanding of calories, how much you should consume, and how many calories are in various foods can be incredibly helpful when it comes to making food choices.
For example, just 2 slices of pizza could contain 600 kCal, whereas a whole dinner of chicken, rice, vegetables, salad, dressing and a small dessert would be the same amount, so you start to see why calories matter to so much.
What is your experience with calorie control? Have you tried calorie counting, a points system, or something less?