Understand how many calories your body needs so you can reach your body composition goals. Your individual metabolic rate, activity level and diet all affect how many calories you need. To lose weight you must to maintain a caloric deficit. To gain weight you need a caloric surplus. Maintaining weight requires your caloric intake to equal your energy expenditure.
Basal and Resting Metabolic Rates
Your body requires a certain amount of calories to function daily. The minimum caloric requirement is your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR. Your Resting Metabolic Rate, or RMR, is how many calories your body burns while sitting at rest.
The equations to figure out your personal BMR and RMR are available on Caloriesperhour.com. Following these equations, the BMR of a 30-year-old, 165 cm tall, 63.5 kg woman would be 1,426.89 calories. A 28-year-old, 68 kg, 175 cm male's BMR would be 1,841.24 calories.
Caloric Expenditure
The level of your daily activities increases your caloric needs beyond your RMR. Exercise is just one source of active calorie expenditure. When fat loss is your goal, exercise is the way to accumulate a higher calorie debt. Exercise like resistance training is also an important stimulus for increasing muscle mass when weight gain is your goal.
The result of your BMR or RMR can be multiplied by activity factors, also available on Caloriesperhour.com. These factors are categorized as sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, very active and extremely active. If the 30-year-old female is lightly active, her total calories expended in one day would be 2,211.67. If the 28-year-old male is very active, he will burn 3,222.17 calories in a day.
Achieving a Caloric Deficit
According to the Mayo Clinic article "Counting Calories," a single pound of fat contains 3,500 calories. To lose one pound of fat in a week, you must expend 500 more calories than you consume per day. A daily deficit of 1,000 calories will yield a loss of two pounds. For the 30-year-old female to lose one pound of fat per week, she would need to reduce her intake to 1,711.67. To lose two pounds a week would require a caloric intake of 1,211.67 a day.
Achieving a Caloric Surplus
When your goal is to gain body mass, Zach Bashore's article on BrianMac.co.uk suggests beginning with a daily caloric surplus of 500 calories. For the 28-year-old male to begin gaining mass, he would need to increase his caloric intake to 3,722.17 calories a day. If he gains more fat than desired, the amount would be reduce to 300 calories over his daily needs. If he was not gaining enough weight, the amount should increase to 700 calories over his daily needs.
Maintaining Caloric Balance
Maintaining your weight is the easiest option to calculate. If you are the moderately active 30-year-old female, you will need to consume enough calories to match your daily expenditure of 2,211.67. If the 28-year-old male is very active, his daily caloric needs and expenditure would balance at 3,222.17
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