Two of the most useful calculations for establishing a healthy diet and tracking your fat loss over time are recommended daily caloric intake and body fat percentage.
Your recommended daily caloric intake is a measure of your basal energy expenditure, or how many calories your body burns every 24 hours simply keeping itself alive, plus the calories you burn through activity. If you eat less than this amount, you will lose weight. If you eat more, you will gain weight.
Your body fat percentage is a more reliable indicator of fat loss than simply tracking weight. This is because muscle weighs more than fat. Consider someone who is lifting weights and eating healthy and is consequently gaining muscle at the same time he is losing fat. He may not see any changes on the scale, or he may actually see his weight increase. However, if he were instead tracking his body fat percentage over time he would see he is becoming more fit.
Follow these steps to calculate your recommended daily caloric intake and estimate your body fat percentage.
Recommended Daily Caloric Intake
Step 1
Weigh yourself on the scale. Measure your height with your shoes off, standing flat on the floor, from the base of your heels to the top of your head.
Step 2
Convert your weight and height to metric units if they are not already converted. You will need your weight in kilograms and your height in centimeters. For a simple shortcut, try typing something similar to "convert 180 pounds to kilograms" into Google, substituting your weight.
Step 3
Plug those numbers and your age into the following formulas.
For men, use: 66 + (13.7 x weight [kg]) + (5 x height [cm]) - (6.8 x age)
For women, use: 655 + (9.6 x weight [kg]) + (1.8 x height [cm]) - (4.7 x age)
This provides you with the amount of calories your body burns keeping itself alive, or your Basal Energy Expenditure (BEE). This would be accurate if you did nothing but lie in bed all day.
Step 4
Determine your activity level. If you are mostly sedentary and do nothing all day, multiply the above number by 0.2 and add the result to your basal energy expenditure. If you engage in light exercise one to three times per week, multiply by 0.3. If you exercise most days, multiply by 0.4. If you exercise intensely on a daily basis, multiply by 0.5.
For example, a sedentary person with a BEE of 1,800 needs (1800 + (1800 x 0.2)) or 2,160 calories per day to maintain her current weight. This is her recommended daily caloric intake.
Estimate Body Fat Percentage
Step 1
Body fat percentage can be measured directly in a lab or advanced gym, or it can be calculated using a formula as we will do here. To begin, you will need to measure the circumferences of various body parts using your measuring tape. If you are female, measure your abdominal circumference at its minimum width. If you are male, measure at the level of your navel, not the minimum width.
Step 2
Measure your neck circumference at the base of the neck with the front of the tape sloping slightly downward. Think of the measuring tape as a tight necklace or choke collar. This step is the same for males and females.
Step 3
Measure your height without shoes, feet flat on the floor, from the base of your heels to the top of your head. This step is also the same for males and females.
Step 4
Make an additional measurement around the widest horizontal circumference of your hips if you are a female.
Step 5
Using the Body Fat Calculator - US Navy Formula link in the resources below, enter your measurements to calculate your estimated body fat percentage.
Things You'll Need
- Bathroom or gym scale
- Tape measure
- Calculator
References
- "Clinical Anesthesiology, 4e;" G. Edward Morgan, Jr., Maged S. Mikhail, Michael J. Murray; 2006
- "Military Medicine;" A Comparison of Military Circumference Equations to Skinfold-Based Equations to Estimate Body Composition; Babcock, Carmen J.; Kirby, Timothy E.; McCarroll, Michele L.; Devor, Steven T.; January 2006
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