The amount of calories you should consume on a diet is ultimately based on your sex, age, body and level of activity, as well as your weight loss goals. This means that the number of calories you can eat on a diet will inevitably be different from your family, friends and neighbors. To determine your daily caloric intake, you need to consider how much weight you want to lose in a certain amount of time. From there, you can modify your lifestyle to achieve this goal.
Base Metabolic Rate
Your body requires a certain amount of food to survive, which is known as your base metabolic rate (BMR). Establishing this number is simply a mathematical equation that takes into account your height in inches, weight in pounds and age in years. The equations are slightly different depending on your sex, so women can arrive at their BMR by taking 655 plus (weight x 4.35) plus (height x 4.7) minus (age x 4.7). Men can determine their BMR by taking 66 plus (weight x 6.23) plus (height x 12.7) minus (age x 6.8).
Activity Level
Once you've established your base metabolic rate, you need to account for your level of activity. This is separated into sedentary, lightly active, moderately active, extremely active and vigorously active based on the amount of exercise you take part in each week.
As you've probably guessed, each of these lifestyles has a definition and numeric value. Sedentary basically means little to no exercise and is valued at 1.2. Lightly active is one to three times each week with a value of 1.375. Moderately active is three to five times a week, coming in at 1.55. Extremely active and vigorously active are six to seven or more than seven times a week, respectively, and are valued at 1.725 or 1.9.
Daily Caloric Need
Now that you've determined both base metabolic rate and level of activity, multiply the two numbers together to determine the amount of calories you need to maintain your current weight. After you've arrived at this number, you can modify your caloric intake.
Weight Loss
Regardless of how much weight you're hoping to lose, you need to burn more calories than you consume. According to the National Institutes of Health (as well as the Mayo Clinic), a pound of weight is equal to approximately 3,500 calories. If you're trying to lose a pound each week, you'll need to remove 500 calories from your eating regimen each day to reach this goal. If you're hoping to lose more, you'll need to modify your diet further.
Misconceptions
While it isn't necessary to only eliminate 500 calories each day from your diet, there are certain thresholds you shouldn't pass with weight loss. According to the National Institutes of Health, women should consume no fewer than 1,200 calories each day. For men, this number is a little higher, coming in at no fewer than 1,500 calories. Of course, there are circumstances that may preclude this restriction, but you'll need to be under the supervision of a medical professional to maintain a diet this low in calories.
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