Consuming recommended amounts of calories and carbs will help you maintain a healthy body weight and may help prevent obesity-related health conditions. Counting your calories and carbs is helpful if you're overweight or obese and trying to achieve a healthy body weight. Although carbohydrates are the main fuel source for your body, if consumed in excess they will be stored as body fat.
Calorie Recommendations
If your body mass index is within a healthy range of 18.5 to 24.9, weight maintenance is a reasonable goal for you. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute website provides a body mass index, or BMI, calculator. The U.S. Department of Agriculture recommends the following calorie ranges for weight maintenance for adults: 1,600 to 2,000 calories per day for sedentary women, 1,800 to 2,200 calories per day for moderately active women, 2,000 to 2,400 calories per day for active women, 2,000 to 2,600 calories per day for sedentary men, 2,200 to 2,800 calories per day for moderately active men and 2,400 to 3,000 calories per day for active men.
Carbohydrate Recommendations
Your daily carbohydrate consumption should stay within the range of 46 to 65 percent of your total daily calorie intake, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. If you're following a 2,000-calorie diet, you should consume between 225 and 325 g of carbs per day. If you're consuming a 2,500-calorie diet, your carb intake should be between 281 and 406 g per day; if you consume a 3,000-calorie diet, your carb intake should be between 337 and 488 g per day.
Weight Loss
Unless you're very muscular, a BMI of 25 or above is considered overweight, and losing weight may help reduce your disease risk. The American Dietetic Association recommends overweight individuals reduce their energy intake by 500 to 1,000 calories per day for a 1 to 2 Ib. per week rate of weight loss, which is generally accomplished by reducing dietary fat or carbohydrate intake.
Carbs in Foods
Although the most well-known carbohydrate-containing foods are breads, cereals, rice and pasta, many other types of foods you may eat on a daily basis contain carbs. These include milk, yogurt, legumes such as black or pinto beans, fruits, starchy vegetables such as corn, peas and potatoes, many baked goods, sweets and sugar. Food labels provide the amount of carbohydrates present in a serving size of packaged foods.
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