When you decide on your weight loss battle plan, you usually start with the first question: “How many calories am I burning in a day right now? If it’s a lot, then I’m not going to work that hard. If it’s nothing to start with. , then I’ll give up now while I still have some dignity. “
Ok, that’s more of a joke, but I can honestly attest that probably most people trying to lose weight give up so easily. They see where they are, they see where they want to be, and then they say “Screw it.”
Well, you may be interested to know that the number of calories you burn each day right now may only require a very small adjustment for you to lose as much weight as you want.
And while there are quite a few equations, formulas, and web apps online to help you discover your daily calorie burn analytically, I’ll show you a much simpler way to formulate this answer and how you can use this knowledge to improve your current fat loss efforts. .
The calculation of daily calories burned depends on your BMR (basal metabolic rate)
The beginning, the middle, and the end of this idea of burning calories throughout the day has to do with your BMR (basal metabolic rate). Your BMR is the rate that determines how many calories you need to continue working your basic functions.
These basic functions make up most of the vital bodily operations, such as breathing, sleeping, breaking down food, pumping the heart and blood, and even adjusting the internal temperature. That means everyone’s BMR is always running, regardless of how fast they claim it to be.
Realistically, most people’s BMR runs at roughly the same pace. Of course, there are special cases that will break the bell curve, such as people who burn calories abnormally quickly and find it difficult to gain weight. (I’m very jealous of those people)
The opposite effect can also occur with strangely slow metabolisms, but for the most part, everyone is in the middle, running about the same pace when lifestyle physical activity levels are not taken into account. Your physical activities for the day are the other part of this calorie-burning equation.
There are too many factors to get a perfectly accurate figure (for your daily burn)
Determining how many calories someone burns in a day is incredibly complicated because there are almost too many factors and variables to consider. Ultimately, your daily calories burned are decided by a combination of your BMR (using your current weight) and your daily physical activity.
If you do a quick search, you can find several of those calorie burn calculator sites on the web that you can visit to enter all kinds of data about what you did during the day and they will spit out a number that may or may not be relatively close.
Most of those web applications are made with simple JavaScript that adds values based on various fitness rules such as:
1. How many calories are in a pound? A pound of muscle burns about 6 calories per day.
2. A pound of fat burns about 2 calories per day.
3. Walking burns between 80 and 100 calories per mile.
4. If you are a man, your result should be between 2,000 and 2,400 calories a day.
5. If you are a woman, your result should be between 1,800 and 2,100 calories a day.
The first 3 rules have enough research to probably refer to them as facts. I’m not so sure about 4 and 5.
But after taking the time to remember everything you did, try to figure out how many jumps you did and how many steps you took in the office … hardly worth it after I explain the simple way to get only the closest to an estimate .
BMR equations and formulas: complicated, but there is a simpler way …
While I have to give those calorie burning apps credit for … well … existing ones … so that people can use them, I just hope they are loosely based on one of the established BMR equations or formulas rather than simply by “adding up all the calories.”
The first three equations that actually tried to answer the question “How many calories do I burn in a day?” they are the Harris-Benedict, Mifflin, and Katch-McArdle equations. All three took the person’s weight, height and age into account, but it was the Katch-McArdle formula that was the first to integrate lean body mass into the equation.
Now, for an imaginary woman who is 55 years old, 130 pounds (59 kg), 5 ‘6 “(168 cm) tall, and has 30% body fat, these three formulas would produce the following results:
Harris – Benedict’s Equation = 1272 calories
Mifflin’s equation = 1204 calories
Katch-McArdle formula = 1263 calories
So for this imaginary woman to maintain her body weight, she needs to consume about 1,246 calories per day. That is what your body demands based on its current statistics. (His stats are also imaginary)
The simple formula to answer “How many calories do I burn in a day?”
Now I know that I have been hanging a carrot in front of your face up to this point, but now I will reveal to you how you can formulate the answer to your question about burning calories. A quick, but somewhat accurate estimate of your BMR can be made by taking your current weight in pounds and multiplying it by 10.
Yes, it is as simple as that. You are probably looking at the average of the three values in equation (1246) and the value of this simpler version (1300) and thinking “Hey, that’s 54 calories! This is not accurate at all!”
Calm down people. The thing to remember is that anything to do with measuring the speed or power of one’s metabolism is not going to be any better than an informed guess.
At least with this method, you have between 50 and 100 calories and you don’t even need a calculator.
Your next question is probably “How many calories should I eat to lose weight?”
Well the simple answer is less than the number you generated. The number of calories you burn each day is the number of calories it takes to maintain your current weight. This is the amount of energy your body needs to maintain its current weight.
If you increase this amount, you will gain weight and if you decrease this amount, you will lose weight. In fact, it is that simple. The tricky part is coming up with a good plan to cut your caloric intake without going crazy or suffering from some kind of eating disorder. You might hear people ask questions like “How many carbohydrates per day to lose weight?” But it’s all about the calories. Don’t complicate things by separating food groups when you really need to focus on serving size and frequency.
When you decrease your caloric intake, you are actually creating a calorie deficit. Of course, you can do this with any combination of diet and / or exercise. Personally, I like to do both for faster results. And I’ve found that the fastest and most sustainable way to cut my calories is by fasting two or more times a week and using the method of cheating your metabolism.
My fasting strategies are based on Eat Stop Eat, and I think it’s great because it’s a technique that I don’t really have to think about. With a normal diet, you have to worry about portions of each meal and eat only “healthy foods”, and I just get tired of it. With fasting, I simply cut calories over a 24-hour span a few times a week and lose weight. (And I’m still losing it)
Knowing how many calories you burn each day is the first step to losing weight. You need to know where you start before you can decide where you want to go.