Food Cures by Carol Svec Read Free Book Online

needs on an average day. There’s a mathematical formula I use to make this estimate. And although this calculation can be incredibly helpful, it doesn’t take into account genetics, your age, and muscular makeup—all of which play an important role in the amount of calories you burn each day. As we go along, I’ll run through the numbers with our hypothetical 155-pound woman (height doesn’t matter here).
Take your current weight (in pounds), and multiply by ten. That’s the number of calories your body needs just to keep breathing and digesting and doing all that other maintenance work. This is called your basal metabolic rate (BMR).

    155 pounds × 10 = 1,550 calories (BMR)
Determine your activity level:
Average activity level: 0.30 (Average activity is: desk job, little to no regular exercise)

More active than most: 0.40 (More active is: engages in light, planned exercise or sports 1 to 3 times per week)

Very active: 0.50 (Very active is: engages in moderate, planned exercise or sports 3 to 5 times per week)

Extremely active: 0.60 (Extremely active is: engages in vigorous, planned exercise or sports 5 to 7 times per week)
For our example, let’s say the activity level is average:

    activity level = 0.30
    3. Multiply your BMR by your activity level. This is your activity factor . (I’ll talk more about this concept later!)

    1,550 (BMR) × 0.30 (activity level) = 465 (activity factor)
    4. Add your BMR and your activity factor to get your maintenance calories . You need about this many calories to make it through an average day. If you eat this exact number of calories, you will neither gain nor lose weight—you will maintain your current weight. Important note: When you lose weight, you’ll have to recalculate your numbers.
    1,550 (BMR) + 465 (activity factor) = 2,015 (maintenance calories)

     

    So, for our 155-pound woman to maintain her weight, she should eat 2,015 calories a day. But, of course, you don’t want to stay the same weight, do you? If you want to lose weight, you have to eat fewer calories than your maintenance calories. The greater the difference between your maintenance calories and the number of calories you eat daily, the faster you will lose weight. In our example, the maintenance calories are 2,015. Eating 1,800 calories per day will result in weight loss:

     

    2,015 (maintenance calories)–1,800 (actual calories) = 215 weight-loss calories

     

    In order to lose a pound of fat, you need to accrue 3,500 weight-loss calories. In our example, the 215 weight-loss calories “spent” per day adds up to 78,475 weight-loss calories per year, which yields a projected weight loss of about 22 pounds in a year.
    Reducing calories further to only 1,600 calories per day will result in faster weight loss:

     

    2,015 (maintenance calories)–1,600 (actual calories) = 415 weight-loss calories

     

    These 415 weight-loss calories per day add up to 151,475 weight-loss calories per year, which yields a projected weight loss of about 43 pounds in a year. The greater the difference between your maintenance calories and your actual calories, the faster you will lose weight. Important note: Do not go lower than 1,000 actual calories per day. There is no advantage to ultra-low calorie dieting—your metabolism will slow, you’ll be more likely to binge due to starvation, and you may develop some vitamin and mineral deficiencies from not eating healthfully.
    Remember, you plug more than just the calories you eat into the equation—there’s also your activity level. If you increase your maintenance calories by upping your activity level you’ll also speed up weight loss. For example, if our hypothetical woman increases her activity to the 0.40 level, she will raise her maintenance calories to 2,170:

     

    1,550 (BMR) × 0.40 (activity level) = 620 (activity factor)

    1,550 (BMR) + 620 (activity factor) = 2,170 (maintenance calories)

    Eating 1,800 calories per day will result in weight