How Many Calories Can We Have In A Day?

Calories are essential for good health

Calories are essential for good health. There are a minimum number of calories your body needs to maintain the essential functions - like breathing, keeping your heart beating and your brain functioning, in fact, keeping us alive. This minimum need is called the Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). While there is a complicated way to determine the amount each individual needs, there is a simple calculation used by health professionals to give us a guide.

Calculate Your Body's Needs

For people sitting around, doing very little, a guide is to multiply your weight by 11. This means, if are 140 pounds your body would need 1540 calories a day just to keep functioning; 175 pounds, 1925 calories. We are sometimes led to believe calories are all bad, but, as you can see, they are essential to good health. The more exercise you do the higher the multiple. For example, if you exercise 3 or 4 days a week the multiple would be 15-17 and if you exercise 6 or 7 days, the multiple would be 18-20.

Your Ideal Weight

As you can see, the more energy your body expends, the more it needs refueling. You can work towards you ideal body weight by getting to know the calories contained in certain foods. To achieve this, you would need to multiply you ideal body weight by the numbers above. In other words, if your ideal body weight was 140 pounds, then your daily calorie intake should be about 1540, as mentioned above.

Although it varies according to age and gender, another guide is to keep the calorie intake between 2200 and 2500 a day. It does differ between the sexes - a teenage boy under 14 should get about 2200 calories a day, whereas a girl the same age should get about 1800. For ages 15-18, a boy needs 2755 and a girl 2110, while adults need 2550 and 1940 respectively. These figures do differ, as they were taken from two different sources, but they are an approximate guide. As we get older, we generally need fewer calories, as we are not as energetic as we once were.

Keeping a rough track of your calories intake will help you in your efforts to lose weight. You do not have to make your life a misery by counting every calorie in the food you eat, but it pays to be aware of the amount of calories you have taken in for the day. If you have a big lunch, then you can have a smaller dinner. If you have had drinks with a friend then you can cut back the next day. As we all know if you consistently take in more calories than you are expending, you will build fat.

by: William Burnell

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