Calories
Calories
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What are calories?
The word calorie often has a scary and negative touch to it but in reality it is what's keeping us alive. Without energy our muscles wouldn't move, our digestive system wouldn't work and basically our whole body wouldn't be able to function. Calories (kcal) mesure how much energy a certain food or drink contains. Water for example stores zero calories, a McDonalds cheeseburger contains 206 calories. So if we eat a cheeseburger our body can take this energy to make our cells work correctly. Even without moving or working out our body is burning calories. We call the amount of calories our body burns just with basic daily activities our daily calorie intake. This variates from person to person and should be looked at as a guidance frame to how much calories we can eat in one day to not loose nor gain weight.
But when we drink or eat more calories than our body can burn, it stores the excess calories as body fat. This (and only this) is the reason why one gains weight.
But not only is it importent to eat the right amount of calories but also to eat the right food/ healthy food. A cheeseburger may have the same amount of calories as three eggs but the egg stores healty vitamins, proteins and healthy fats while the cheeseburger contains unhealthy transfats and other chemicals. Above that, the eggs will keep you probably for a longer time full than the burger and that leads to eating less aka. storing less excess calories in body fat. Reason for keeping you longer full is the so called fiber.
If you want to know more about ingredients that keep you full for a longer time click here!
To lose weight you'll have to be in a calorie defficite. That means you'll have to burn more than you eat. It sounds easy but it's harder than you think. That's why I have created a list of dietary supplements and workout equipement which allow you to be in a calorie defficit without having to endure a very strict diet and workout plan.
Click here to look into my fat loss boosting recommendations!
Calorie charts
What is my BMR and TDEE?
If you dont want to calculate your BMR and TDEE by hand you can click on the little calculator below and let the computer do it for you.
BMR means basal metabolic rate and signifies the number of calories required to keep your body functioning. If you add the additional activities to the BMR you get the total daily energy expediture (TDEE). That is the number of calories you burn in a day, all activities and exercises inclueded. If you want to lose, gain or mantain your weight you have to know your TDEE at all costs!
To calculate your BMR you take 10 times your weight and add 6,25 times your hight and sublime 5 times your age.
(10x weight (in kg) + 6,25x hight (in cm) - 5x age = BMR)
To calculate your TDEE you take the result of your BMR calculation and multiply it by one of the different activity factors below:
- Sedentary (little to no exercise + work a desk job) = 1.2
- Lightly Active (light exercise 1-3 days / week) = 1.375
- Moderately Active (moderate exercise 3-5 days / week) = 1.55
- Very Active (heavy exercise 6-7 days / week) = 1.725
- Extremely Active (very heavy exercise, hard labor job, training 2x / day) = 1.9
(BMR x Activity factor = TDEE)
Now you can decide how much calories more or less you want to consume in one day.
To decrese your weight lightly I recommend to drop your daily calorie intake by 200 calories. Under normal conditions you will drop around 0.25kg body weight per week. I always recommend starting slow and dropping more calories with time or else you will destroy your natural metabolisem.
If you dont want to calculate your BMR and TDEE by hand you can click on the little calculator below and let the computer do it for you.
Click on the calculator to calculate your daily calorie intake!
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