Ever wondered how your best friend can eat her way through an entire cheesecake and yet not gain an ounce, while you struggle with your weight despite eating frugally? Before you start moping about the ways of an unfair world, here’s a thought – this discrepancy can probably be attributed to the number of calories your body needs versus hers. Perhaps it’s time to calculate just how many calories you need to eat daily, and for some of you, time to re-define ‘frugal’!

Calories count
Typically, daily calorie requirements are calculated utilizing a number of inputs such as individual age, weight, and activity levels. For example, a moderately active 35-year-old woman, 5 feet 4 inches and weighing 135 pounds, requires a daily intake of 1800 calories. Think she can maintain her current weight by consuming those many calories a day for the rest of her life?  There’s a lot more depth to this particular calculation. Let’s try to understand the science behind this ‘magic number’ so you can (finally) have your cake and eat it too, and all without gaining an ounce!

Total number of calories you need
Besides your weight, height, gender, age, and activity level, factor in three parameters while planning your daily meals. These are BMR or basal metabolic rate, physical activity, and thermic effect of food.

BMR: BMR accounts for a large chunk, approximately 60–70 percent, of the calories you require in a day. Essentially, the BMR tells you the amount of energy required by your body to function while you are at rest doing normal bodily tasks such as blinking your eyelids, or keeping your heart beating and your body temperature stabilized. BMR is dependent on several factors including genetics, age, gender, body surface area, body fat percentage, diet, body temperature, health status, outside temperature, stress levels and level of physical activity. As you can see, there is very little on this list that you can blame on your genes!

Some people have a slow metabolism, which means their BMR is very low, and this can be genetic. But slow metabolism is not as common as you’d like to believe. Just to be sure you’re not a part of that small, select group of individuals with slow metabolism, get tested, as there are certain medical conditions like hypothyroidism and Cushing’s syndrome that can also decrease BMR.

Physical activity: Around 30 percent of your daily calorie intake goes towards providing you with energy to perform various voluntary activities such as taking a shower, walking, or chopping vegetables. So to fit into your sophomore year jeans, increase your activity levels, and take up running like your cheesecake-eating friend!

Thermic effect: Take away the jargon and you have a number that tells you the energy required to digest, transport, and store food in your body. Typically, around 10 percent of your calorie intake is utilized for this effort.

The total number of calories you need per day is thus a sum of the three factors just discussed.

Calculating your calorie intake
Turns out, calorie calculation tools are not that off-the-mark. By plugging in your gender, age, weight, height, and activity levels, you can get an approximate fix on the number of calories you need to consume daily, which will help you get through your day and maintain your weight. Want to lose weight? Cut back on the calories or increase your physical activity. Want to gain some pounds? Do the reverse.

Remember that your daily activity levels vary, so you may need to tweak your daily food consumption. Also, metabolism slows down as you age, so you will need to cut down on calories or increase your physical activity at that time to maintain your weight.

Listen to your body
Our body has a built-in mechanism telling us how much nutrition it requires. So learn to listen to your body; let it tell you when it is hungry and more importantly, stop eating when your receive that subtle signal from it that says ‘I’m full.’

Understanding what your body needs and modifying your eating habits accordingly can keep you healthy and fit.

So now you know what to check before devouring the next piece of your favorite cake!

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