How many calories do I need?

Whatever they will tell you or whatever you've heard - if you want to drop weight you simply have to cut calories to drop weight. Read how you precisely determine your daily calorie needs. As mentioned in one of my earlier articles ("Weight loss myths and lies"), there is lot of bullshit told by those so called weight loss experts. I won't go into detail here, but you surely heard of advice like "You can eat everything you want except for potatoes, rice, bread and pasta". Okay, so why don't you try this: If you're not allowed to eat carbohydrates (which above listed foods mainly consist of) then you could actually eat bacon, eggs, steak and butter (straight - no bread allowed) and all those other fat-rich food you were always afraid of (regarding your weight loss plans). Sometimes, this might work for you (this is why those low carb diets are so famous), for fat is the nutrient which feeds you the best. This, on the other hand, means you eat less food at all and might drop weight as a result. BUT (big but): this has nothing to do with carbs being the bad boys of our food. The only reason you drop weight (I don't say this will work for everyone) is your reduced calorie intake. Isn't this something you already learnt at school? If you "burn" more energy than you get (by eating), your body still has to provide energy. This is done by burning body fat. I'll keep it short now. Bottom line: the only factor deciding on your body fat is your energy balance (calorie intake minus calorie consumption). If you consume more energy than you "eat" (either by having more physical activities or eating less - or both), you will drop fat. Easy as that. Every successful diet works due to this fact (of course they want to sell you their new terrific theories). So how do you know how much calories your body needs per day? Actually, your calorie needs can be determined by measuring your body heat emission and other scientific examinations. Because not everybody has time (and money) to ask his or her doctor for such tests, there are approximated formulas (which use factors like your body surface etc.) that will calculate your needed energy at high precision. Those formulas (for resting metabolic rates, ie. your energy comsumption with nearly no physical activities) are: For women: 655 + (9.6 * weight in kg) + (1.9 * height in cm) - (4.7 * age in years) For men: 66 + (13.8 * weight in kg) + (5 * height in cm) - (6.8 * age in years) Those recognized formulas have been developed by J.Harris and F.Benedict. If you are from a non-metric country, you calculate your own resting metabolic rate by using these conversion formulas: weight in kg = 0.454 * lbs height in cm = 30.48*feet + 2.54*inches For example, a 32 year old woman (155lbs, 5'5") has a rate of: 655 + (9.6 * 70) + (1.9 * 165) - (4.7 * 32) = 1490kcal To get your daily calorie needs, we need to add the calories you burn doing any physical activities. To keep it simple, we'll use the PAL (physical activity level) system. Depending on your activity you simply multiply your resting metabolic rate with a factor which describes your daily activities best: Very slight physical activity (mainly lying, illness): factor 1.2 Slight physical activity (reading, desk work, motoring): factor 1.4 to 1.5 Average physical activity (assembly-line workers, students): factor 1.6 to 1.7 High physical activity (domestic work, craftsman): factor 1.8 to 1.9 Very high physical activity (construction worker, athletes/pros): 2.0 to 2.4 Back to our example, if our woman mainly does domestic work, she has a total metabolic rate of 1.8 * 1490kcal, ie. about 2680kcal per day. So if you want to drop weight, just determine your daily calorie consumption per day (depending on your work etc., maybe you do sports on some days and so on) and keep your calorie intake below (maybe 400-800kcal per day) this rate. For one pound of body fat holds about 3200kcal of energy, you can expect to lose one pound (of pure fat!) in 4 to 8 days (don't cut down calories to fast!).