A good way to start building your customized diet plan is to get a rough idea of the amount of energy your body needs on a daily basis. In a simplified way we can state that when your daily intake of calories is about equal to your daily needs you will maintain your current weight and when you eat more, or less, calories than your daily need you will gain, or lose, weight respectively. In reality it is a bit more complicated, but this will give us a good starting point.
This article is part of a series of articles. Make sure to read the complete series to completely understand the content.
Basic energy needs
This article is part of a series of articles. Make sure to read the complete series to completely understand the content.
Basic energy needs
First of all you need to determine your basic energy needs. This amount of energy is needed to stay alive and keep your body functioning in a normal way. Even when you think you are not doing anything, for example when you sit on the couch watching TV, your body is still moving to stay alive. Your heart is beating to pump blood through your body, you inhale and exhale for oxygen, your stomach is processing food you ate earlier that day, and your body is working hard to keep your body temperature at an optimal level. The amount of energy your body needs for these basic functions depends mainly on the size of your body: the larger your body the more energy you need to keep it alive and functioning. Here the size of your body is determined by the amount of fat-free tissue as fatty tissue has a very low energy need to maintain itself.
To determine the weight of your fat-free tissue you can best get an analysis done by a professional nutritionist in a clinic or hospital, but as an alternative you can also make use of a body fat scale. This is a normal scale that measures your body weight but it also sends a small, harmless, electric current through your body which measures the resistance. The resistance gives a rough indication of your body fat percentage and will be shown in the display. Finally you can take a rough guess what your fat percentage will be based on your body composition and level of fitness:
Your fat-free mass will be your body weight minus your fat mass.
An approximation of your basic energy needs in calories is the weight of your fat-free tissue in kilograms times 24.
Exercise addition
When you exercise regularly the energy your body uses increases on a day-to-day basis compared to people not exercising regularly. This is not the energy you spend during exercising, but energy your body requires to perform all its basic functions. Due to exercising your lung capacity will increase, your muscle volume increases, and your digestion speeds up.
An approximation of this exercise addition is about 10% of your basic energy needs calculated earlier for people exercising 3 times or more a week, and about 5% for people exercising 1-2 times a week.
Labor addition
The more you move during a regular day the more energy your body uses. If your job consists mostly of sitting behind a desk and attending meetings your labor addition will be about 30% of your basic energy needs. For people having medium intensity jobs requiring you to walk a lot, driving vehicles, or attending young children a labor addition of 50% of your basic energy needs is appropriate. People performing heavy duty jobs like PE teachers, cleaners, or warehouse employees have a labor addition of 75% of their basic energy needs and people doing heavy labor like construction or movers have a labor addition about equal to their basic energy needs.
Sporting addition
When you do sports you use energy. In case you are doing cardiovascular activities in a gym you will be able to see on the display of your machine how much energy you used. When you do sports outside, for example by playing tennis, playing soccer, or jogging in the park, you will have to estimate the amount of energy you used. The same goes for people who train with weights.
The tool below helps you estimate the energy you use on a weekly basis by doing sports.
Total energy needs
The total amount of energy, or calories, needed on a day is the sum of the parts mentioned above. By adding these all up you now have an estimate of how many calories you should eat on a daily basis to maintain your current weight.
Keep in mind that this calculation is just an approximation. Every human body reacts differently on exercises and calorie intake and the calculations above should therefore only been seen a first estimate of your personalized needs. Over time, when you start applying all the knowledge about exercising and nutrition, you will have to keep an eye on how your body reacts and if this is in line with what you were expecting. In the next article we will take a closer look on how we can link these daily calorie needs with your goals.
This article is part of a series of articles:
Blogger Comment
Facebook Comment