Let’s Calculate your Maintenance Calories

The first step to achieve your Fitness Goal is to know How To Calculate Your Maintenance Calories. In this blog, I will provide you some methods to Calculate Your Maintenance Calories.

 

 

MAINTENANCE CALORIES

Total amount of energy you burn in a day is called TDEE(Total Daily Energy Expenditure). It includes everything from energy needed to sustain bodily functions to energy needed to exercise, lift weights or to do daily activities.

Maintenance calories is the amount of calories or energy you need to consume in order to maintain your present weight.

          

 

MAINTENANCE CALORIES = TDEE

 

Maintenance calories depends upon your weight, activity level, body composition(fat mass and muscle mass), gender and to a very lesser extent on your height.

How to calculate your maintenance calories

Please note that no formula can precisely calculate your maintenance calories because maintenance calories is not a fixed number. It depends on your activity level, sometimes you fidget more and correspondingly you need more calories and conversely on some days your activity levels are low and therefore you need less calories to maintain your weight.

These formulas will give you a ballpark amount, a starting point from where you can orientate things according to your needs

Eric Helms formula

 

M.C = maintenance calories….. this formula is same for both male and female.

So according to eric helms formula, if your weight is 75kg/165lbs and according to your lifestyle you fall under activity multiplier of 1.7, then your maintenance calories are 75*22*1.7/165*10*1.7 = 2805 calories.

Revised Harris Benedict Formula

 

If you’re thinking what the heck is BMR, It is the amount of calories your body needs to perform basic functions like digestion,thinking,blood circulation. So, if you’re just sitting on couch for all day long, you still need calories equal to BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate) for your body to perform basic functions smoothly.

What if you want to precisely calculate your Maintenance Calories

What if you don’t want to calculate your maintenance calories from the formulas above and want a more personalized method? Well, congrats! there exists a method which will gratify your wish but it needs more time, energy, thought, perseverance.

THE TRIAL AND ERROR METHOD

To commence, you must elicit a digital bodyweight scale, a digital food weighing scale, a food tracking app like myfitnesspal.

After you’ve accumulated these resources, let’s say you just choose an amount of 2500 calories for the next 14 days, Then

1.    Every day in the morning, after you’ve used the washroom, empty stomach, step on the weighing scale and weigh yourself. Note down the weight.

2.    Track your calorie consumption for the entire day.

after 14 days, take 3 averages:

1.    The average weight of week 1(w1)

2.    The average weight of week 2(w2)

3.    Average calories consumed each day over the course of 14 days

 

For instance, if w1 comes out to be 151 lbs and w2 comes out be 150.5 lbs, and the average calorie intake is 2500kcal/day. That means you’ve lost 0.5 lbs on a 2500kcal diet.

Now enters the 3500 calories rule which means that 1lb of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories approximately. That means over 7 days you created a deficit of:

Weekly deficit = 0.5*3500 = 1750kcal means 250kcal deficit per day.

The above numbers tell us that while eating at 2500 calories you were at the deficit of 250kcal per day which attest that:

Maintenance calories = 2500+250 = 2750 calories.

This method is relatively more reliable and individualized but needs more patience, perseverance, and effort.

If you’re consuming any number of calories and your weight is still not decreasing or increasing, it means that you’re still eating around your maintenance calories. So, from there you’ve to adjust the amount in accordance with your needs.

So. that’s all about today’s blog. I've explained you every possible method using which you can calculate your maintenance calories.

See you all in the next blog. Till then, take care, stay fit, keep exercising and be benevolent towards others.

REFERENCES:

https://hypertroph.com/blog/