The goal of everyone who wants to lose weight should be to lose fat in the healthiest way possible while retaining as much lean muscle as possible. It is important to work with your body to promote healthy weight loss and to do this we need to determine the recommended caloric intake for your body in particular.
Calorie intake is generally recommended as a static number by many resources and is generally a reduction of 500 to 1000 calories per day from the calories needed to maintain your current weight. In general, this is a good place to start; however, the problem with using a static number is that not everyone requires the same number of calories to maintain their weight.
For example, a person who requires 1,800 calories per day to maintain their weight would be reducing their calorie intake by 27%, while a person who requires 2,500 calories per day to maintain their weight would only be reducing by 20%. So it seems logical that to find your recommended caloric intake, you should use a percentage of the calories needed to maintain your weight.
Ideally, you want to reduce the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight by 15%-20%. Now that you know the percentage, I know what you’re thinking. “Okay…okay…but 15% to 20% of WHAT!” Now we have to determine how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight.
While many resources will tell you to simply multiply your body weight by a fixed number to determine a caloric maintenance figure. As a general rule of thumb, it’s not the optimal way to determine the number for YOUR body. Personally, I have found the Harris Benedict Formula to be very reliable in determining the number of calories needed to maintain your weight.
Below are the steps required to determine the recommended caloric intake for your body using the Harris Benedict Formula:
- First, determine your basal metabolic rate (BMR).
- Next, find your caloric maintenance level by multiplying your BMR by the activity level multiplier.
- Third, reduce that number by 15-20% to find your recommended caloric intake.
This may sound complicated, but it’s really just a matter of plugging your numbers into a formula.
Find your basal metabolic rate (BMR)
1 pound = 0.454 kilograms Y 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters
Using the formula above…
For men:
66 + (13.7 x body weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in years) = BMR
For women:
655 + (9.6 x body weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in years) = BMR
Now take your BMR and multiply it by the appropriate activity multiplier
- Sedentary = BMR x 1.2 (little or no exercise)
- slightly active = BMR x 1,375 (light exercise: 1-3 days a week)
- moderately active = BMR x 1.55 (moderate exercise: 3-5 days a week)
- Very active = BMR x 1,725 (intense exercise: 6-7 days a week)
- extremely active = BMR x 1.9 (intense daily exercise and strenuous physical work)
Now, reduce this number by 15-20% and you will have the recommended calorie intake for your body.
Here’s an example:
Jennifer weighs 155 pounds, is 38 years old, is 5’3″ tall, and is moderately active. To find her BMR, we’ll plug her numbers into the formula. First, we convert pounds to kilograms and inches to centimeters.
155 lbs x 0.454 = 70.4 kg and 5’3″ = 63 inches = 63 x 2.54 = 160.02 cm
655 + (675.84) + (288.04) – (178.6) = 1,440
BMR x Activity Level = 1440 x 1.55 = 2232 So Jennifer’s caloric maintenance number is 2232 calories per day.
For healthy weight loss, Jenifer’s recommended caloric intake would be 1,786 calories per day (2,232 – 20% = 1,786).
Know that you know how to determine your recommended caloric intake for safe and optimal weight loss, you have one more tool at your disposal to improve your chances of weight loss success.