How many calories should you eat to lose weight. Daily calorie intake for men

The question of what to eat to lose weight makes many people smile. But there is also some truth hidden here, because losing weight does not mean starving at all. Judging by the reviews of losing weight, many diets do not bring the desired result. It is almost not always possible to lose weight, and after a while the weight returns again, and it exceeds the initial figure before the diet.

In order to get rid of unnecessary kilograms and transform your figure for the better, you just need to change your daily diet. A regular healthy diet at a certain time is the key to successful weight loss. Learning to eat right is easy. It is also possible to find out how many calories you need to eat per day in order to lose weight.

Many factors affect the body's need for calories. Each person has different calorie needs. How many calories a person needs per day depends on metabolism, weight, height, gender, and also on age. An important role is played by the level of human activity throughout the day.

How many calories should a person eat per day?

Nutritionists advise to constantly control the number of calories consumed per day. The health of your body depends on it. There is an established daily calorie intake for women, it averages from 2100 kcal to 3000 kcal. For men, this figure is somewhat different - from 2600 to 3200 kcal. In order to find out how many calories you need to eat per day to lose weight, you need to calculate how much energy you spend per day. The necessary calories are converted into energy, and the extra ones are stored in the body as fat deposits. Equally important is how many calories you need to burn per day. After all, in order to lose weight, the number of calories consumed must necessarily be less than the amount of energy used per day.

In order to lose weight, you should not lower your daily calorie intake too much, as this will still not give the desired result, but will only worsen your health. The minimum calorie intake for weight loss should vary between 1300 and 1500 kcal per day for women, for men this figure is slightly higher. Now it’s clear how many calories an average person needs per day who does not play sports or hard physical labor. The amount of calories that should be ingested by the human body is also affected daily by physical activity and sports activities. Therefore, the number of calories consumed is best calculated individually. For this, there are many different formulas that allow you to more accurately calculate the required amount of energy potential.

How many calories should you burn per day to lose weight?

In order to achieve the desired weight, you need to reduce the number of calories consumed with food, this principle is the basis of many diets. You reduce your daily diet, as a result, your body begins to draw energy from the already existing fat reserves. Energy consumption per day depends on your lifestyle and physical activity. An important role is played by metabolic processes, which also require energy.

Basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy the body needs to function properly when it is at rest. Therefore, you need to correctly calculate how many calories you need to spend per day in order to lose weight without harming your health. After all, the process of losing weight is not only about losing excess weight, but also about maintaining shape after a diet.

You can calculate how many calories a person who wants to lose weight needs per day on a calorie calculator or on their own, while taking into account all of the above characteristics. To this list, one can also add food thermogenesis, that is, the energy that is spent by the body to digest food. Proteins are the hardest to digest in the body. Therefore, their breakdown requires 10 times more energy than the breakdown of carbohydrates and fats.

The diet must be balanced. It is important to know how many calories you need to eat per day for you. Before you start losing weight, you need to decide what result you want to achieve after the end of the diet. This coefficient also affects the calculation of the caloric content of the diet.

What should you eat to lose weight?

Proper nutrition is the key to proper weight loss of the body. Many women start their journey to their cherished dream by choosing a diet. And it is right. After all, the diet allows you to correctly reduce the consumption of calories. In addition, you will immediately know the calorie content of a particular dish. You also need to know exactly how many calories your body needs per day.

There are a lot of ways to calculate individual calories, there should not be any problems with this. But the choice of diet is much more difficult. Therefore, if you yourself cannot decide, then you should definitely contact a nutritionist. The specialist will select a diet based on the characteristics of your body. It also calculates how many calories your body needs per day in order to lose weight.

Diet food has nothing to do with a complete restriction in food. An important principle of nutrition for weight loss is not hunger, but satiety of the body. You eat the same during the diet, but use low-calorie foods. In addition, reduce only portions, and increase the number of doses per day up to 5 times.

It is very important for people on a diet to eat a lot of vegetables and fruits, because they contain a huge amount of nutrients, fiber, which remove toxins and excess water from the body. Fat-free dairy products, low-calorie meat, low-fat fish, various cereals will bring your weight back to normal and improve your health significantly. If you know exactly how many calories you need per day, you can independently create a dietary, but tasty menu for every day.

The most effective way to lose weight can be counting calories. If you follow the norm and do not overeat, this approach will give one hundred percent result. In addition, this way you can join a healthy diet, that is, after losing weight, the weight will not return.

There are special formulas by which you can calculate how many calories a day you need for health and weight loss.

How many calories should you eat while on a diet?

Generally speaking, how to calculate the number of calories, then you need to pay attention to the initial parameters of the body and lifestyle. That is, in order to gradually lose weight, you need to consume a little less calories than you spend on energy per day. For example, if you eat 1600 kcal, then you need to spend about 1900-2000 kcal per day. Nutritionists recommend for active weight loss without discomfort to reduce calories by 15-20% of calories consumed per day.

The procedure for calculating calories for a diet:

1. Now you need to eat as many calories per day as you did in the second paragraph or a little less

Thus, you can lose weight without torturing yourself with complex physical exercises, as well as strict diets.

How to correctly calculate how many calories a day you need to eat for the normal functioning of the body

There are many formulas for calculating the required calories per day, but the most popular is the Harris-Benedict formula. Over the years, it has been slightly edited, improved, as living conditions change and energy costs along with them as well.

447.593+(9.247x weight in kilograms) + (3.098x height in centimeters) - (4.330x woman's age)

88.362+(13.397x weight in kilograms) + (4.799 x height in centimeters) - (5.677x man's age)

Thanks to these formulas, you can calculate how many calories the body needs per day for normal functioning, if physical activity is at about zero all day. Therefore, you need to know the coefficient of activity.

Activity coefficients:

sedentary and recumbent lifestyle - 1.2

1-3 workouts per week - 1.375

3-4 workouts per week - 1.55

5-7 workouts per week or hard physical work - 1.7

professional athlete, work in the mine - 1.9
To find out the rate of calories per day, the activity coefficient is multiplied by the calories considered basic. Thus, you can find out how many calories you can eat without fear of gaining extra pounds. To start losing weight, you need to reduce the number of calories - subtract 20% or a little less from the norm and not exceed the number of calories received per day. Less is possible, more is not.

An example of calorie counting:

Let there be a woman, weight 56 ​​kg, height 168 centimeters, age 25, working as a journalist, going to training a couple of times a week.

447.593+(9.247x56) + (3.098x168) - (4.330x25) = 1377.639

1377.639 - base calories
activity factor - 1.375

1377.639x1.375 \u003d 1894.2536 - this is the norm of calories

To get the number of calories for weight loss, you need to calculate 20% of the calories and subtract them. 20% = 378.8507

1894.2536 - 378.8507 = 1516 calories approximately needed per day to lose weight.

You can use an online calculator to quickly calculate calories for your body.

If, after observing the calorie content, the weight does not gradually go away, it is possible that the calculations were carried out incorrectly. Most often, problems in the calculations arise because people cannot always objectively assess their activity, hence the incorrect activity coefficient. Also, it is often impossible to correctly count the calories consumed, therefore it is necessary to have a special notebook in which you need to honestly record all the calories eaten.

An example of a menu with calories suitable for weight loss

• Oatmeal with milk - 200 kcal
• Coffee with milk (can be with sugar (a teaspoon) or without) - 50 kcal
• Medium sized sour apple - 70 kcal

• Black or green, herbal tea - up to 5 kcal
• Low-fat cottage cheese about 100 grams - 120 kcal

• Vegetable salad dressed with oil - 140 kcal
• One loaf - 20 kcal
• Buckwheat porridge with chicken breast - 300 kcal
• Cheese pie small piece - 200 kcal

• One medium-sized apple - 70 kcal

Thus, it turned out that there are even fewer calories than needed for a losing weight body. That is, he will definitely gradually begin to lose kilograms, especially actively if you start exercising at the same time.

How to calculate calories for your weight?

It should be borne in mind that if a woman has a child, the number of calories will increase, because the mother will have to lead an active lifestyle, that is, the activity coefficient will also increase. The same applies to women who spend a week dancing, going to the gym, doing hard physical work - the higher the level of physical activity, the more calories the body needs. In some cases, you can even eat sweets without fear.
In most cases, most of the calories are left for lunch, but it doesn’t matter, you can make the diet so convenient. The main rule is not to replace useful products with useless ones. For example, you can eat 50 grams of chocolate or 200 grams of Caesar salad. But chocolate won't help satisfy your hunger, and a salad can easily do it. Because of chocolate, a breakdown can occur, as the body has received the necessary dose of calories, but the hunger has not passed.

If you build a diet correctly, the body will always be full, even if calories are in short supply. The secret is in choosing foods - you need to choose those that contain few calories. These include, for example, vegetable salads, fish, cottage cheese and others. Since they contain few calories, you can eat a large amount of them, that is, create a feeling of satiety.

Tips for those who want to lose weight, observing the allowable caloric content of food per day:

• Formulas do not give the most accurate information about how many calories per day you need to consume. It is only approximate, and a healthy diet for weight loss can be based on it;
• Weight loss is also affected by stress, exercise, mental work, all this must be taken into account when counting calories. Don't just rely on calories. It is important, you need to follow it, it is also important to observe how the body reacts to certain changes in nutrition;
• There is an opinion that the greater the calorie deficit, the faster the weight will go. In fact, this is not so: it will not be excess fat that needs to be eliminated, but the muscles necessary to maintain a beautiful body;
• If muscles go away, not fat, the body will become ugly. The proportions are lost, the body seems to sag. For this reason, you need to make sure that the calorie deficit is small.

What nutritionists think about losing weight by reducing calories

According to nutritionists, for weight loss, you need to consume about 1300-1500 kcal per day.

1500 kcal is the norm at which the weight will begin to gradually go away. At the same time, you need to remember that you need to engage in physical and mental activity, it is best to go to the gym.

1500 kcal is breakfast, lunch and dinner. If desired and possible, you can include in this figure even sweet, but as harmless as possible - ice cream or dark chocolate. It is best to eat them in the morning, so during the day the body will process sugar and use up this energy.

• Recommendations for the preparation of the diet for the day

Breakfast

In the morning it is best to eat cereal dishes - cereals, muesli. You can cook with water or milk, add fruits to them. Grains contain complex carbohydrates, thanks to which the body can produce energy for about three hours and do not want to eat. The most useful cereals for breakfast are buckwheat, as well as four-grain porridge.

It is also more useful for porridge on water, since porridge with milk, although tasty, but milk protein is destroyed when heated and no longer benefits the body. In addition, the combination of cereals and milk is not the best for gastric work. It is better to add cream or yogurt to the finished dish.

Dinner

In most cases, this is the most satisfying and complete meal. For lunch, you can cook both soup and the second. For example, you can eat vegetable, meat or fish soup, and serve a vegetable side dish and baked fish or meat for the second. The most important thing is that this meal should contain carbohydrates and proteins. Thanks to proteins, there is a feeling of fullness, which is very important so as not to break down, as the body feels hungry. Carbohydrates are needed for the body to function properly. If the diet contains less than 70 grams of carbohydrates per day (preferably complex), then weakness of the body, fainting, breakdowns and stress are possible. Healthy carbohydrates have a low glycemic index and include vegetables and grains.

Fats, despite losing weight, are also needed by the body, they should be about 30 grams per day. Thanks to this component, food becomes tastier, and this is very important on a diet. People who eat slowly and enjoy the taste of the food they receive do not overeat, because the feeling of fullness comes quickly.

There is also a myth that you can’t eat after 6 pm so that the body can digest food well. Some nutritionists say that the human hormonal background is the basis of this rule. After about 9 pm, the body is already ready to go to sleep, so it is important that food is digested as much as possible by this time. In a dream, the body cannot digest fats normally and therefore they contribute to the deposition and growth of the fat layer.

How many calories do you need per day to lose weight faster? The less the better, many say. And even better - do not eat at all, you will lose weight even faster. But do not forget that we need calories to maintain the vital activity of the body - the work of the cardiovascular system, respiratory, excretory, etc. Even at complete rest, the body consumes calories. With this decided, now about the safe minimum.

There is an opinion that a woman needs to consume about 2000 kcal per day, and men at least 500 more. However, for women, especially those with a sedentary lifestyle, this figure is too high. So, in order to find out how many calories you need to maintain weight at one mark and for weight loss, you need to do the calculations. Measure your height and weight, prepare a calculator.

One of the most accurate formulas is as follows:

• for the fair sex 9.99 x weight (in kg) + 6.25 x height (in cm) - 4.92 x age - 161
• for the stronger sex the same, but only 5 is added.

With this formula, we calculate how many calories we need to live in a complete state of rest.

And in order to find out how many calories a person needs to consume per day in order to lose weight, you must first find out how much energy you need during your physical activity.

A person with low physical activity (leading a sedentary lifestyle and not involved in any, even amateur sports) needs to multiply the number obtained by the above formula by 1.2. For those who do 1-2 times a week, for example, fitness, you need to multiply by 1.375. With average activity (sports up to 5 times a week) - multiply by 1.55. With even higher activity - by 1.725, and for professional athletes by 1.9.

Our example will be a 38-year-old woman, weight 65 kg, height 158 ​​cm. Physical activity is low. 9.99 x 65 + 6.25 x 158 - 4.92 x 38 - 161 = 1289 kcal per day - this is so that the body does not die, but in order to live a full life and not gain weight - 1289 x 1.2 = 1547 kcal. But there is an excess of weight, so the caloric content of the diet must be reduced. For weight loss, it is recommended to reduce the intake of calories by 1/5 part. This means 309 kcal. Thus, the calorie intake for weight loss for a woman from our example will be 1238 kcal. Remember that under no circumstances should you reduce calories to less than 1000-1200 kcal per day, as many strict diets prescribe. As a last resort, you can spend such a fasting day, but it is unlikely that it will clearly affect your figure. In addition, it has been proven that with a sharp decrease in calorie intake, a person not only begins to feel bad, immunity falls, but weight loss occurs much more slowly, since the body simply reduces its energy requirements, lethargy, drowsiness appear, external data worsen. It is much more effective to add physical activity to an adequate reduction in the nutritional value of your food. The main thing is that they are regular, and the intensity can be increased over time if there are no contraindications.

Many women are unhappy with their figure and want to get rid of extra pounds. However, it must be said that the fight against excess weight is not an easy task that requires tremendous willpower.

Only those who will not give in to their weakness, who have set a goal for themselves and will go towards it no matter what, will be able to achieve results!

How much to eat to lose weight

Many of us justify our excess weight: health problems, raging hormones, mother nature's mistake, etc. However, in fact, the root of all problems is human laziness.

So, if you want to lose weight, you need to clearly set a goal. Make Record 1 on paper, which will give you weight loss (you will lose many health problems, you will look beautiful, you can wear a beautiful short dress, etc.), and also write down everything that can interfere with your path to your goal. In the first place will be weak-willedness and spinelessness. But if you refer to the first entry from time to time, you will be able to overcome all obstacles.

So diet. Your path to an ideal figure must begin with a diet. At the moment, there are many diets, choosing the right option, sometimes, is not easy. The most important thing is not only to lose kilograms, but also to keep the weight normal in the future.

Therefore, it must be said that many diets are not safe for health. Immediately discard those of them that imply the rejection of meat and other protein foods, bread, cereals, fruits.

A safe diet is one that can be followed for life without harm to health.

calorie counting

Why do we gain weight? From the fact that we consume a lot more calories than we expend. Therefore, if you want to lose weight, you must count the number of "calories eaten" every day. Use a food calorie table or a calorie calculator.

Most often, when calculating daily calories, many people get a figure of 2-4 thousand calories per day, and sometimes even more. To lose extra pounds, the daily diet should not exceed 1000-1400 calories per day. Compare your result with this figure.

The more it differs from the norm, the slower the process of losing excess weight will occur. And if the number of calories consumed per day is 1800 - 2000 kcal, your weight will not move at all.

calorie formula for weight loss

For those who wish to obtain a more accurate result, we present the formula. With its help, you can more specifically calculate the amount of energy expended for the whole day, and based on this figure, determine how much you need to eat in order to lose weight. If you do not want to go into details, eat more than 1000-1400 kcal per day, and then your weight will slowly start to creep down.

So, energy consumption consists of the following components: basic exchange + energy spent at work + energy spent during leisure + energy used to digest food.

1. Basic exchange- means the amount of energy that is necessary to maintain the normal functioning of the body, which is in a comfortable temperature in the state. For women, this value is equal to 0.9 kcal per 1 kg of weight, for men - 1 kcal / kg / hour.

Thus, if your weight is 90 kg, then per day the main metabolism is 1944 kcal (0.9 kcal x 90 kg x 24 h). This is the main exchange for a person who does not wish to lose weight. If you are calculating your nutritional balance with the goal of losing extra pounds, you need to determine the number of calories per body weight that you want to achieve. Let's say you want to weigh 65 kg. Then the main exchange should be equal to 1404 kcal (0.9 kcal x 65 kg x 24 hours).

It is clear that we are not always at rest. Part of the energy we spend in the process of work.

2. Energy, which is expended due to work. With sedentary work, approximately 25% of the basal metabolic rate is required to cover energy costs. Thus, if you want to lose weight, you should take into account that 365 kcal should be thrown on the main exchange with the desired body weight of 1404 + 365 kcal.

• For light physical work (mechanized labor, 1000 kcal is required to cover expenses;
• with moderately hard work (drivers, machine operators), you need 1500 kcal;
• the costs of physically hard work are compensated by 2000-2500 kcal, and in some special cases (athletes, diggers, miners) and even more.

3. Energy expenditure during rest includes calorie expenditure for housework, various activities, incl. doing sports. The approximate energy consumption for various activities of a person whose weight is 60 kg are as follows.

Calorie consumption to lose weight (kcal/hour)

4. What else should be considered when determining the right amount of calories to be consumed? Nutritional thermogenesis. In order to process food, the body needs to expend a certain amount of energy. It is known that the most difficult to digest food rich in protein. So, for example, for the processing of fats and carbohydrates, one needs 10 times less energy than for the utilization of protein foods. Mixed nutrition assumes a fairly intensive exchange - 6.5% of the main exchange, thus, in the variant we describe, exactly 91 kcal / day will be spent.

Based on the above calculations, we will conclude how many calories you need to consume if you want to reach 60-65 kg, but for now you weigh 90 kg. Suppose you have a sedentary job (8 hour work day), and during your rest time (16 hours) you spend:

• 8 hours of sleep - 400 kcal (50 kcal x 8 hours)
• 3 hours to rest in a supine position - 195 kcal (65 kcal x 3 hours)
• 3 hours to do homework -360 (120 x 3)
• 2 hours for even, measured walking 380 kcal (190 kcal x 2 h)
• For a day you spend 400+195+360+380=1335 kcal.

That. daily calorie intake = 1404+1335+365+91=3195 kcal.

Under these conditions, if you weigh 65 kg, then by consuming 3195 kcal, you will be able to maintain a normal weight. However, if you want to lose weight, then you need to significantly reduce your daily calorie intake.