Official calorie advice has changed little since the 1990s, when women were told to stick to 2,000 calories a day and men were recommended 2,500 calories to maintain a stable weight.
For women, breakfast might be toast with peanut butter, yogurt, and fruit; lunch might be a chicken wrap, salad, and apple; dinner might be beef stir-fry, noodles, and two chocolate digestive biscuits. snack.Men can top up their recommended intake by adding a few pieces of toast And fruits.
However, for many of us, eating that amount of food will lead to weight gain. For others, it doesn’t even touch the sides.
That’s because everyone’s resting metabolic rate, or the amount of calories your body burns over the course of a day for everything from growth and repair to breathing and exercise, varies. The advice of 2,000 calories and 2,500 calories is just a rough generalization. While many people can eat more without seeing the number on the scale increase, some people have to eat less to maintain their weight.
“Your resting metabolic rate is the largest contributor to your total energy production and is therefore the main determinant of how many calories you need each day,” says Dr James King, Reader in Clinical Exercise Science at Loughborough University.
This percentage varies by gender, height, and weight. “This is directly related to body size, especially the total amount of body tissue that requires energy to function,” he explains.
“Bigger people have more tissue, which largely explains the difference.” [in calories burned] between a man and a woman. On average, men tend to have more muscle mass and less fat than women, and since muscle uses more energy than fat, this also contributes to men’s higher energy requirements. ”
Age is also a factor. “Metabolic rate is highest during childhood, declines from around age 20, stays at that level until around age 65, and then begins to decline,” Dr. King explains.
This means that young men can comfortably consume around 3,500 calories a day, despite official recommendations to eat 1,000 fewer calories per day, says King’s College London. says Tom Saunders, professor emeritus of nutrition and dietetics at . He added that the UK recommendations were effectively a “one-size-fits-all” approach.
Besides your resting metabolic rate, exercise can also affect how many calories you burn. For example, just 30 minutes of brisk walking can burn 175 calories, while running can burn 450. However, the calories burned through exercise also vary from person to person. But being physically active increases the number of calories you need to burn to maintain the same weight, which means exercise can also help you lose weight.
While calorie calculators take all these factors into account, it’s important to note that the results are only a rough guide. To produce a more accurate number, you’ll need more advanced options, such as a calorimeter, which measures the carbon dioxide a person produces and the oxygen they consume to accurately record the calories they burn.
Experts say it’s important to know how many calories you typically consume each day if you want to lose weight, and say you need to cut 500 calories per day to lose about 1 pound per week. “There is no question that restricting calorie intake leads to weight loss,” Professor Saunders says.
To achieve this, reduce the size of your utensils, eat less rice and pasta to reduce carbohydrates, avoid eating biscuits, chocolate and potato chips regularly, and ignore the calories in fruits and vegetables. I recommend that.
But experts also warn that calories are just one metric for judging food: Low-calorie options aren’t necessarily healthier, and tracking your intake too closely can lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.
For people who want to maintain a healthy weight but don’t want to count calories, there’s an easy way to know if you’re eating the right amount.
Using a tape measure to record your waistline will let you know how your weight changes, and more simply, it will also allow you to monitor how well your clothes are fitting. If your waistband feels tighter than usual, consider cutting back on unhealthy snacking or eating less food.
