“How Many Calories Should I Eat?” Part 1

If there is one question health and fitness coaches hear more than any other it is – “How many calories should I eat?” (Followed closely by “Do I really have to watch what I eat and workout? Can’t I just take this supplement instead?” But that’s an entirely different article!)

It doesn’t matter if you hate shopping in the Big & Tall stores for your clothes, if you’re a mom wanting to lose that post-pregnancy weight, if you are tired of being the super skinny kid, if your doctor told you that you need to lose weight before your heart explodes, or if you woke up and just weren’t happy with what you saw in the mirror.

Whatever the rationale, you want to make a change and you’re not alone!  Look, every day thousands of people make the decision to start eating better and changing their weight… there’s a reason the diet industry is a $20 billion per year juggernaut, and there’s a reason why you’re here looking for tips on how to join our team of aspiring real-life superheroes! You see, the average “dieter” makes four attempts a year top lose weight. I will let that sink in… on average, people that want to lose weight make a concerted effort 4 times a year! Now, let’s assume that they all succeed on the 4th attempt (which is most definitely a bad call) that means 9 months of the year was spent doing it wrong! (And a good portion of that time was probably spent wasting time on fad diets)

Why?

Because those thousands of people have absolutely no clue what they’re doing! 

Don’t be discouraged, it’s perfectly understandable; there are so many variables to consider:

• Is “low-carb” the way to go?
• What about the food pyramid?
• Is gluten really evil?
• Why do donuts taste so good?
• Do I eat 5 small meals a day or 2 huge ones?
• What is this juice diet everyone is talking about?
• Should I be taking supplements?
• Can I eat before bed or not?
• Do I count all of my calories?

Now we have talked about the basics of eating right in the past, but that is obviously is just the beginning. Today we’re going to dig a little deeper, but in the interest of not biting off more than we can chew (see what I did there?) we are going to limit the conversation to calories and what they mean to you!

WTF is a Calorie?!?

Today we’re going to learn what a calorie is; so let’s drop a little knowledge on the table, shall we?

A calorie is simply the amount of energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water by 1° Celsius (SCIENCE!) Now, does that really make a difference to your diet and fitness routine?  No, not really; it’s just important to understand that a calorie is a unit of energy measurement. A calorie is not inherently good or bad, it just is.

While some scientists will argue the exactness of the numbers involved, I think the generally accepted formula of one pound of fat = 3500 calories works fine.

Let’s think about that for a minute; that means that if you are interested in losing 1 pound per week, you need to be eliminating 500 calories per day. In a perfect world that caloric deficit per day is going to come from a combination of:

• A decrease in what you eat
• An increase in the amount of exercise you are doing

But for simplicity’s sake lets just focus on eating 500 fewer calories per day for right now.

I highly recommend that anyone serious about changing their dietary habits first spend a week or so meticulously tracking everything they eat (see my thoughts on just how valuable food journaling is). Is the exercise a bit tedious? Maybe, but guess what? Until you do it you are going to have zero clue how many calories you ingest on a regular basis. So suck it up Buttercup and break out that pen and paper and get to writing everything down. I mean everything! That third cup of coffee you downed to stay awake at work? Yep. The mini snickers you grabbed from the receptionist’s desk after she refreshed her diabetes candy bowl? You betcha. That shot of tequila at Happy Hour? Damned skippy.

That’s right, you heard me… Every.single.stinking.calorie.

Sound torturous? Want to avoid the desire to stab yourself in the eye with your pen while trying to remember what you shoveled into your maw? Well here comes the Internet to the rescue!  You can always sign up for a site like the DailyPlate, where you can input your food and through some sort of dark wizardry will calculate it all for you! Once you have a week of data logged that you can look at, go back and figure out what you are eating on the average and then knock off enough calories to get you to your goal! You might find out that simply cutting out a soda a day (liquid calories are the most dastardly of super-villians) or eliminating a regular snack from your schedule might do the trick.

Does this sound a little over simplified and not as scientific as you thought it would be? You are correct! There is a lot more to it than this if you want to really want to take control of your waistline! So check back for Part 2 of this series where I will break down the ominous sounding Basal Metabolic Rate and answer the question of “how many calories should I eat” by teaching you how to calculate them exactly!

So how do you like that cliff-hanger?!? Are you going to start paying attention to how many calories you eat? Are you upset I didn’t work more super-hero jargon into this article? Let me know in the comments below! Also, be sure to follow us on Facebook or Twitter and be sure to Sign up for our free newsletter! (No spam, I promise!)