That means 2500 calories is your daily
calorie maintenance level in this example.
Now, with your estimated
calorie maintenance level in mind, the next obvious step in figuring out how many calories you should eat per day to lose weight is figuring out what size the caloric deficit should be.
Not exact matches
If you don't know your current
calorie maintenance level (the number of
calories you require daily
in order to maintain your current weight), you can estimate it by using one of the following options...
Specifically, a diet break means raising your food intake to or above your «
maintenance»
level of
calories so that you're no longer
in a
calorie / energy deficit.
If you have correctly forecast your
calorie maintenance level, and then reduced your daily intake by 500
calories per day, you should lose approximately 1 pound of fat per week, as there are 4000
calories in 1 pound of fat.
Finally, consuming
calories at less than
maintenance levels — which is what most people attempt to do when dieting — also increases the concentration of myostatin
in muscles, leading to muscle wasting [24].
However, keep
in mind that they are both
calorie dense and eating large amounts of honey will still make you deposit body fat if it means you exceed your caloric
maintenance level.
Then, you used that information to adjust your estimated
calorie maintenance level and figure out exactly how many
calories you need to eat per day to build muscle (or just gain weight
in general).
So, take the estimated
calorie maintenance level you got
in the previous step and create your 20 % deficit.
In one study, where participants were exercising up to 1.5 — 3 hours per day and eating roughly 30 %
calories below their
maintenance levels, their resting metabolic rates dropped by about 500
calories per day.
So, take the estimated
calorie maintenance level you got
in the previous step and create your ideal caloric surplus.
In the following example, we will pretend our example person is a man who weighs 165 lbs and has a daily
calorie maintenance level of 2100 (which are just completely made up numbers, by the way).
When you reach the point where you lost as much of the fat as you wanted to lose, increase your
calorie intake (by adding back some carbs) so that you are no longer
in a caloric deficit and are instead at your
maintenance level.
To find out your
maintenance calorie level, just multiply your current body weight
in pounds by 14 and 17.
In the previous step, I showed you a couple of ways to calculate your daily
calorie maintenance level.
If you don't know your current
calorie maintenance level, you can estimate it by using the same «Harris Benedict Formula» that I outlined
in the previous post...
So, take the
calorie maintenance level estimate you calculated
in the previous step and use that as your
calorie starting point.
If you simply eat «on the fly» out of instinct, you'll almost always revert back to eating at your
calorie maintenance level (or
in a surplus), since that is what your body is naturally programmed to do when food is constantly available.
On the other hand, since a percentage based deficit relies on each person's own
calorie maintenance level to set the amount, the deficit created will be
in direct proportion to the amount of weight that needs to be lost by each individual person, and the means the rate at which they lose weight will be
in direct proportion as well.
If you want to gain 1 pound
in one week, you need to add 500
calories per day to your
maintenance calorie level.
The thing is,
in order to do any of these things, you first need to figure out what your
calorie maintenance level is so you know exactly what it is you need to be above, below or even with.
Somewhere
in between those 2 amounts will usually be your daily
calorie maintenance level.
Whether you used method # 1, method # 2, or a combination of both (or did the experiment described
in method # 3), you should now have a really good idea of what your daily
calorie maintenance level is.
In case it's not obvious enough,
calorie maintenance levels are different for everyone because we all have different daily
calorie requirements.
According to exercise physiologists William McArdle and Frank Katch, the average
maintenance level for women
in the United States is 2000 - 2100
calories per day and the average for men is 2700 - 2900 per day.
Finally there are a growing number of foods that focus on higher
levels of protein and fat for weight
maintenance or even weight loss rather than the traditional approach of decreasing the amount of
calories in a serving.