The calorie reductions were calculated individually through the ratio of isotopes absorbed by the participants» molecules and tissues over 2 weeks, a technique that accurately pinpoints a weight -
maintenance calorie level.
To find out
your maintenance calorie level, just multiply your current body weight in pounds by 14 and 17.
If you don't know
your maintenance calorie level already, then I recommend using this simple calculation to estimate how many calories you need to build muscle:
If your goal is to maintain weight, once you have calculated
your maintenance calorie level, you can put the calculator away.
Once you know your metabolism, you can calculate TDEE, or
maintenance calorie level, by multiplying your metabolism by an activity factor from the chart below:
If you want to gain 1 pound in one week, you need to add 500 calories per day to
your maintenance calorie level.
Not exact matches
When consuming
calories above or at
maintenance levels you should strive to get the majority of your
calories from carbohydrates.
Increase the total daily caloric intake back to your current estimated caloric bodyweight
maintenance level, or the number of
calories you need to maintain your present body weight.
e.g. a 30 - year - old female measuring 167 cm tall and weighing 54.5 kg would compute 655 + 523 + 302 — 141 to get a
maintenance level daily
calorie need of 1,339, or 5,624 kJ, per day (multiply
calories by 4.2 to convert to kJ lingo).
Second, it will add or subtract the appropriate number of
calories from your
maintenance level to create either a
calorie surplus for muscle growth or a
calorie deficit for fat loss.
If you want to lose fat, you have to give your body less
calories than it needs, ideally about 500
calories below
maintenance level each day.
This is your new
maintenance level and is the new number of
calories you'll need to consume daily to prevent yourself from both gaining weight and losing anymore weight.
As I mentioned before, your daily
calorie maintenance level is the number of
calories that your body burns per day.
What makes being 500
calories below your daily
maintenance level so special?
So, for example, if your daily
maintenance level is 2500
calories (again, just an example), and you consume 2500
calories per day, you will maintain your weight.
If your
calories are at or below
maintenance levels, you won't grow, no matter how many protein shakes you drink.
So, for example, if your
maintenance level was 2500
calories, and you consumed 3000
calories per day, you would gain weight.
For example, if your estimated
maintenance level was 2500
calories, and the experiment showed that you did indeed maintain your weight consuming this amount, you should now start consuming 2000
calories per day instead.
For the sake of using an easy to understand example, PersonX will weigh 200 pounds and have a daily
calorie maintenance level of 2500
calories.
Now that you have a good estimate of your daily
calorie maintenance level, it's time for the fun part.
However, if you do consume more
calories than this
maintenance level, your body will store the excess
calories as fat.
If your
maintenance level was 3500, start eating 3000
calories each day.
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...
Once you have your estimated
calorie maintenance level (using either the basic multiplier or Harris Benedict formula), just add 200 - 300
calories to that figure to determine approximately how many
calories you should aim for each day.
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.
You'll hear many different recommendations across the board on this, but a safe bet when it comes to effective clean bulking is to consume around 200 - 300
calories above your
maintenance level.
Discover how to work out the amount of
calories you need for weight loss and weight
maintenance, based upon your desired weight and activity
levels.
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].
That's because everybody has different
calorie maintenance requirements that depend on their size and activity
levels.
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.
Even though you'll frequently hear generalized
calorie count recommendations for women and men, there's no single
maintenance calorie intake
level that works for everyone.
(Note: According to exercise physiologists Katch & Mcardle, the average female between the ages of 23 and 50 has a
maintenance level of about 2000 - 2100
calories per day and the average male about 2700 - 2900
calories per day)
If you have a 2500
calorie daily
maintenance level, and you want to drop 3 lbs of fat per week withe diet alone, you'd need a huge daily deficit of 1500
calories, which would equate to eating 1000
calories per day.
For now, let it suffice to say that exercise physiologists tell us the average
maintenance level is 2000 - 2100
calories per day for women and 2700 - 2900 per day for men.
Our example person estimated that they have a daily
calorie maintenance level of 2100
calories.
You learned that a «caloric surplus» means eating more
calories than your body needs, which means you need to be above your
calorie maintenance level.
If we supply our bodies with less
calories than this
maintenance level, we will lose weight.
If some guy's
maintenance level was 2800
calories, he'd look to consume about 3050
calories per day (a woman would aim for 2925).
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).
Then, you used that information to adjust your estimated
calorie maintenance level and figure out exactly how many
calories you should eat per day to lose weight.
Let's say some person (male or female) had a daily
calorie maintenance level of 2500
calories.
So, take the estimated
calorie maintenance level you got in the previous step and create your 20 % deficit.
The answer given is the total of the two and should be, for most people, a pretty close estimate of your daily
calorie maintenance level.
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.
If, after adding surplus
calories to your estimated
maintenance level, you are indeed gaining weight at this ideal rate consistently, cool.
So, take the estimated
calorie maintenance level you got in the previous step and create your ideal caloric surplus.
Then after that, maybe go up to
maintenance levels of 2,500
calories per day.
So, for example, a man with a
calorie maintenance level of 2000
calories would look to consume about 2250
calories per day (a woman would shoot for around 2125
calories per day).
This is known as your
calorie maintenance level.