Taking the guess work out of calories

I could bet my house on the fact that everyone reading this has heard you need a calorific deficit to lose weight/fat off your body.

If you’ve never heard the term, it’s essentially a method of cutting the number of calories you ingest (food and drinks) to a certain amount, specific to you, in order to drop fat.

Frankly there’s a lot more to it than that, but basically that’s the edited version. I won’t even get started on the fact that the ingested calories need to be balanced and healthy and so on. No, you cannot use up all your calories for cake!

Now I want to show you this week how to calculate this notion of calorie deficit for you. How do you work it out, individualising the formula for yourself? Let’s eliminate the guesswork and do a little maths.

To determine your total daily calories, we multiply your BMR by your level of activity. Your BMR is your basal metabolic rate – the number of calories you use up just by existing, breathing, blinking, digesting, etc.

Here’s how you do that, using this formula:

Male

66 + (6.3 x your body weight in lbs) + (12.9 x your height in inches) – (6.8 x your age) = BMR

Female

655 + (4.3 x your weight in lbs) + (4.7 x your height in inches) – (4.7 x your age) = BMR From here, once we’ve figured out how much energy you use doing absolutely nothing, we multiply your BMR by the appropriate activity level.

Sedentary = BMR x 1.2

Light Activity = BMR x 1.375

Moderate Activity = BMR x 1.55

Very Active = BMR x 1.725

This will then give you the total calories you need on daily basis to maintain your current weight. Do nothing different, and nothing will change. However, if your goal is to drop weight/fat, then reduce this number by 500cals at least but never drop more then 1000cals.

As shown in the image attached, there’s a breakdown on how to measure how much protein, carbs and fats you need to take in, based on your goals and calorie total that you come out with.

If you need more guidance or have questions on this, contact me at CM Fitness on Facebook or Instagram and I’d be happy to help you with this.