Ever since their consumption has been connected with obesity, people have been asking how many calories one should eat in a day. This question is not as easy to answer as it may, and however, this article will help you find the various ways to find the desired answer.
Calories are short for kilocalories (Kcal), the unit used to measure energy. When talking about nutrition and health, they refer to calories consumed in carbohydrates and ats in various forms. Kilojoules (kJ) are other units for the same purpose used under the International System of Units. The reader must note that 4.2kJ is equivalent to approximately 1kcal.
Amount of Calories okay to be consumed during a day
The following facts will help you find an excellent answer to this question:
- There is no ‘one size fits all’ kind of answer to this question. The exact answer would vary according to sex, age, height, age, type of work, etc.
- The desired amount of calories consumed should equal the average amount of calories burned on most days. Heavy cardiovascular exercises burn calories – other activities don’t affect the calorie-burning rate. However, metabolism is another factor – how many calories the body naturally burns in a day, even without exercise? The answer will vary a lot from person to person. This number is called Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – that is, the number of calories will be burned even if one doesn’t leave one’s bed all day. One should add the number of calories burned from exercises to it to reach the total number of calories burned.
- If the calories consumed on average are less than calories burned, it leads to weakness. If the same is higher than the calories burned, it leads to overweight problems.
- A good rule of thumb is 2,000 calories a day for adult women and 2,500 calories a day for adult men. However, there are several caveats to this answer.
- One can also try an online calorie calculator, which will determine calories based on gender, age, height, amount of exercise done, and whether one wants to gain weight, lose it, or neither.
- Age has a severe effect on the number of calories consumed. Children and teenagers need more calories in their growing need, whereas older people may need fewer calories.
- The amount of exercise and cardiovascular done on most days will also affect the desirable amount of calories.
- Another factor that affects the number of calories consumed is whether one wants to lose weight or not. If one wants to lose weight, then the number of calories burned must be greater than the number of calories consumed. Sometimes one is underweight; in such cases, it is wiser to consume more calories than one is burning.
- If one wants to lose weight, one should consume fewer calories than one burns – however, not too few, or it may not be sustainable. Typically, cutting back the calories by about 500 should reduce weight by approximately 1 kilogram every two weeks. And this is a sustainable reduction of calories as well. Any more reduction can lead to weakness. One should try to default on more minor cuts – say 200 or 300 calories less than calories burned.
- Once the desired weight is reduced, one can slowly increase the number of calories.
- One should avoid the wrong kind of fats even if one is consuming them while staying within one’s calorie range as they are much harder to digest.
Also, check out our guide on 3000 calorie diet and all things you can eat in detail here!
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
The question ‘how many calories should I consume in a day?’ is connected with several frequently asked questions. The following are some of the most important of these.
Question: How would I know which is the right weight for me?
Answer: One can easily do that by using any one of several Body Mass Indexes (BMI). Scientifically speaking, the ideal weight is not a single number but a whole range determined based on height and gender in the body mass index. However, it is important to remark here that BMIs are no perfect answers. According to the BMI index, one can have one’s weight in the ‘healthy range’ and may still have unhealthy belly weight. Losing weight is not always akin to being fit, and both fitness and keeping a healthy weight are essential.
Question: Are there any precautions to be taken while adopting the aforementioned methods to calculate the number of calories I should consume in a day?
Answer: Yes. The following precautions are recommended:
- The reader should note that the above rules are only for general purposes and may not apply to the specific case of the reader.
- People with diabetes, heart condition, or any other condition on any medication should consult their physician before making any changes to their diets.
- People with eating disorders, too, should first consult their psychologists before changing their diet plans.
- The basic metabolism rate varies from person to person, and thus, one person may gain weight on a diet while others may lose it even if they are of the same age, gender, height, weight, etc. It may not seem fair, but that’s how things are. One must determine their metabolism rate and calculate calories accordingly.
- Most people also make an error while determining how active their lifestyle really is. Even with two hours of good cardiovascular exercise, one is at a light activity level. The hard activity level is only for people with jobs like plumbers, miners, etc.
If the reader has any other queries, they should ask them here.
The Bottom Line
One can quickly wrap up the above discussion by concluding that while there is no easy way to determine how many calories one should eat in a day, the answer, once determined, can help one gain and sustain a healthy weight. The changes in the weight are the most significant indicators of whether one is taking too many calories or too few, and one should note that the right number of calories can also change over time.
