Calculating the Calorie Requirements for Efficient Weight Loss
Maintaining body weight is a balancing act. Weight gain occurs when you consume more calories than the required and weight loss occurs when you ingest fewer calories 
than what you should. Thus, to maintain your weight within required levels you need to consume as much calories as are expended by the body in performing various functions. If you have an idea of the calorie requirements of the body before hand, then it would be easy for you to set a goal to loose weight effectively. But, this is not a one- fit- for- all solution and changes as per, gender, activity, family history, present health condition and so on.
For calculating the calorie needs of the body, we divide the energy requirement in three parts: basal, activity and digestion energy.
Basal energy: It is the energy required to perform basic activities in the body like pumping of blood by heart, respiration, and kidney functioning. It is gender specific and varies from person to person. The basal need for women is 0.6 calories per kilogram body weight for an hour whereas for a man is 1.0 calories per kilogram body weight for an hour. Thus, for any male individual, basal need values can be determined as:
Basal energy=body weight * 1.0 * 24 calories/ day
Activity energy: This is required for doing daily chores like household activities or some physical work. This also depends on the type of activity taken up by an individual. It varies from 30 percent (for some one who only sits at home) to 100 percent (for those who do rigorous work) of your basal needs. Usually an average individual has an activity need of 60 percent of basal energy needs
Activity energy= 0.6 * basal need calories/ day
Digestion energy: Digestion is a thermal process and requires calories for burning food. It is 10 percent of the sum total of the activity and basal needs of your body.
Digestion energy= 0.1 * (basal + activity needs) calories/ day
Therefore, total calorie requirement of an individual for a day is the sum total of all the above mentioned three types of energy requirements.
2 Comments on “Calculating the Calorie Requirements for Efficient Weight Loss”
Great article! Can’t wait to do the math.
Keep posting!
Thanks Buddy!