How many calories should I eat daily?

The first step in determining a meal plan is to define how many calories one needs daily to stay at the same weight, excluding physical activity. This number is also known as your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and depends on your gender, age, weight, muscle mass and metabolism. Since the latter is very hard to determine yet not the most significant factor except for people with hormonal issues, it’s possible to get a good idea of how many colories you require with just the first factors which can easily be measured. I’m considering developing an intricate daily calorie requirements calculator since I couldn’t find any that take all factors into account but for the time being, the BMR calculator offered by BodyBuilding.com will need to do.

Here are my results:

Your bodyweight is 85 kilograms.

Step 1 – BMR Based On Weight

For Men: 1 x 85 Kg x 24 = 2040

Step 2 – BMR With Bodyfat Percentage Calculation

Taking your bodyfat percentage into account, your adjusted BMR is 2040 calories per day. This is equal to 85 calories per hour.

Step 3 – Total Daily Calories Burned

Adding in your activity level, we times your BMR by 1.65. This means that your approximate total calories burned each day is 3366.

Step 4 – Macronutrient Breakdown In YOUR Diet

Now that we know how many total calories need to be consumed each day, where do the calories come from? Based on your BMR, Activity Level and Athletic Category you need:

Protein Grams: 168 Grams Per Day.
Protein Calories: 672 Protein Calories Per Day.

Fat Grams: 56 Grams Per Day.
Fat Calories: 505 Protein Calories Per Day.

Carbohydrate Grams: 547 Grams Per Day.
Carbohydrate Calories: 2189 Carb Calories Per Day.

As I mentioned, these results should be taken with a grain of salt since they group together pretty wide ranges of body fat percentages with the minimum being 10%, they do not take into account specific diets and there are only six choices for activity levels which are not defined very clearly. Still, it’s one of the best calculators currently available and the results should at least give you a ballpark figure of how many calories to consume in a given day. If you are trying to gain muscle (bulking) then I would suggest adding between 250 and 500 calories daily depending on how easily you gain muscle without also getting fatter. If you are trying to get leaner (cutting) you should subtract 300 to 600 calories depending on how well you retain muscle when cutting fat.

A better calorie calculator might be the one offered by Free Dieting. They have three formulas to choose from including Mifflin-St Jeor, Katch-McArdle and Harris-Benedict. The Mifflin-St Jeor formula has been chosen as the most accurate by the American Dietetic Association for the average person. However, for leaner bodybuilders or athletes who know their body-fat percentage, the Katch-McArdle formula is more appropriate since it takes fat-free mass into account. Finally the Harris-Benedict formula is very well known, but tends to be skewed towards obese and young people.

According to their calculator using the Katch-McArdle formula with an estimated 10% body-fat, my maintenance is at 2986 calories per day provided I exercise at least 5 times per week. My basal metabolic rate – not taking any exercise into account – is at 2042 calories. In other words, if I want to lose weight at this level of activity, I should eat between 2,400 and 2,700 calories. To gain weight on the other hand, I should eat between 3,250 and 3,500 calories daily.

The next step would be to determine the macro-nutrient ratios of your diet to achieve the total amount of calories you plan to consume.

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Tags: BMR, bulking, caloric calculator, calories, carbohydrate, cutting, diet, diet requirements, fat, food schedule, meal plan, nutrition, nutritional information, protein