Daily calorie intake

Joe Crispino

I'm having a tough time estimating my calorie intake.  some days I FEEL like I am not taking in enough, while other (days off) I feel as though I am eating too much.  I'm pretty sure I'm eating the right stuff, just not sure how to calculate how much.

Any thoughts?  thanks,

jburbatt

Joe- Here's some information from Penny from a previous post that I have saved so that I can always calculate stuff depending on the season. Your BMR is the calories your body needs to function throughout the day, and then calorie needs are increased depending on your daily activity level. This should give you a baseline to start, though you may find you have to adjust based on how you feel.

Rule of thumb for carbs: 5 - 10 g/kg per day. To convert your weight from pounds to Kg, divide it by 2.2. That will give you your grams of carbs per day. If you want to convert it to calories, multiply by 4 (4 calories per gram of carb).
During the off-season you can even go down to 4 g/kg or so since your calorie intake is less. You may not reach 10g/kg. You want to calculate your total calories (or get it measured). I like the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation. I recommend using the activity factor for your daily life/job then adding to that your workout calories to get the total calories per day. Then, take the carbs g/kg and convert it to calories by multiplying by 4. Then divide by total calories to get a % total daily calories. I usually put people in the 45 - 65% range depending on how they feel and where they are in their training.
The Mifflin-St. Jeor equation is below. Obviously depending on how much your training/working out, the more carbs you need – so lower end for minimal exercise and up to the high end if your endurance training (marathon, IM, etc.).
Mifflin-St. Jeor equations.
Male: BMR = 10×weight + 6.25×height - 5×age + 5
Female: BMR = 10×weight + 6.25×height - 5×age - 161
Notes:
Weight is in KG. Take your weight in pounds and divide by 2.2
Height is in centimeters. Take your height in inches and multiply by 2.54.
Age is in years.
Now that you've determined your BMR, you need to realistically determine your activity level. To get a better feel for your activity level, you can use Metabolic Equivalents (METs). I'll include how to do this in another newsletter. The activity levels are:
1.200 = sedentary (little or no exercise)
1.375 = lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week)
1.550 = moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)
1.725 = very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week)
1.900 = extra active (very hard exercise/sports and physical job)
Take your BMR and multiply it by your activity level (the number in front of the descriptions) and it gives you the calories you need for a day. You can also choose numbers between the given activity levels. For example, if you feel you are between moderately and very active, you could choose 1.6 or 1.65.
If you work out a lot and know the calories you burn during your workouts, I would recommend using the activity level of your daily life (e.g. sedentary or lightly active if you sit at a desk all day) then add on the calories from your workouts.

jburbatt

Oh an a lot of ENers use LoseIt to calculate calories in/out. It's an iPhone app, though I think Livestrong does a website based one and there are a few others. That kind of tracking is great for at least getting a close estimate of your calories per day.

Hope that helps!

chuckg

There's an App for that! There has been several discussions on this same topic. The names slip my mind but there are several calorie calulator/intake tracking apps available. Other may be able to suggest specific apps.

jburbatt

Apparently LoseIt is a website based one now too. I'd highly recommend it, I've had success with it and find it easy to use.

Coach Patrick

@JB, thanks for the great answer! I personally use the low end of your numbers (5g carg/kg) and it's done me right....not fun, but right!!!

Joe Crispino

WOW!  thank you soooo much... This is awesome.  I really appreciate you taking the time Jennifer.

Joe Crispino

thanks for the input everyone

stevekw

I've used MyFoodDiary.com for years whenever I'm 'counting calories'...https://www.myfooddiary.com/main.asp

It has an easy to use desktop application, and a smart-phone app that ties into the same data...the database is excellent...with a few others that I tried in the past, it was irritating to not find stuff that I wanted to enter.

 

jburbatt

No problem! Keep us posted if tracking your calories starts helping your energy levels.

ironmtngrl

I really like using TrainingPeaks.com for calorie counting. You can save meals so it makes it super easy. They have a free personal account you can use. I've also used CalorieKing and like it. I haven't used any of the iPhone apps.

penlynwilson

I like and use DailyPlate.com which has an app through Livestrong.

penlynwilson

@Jennifer: Thanks for re-posting that! It would have taken me a bit to find it. :-)

Coach Rich

My method:

• Bathroom scale, hit it every morning after coffee and dropping the kids off at the pool . I then subtract a pound, for the coffee, plus it makes me feel lighter.
• LoseIt app.
• A measured cup thingy to measure liquids (OJ, soy, etc) + the food label to calc cals.
• A digital scale to weight food, usually meat. I then use the food data base in LoseIt or DailyPlate to give me the calorie count. I like the LoseIt interface but DP has a better food dbase, so I will often use DP but do the number/keep the log in LI.
• I use my PT + Joule to give me KJ burned on the bike. I then subtract 10% because that's what my Ergomo did and I figure it's better to underestimate cals burned a bit. So if the Joule says it was a 1100 KJ ride, I'll log it in LI as 1000cals
• For the run I use the calorie number given by the GPS or I generally say that a run is about 800cal/hr