The most important part of diet is counting calories. More than anything. Here are the reasons why you have to count calories:

Calories are only a measure of the potential energy contained in food.

All foods contain calories that can provide our bodies with the energy necessary for survival.

Correct nutrition must first understand the law of energy balance, or, in more popular terms, the rules of calorie intake and calorie consumption:

If you eat more calories than you consume, you will gain weight.

If you burn more calories than you take in, you will lose weight.

It's that simple. In order to maintain the ideal body fat percentage or weight for a long time, you must avoid excessive calories (consuming more than consuming).

No other factor has a greater influence on the body composition than energy balance.

Knowing this, the question becomes: How many calories do you need every day?

Determine how many calories you need.

Friendly reminder: We will discuss some math problems in this part. The good news is that these equations are simple. If you need help, there are plenty of online calculators.

Although you may hate math, I'm sorry you can't skip this part. Calories need to be calculated accurately. If you just stare at your food and try to estimate your calories, you won't see the result.

The reason is that human beings seriously underestimate the number of calories they consume.

When you eat more calories than you realize, your energy balance will be unconsciously unbalanced. This is the fastest way to keep fit.

Avoid your frustration (and years of wheel rotation) by setting and sticking to a calorie budget. It's that simple.

Basal metabolic rate

The first step to know how many calories you need is to determine your basal metabolic rate (BMR), or the minimum number of calories you need to survive.

If you need it, here is an online calculator, but the BMR equation for men is like this:

Male BMR = 66 +(6.23× body weight) +( 12.7× height inches) -(6.8× age years)

For women, things seem a little different:

Female BMR = 655 +(4.35× weight (pounds) +(4.7× height (inches) -(4.7× age (years)).

I am 37 years old and weigh 155 pounds. My height is 69.5 inches, so BMR = 1596.70.

Maintenance of heat and activity factors

Now that we have BMR, we can use it to calculate our maintenance heat (MC). You can also see that this figure is called your total daily energy consumption (TDEE).

The equation of MC is very simple: BMR x activity factor.

There are five active factors to choose from:

1.2 = sedentary (little or no exercise)

1.375 = light exercise (light exercise/exercise every week 1 to 3 days)

1.55 = moderate exercise (moderate exercise/exercise 3 to 5 days a week)

1.725 = Very active (strenuous exercise/exercise 6 to 7 days a week)

1.9 = extra activities (strenuous exercise/exercise and manual work 6-7 days a week)

As we all know, these activity factors overestimate the real activity, so in order to determine MC, I suggest starting with the activity factor of 1.2.

If your goal is to lose body fat, you'd rather be cautious.

My mathematical calculation is1596.70×1.2 =1916 calories per day. Not many.

If I eat 19 16 calories every day, my weight will remain the same. If my activity remains the same and I consume more calories than this, I will gain weight; Eat less, I will lose weight.

Just knowing this number is very powerful, because it can give you a broad understanding of the daily calorie budget and put you ahead of those peers who have never done these simple calculations in the gym.