How To Calculate Your Calorie Consumption: Basic And Additional

2023 Author: Lucy Dunce | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-05-24 11:49

How to calculate your calorie consumption: basic and additional

How to calculate your baseline calorie expenditure

It's no secret that to lose weight, you need to burn calories higher than your intake. If the intake of calories depends only on the consumption of food and drinks, then the consumption is divided into base and additional. Basic calorie expenditure is the expenditure of energy for maintaining vital functions, and the additional one is the amount of energy that we spend on training and any other physical work. To avoid confusion in these concepts, let's look at them in more detail.

Calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)

The body spends much more calories on maintaining vital functions than on training activity. We do not notice this, but our body spends energy on breathing, metabolism of proteins, carbohydrates and fats, cognitive functions and support of the nervous system, heart rate and the work of other internal organs, on maintaining hormonal levels, on sleep, on movement and even on food. … The body's work does not stop for a minute.

Calorie consumption baseline shows your metabolic status. It can be calculated using the following equations: Harris-Benedict, Mifflin-Geor, Catch-McArdle.

Calculating baseline calorie consumption using the Harris-Benedict formula

This is the most popular and simplest formula for calculating calories per day. To do this, you need to indicate height, weight and age. In 1984, it was revised to reflect updated medical requirements.

The current version of the equation:

Men: BMR = 88.362 + (13.397 × weight in kg) + (4.799 × height in cm) - (5.677 × age)

Women: BMR = 447.593 + (9.247 × weight in kg) + (3.098 × height in cm) - (4.330 × age)

Calculating baseline calorie consumption using the Mifflin-Geor formula

This formula was born in 1990. It is considered one of the most accurate. To calculate, you also need to know weight, height and age.

Men: BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age) + 5

Women: BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) - (5 × age) - 161

Calculating baseline calorie consumption using the Catch-McArdle formula

It is considered the most accurate, but it is calculated on the basis of lean body mass without taking into account fat, and for this you need to know your percentage of fat.

Lean body mass (LBM) calculation:

LBM = [weight (kg) × (100 -% fat)] / 100

Calculating your baseline calorie expenditure (BMR):

BMR = 370 + (21.6 × LBM)

Baseline calorie expenditure is related to both fat and muscle mass. The more muscle you have, the more energy your body expends at rest.

Why you can not increase consumption by diet

The calorie deficit should never fall below baseline consumption. Otherwise, the body will begin to save energy due to hormonal levels. First, it will lower the level of leptin (saturation hormone), then thyroid and reproductive hormones. You should always have available energy to support the endocrine, nervous and other systems. A healthy diet, adequate deficiency and a long-term weight loss attitude will help avoid hormonal imbalances.

Calorie Calculation Calculation

Supplemental energy expenditure is divided into calories spent in training and calories spent in non-training activities.

In training, we expend relatively few calories - an average of 400 calories per hour of intense exercise. With three workouts a week, that only gives us 1200 calories. However, if training is aimed at strengthening muscle tissue, then the base energy expenditure will increase. The body spends more calories building and maintaining muscle than storing and maintaining fat.

Non-training activity (NEAT) means any spontaneous or routine physical activity: walking, shopping, cleaning, cooking, playing with the child, and even working at the computer.

You can calculate the additional expenditure of energy in the Calorie Consumption Analyzer. You just need to indicate your weight, choose the type of activity and indicate the time in minutes. The system will calculate everything for you.

Rules for using base and additional expense

Knowing how much energy is expended allows you to correctly calculate the calorie deficit for weight loss, but it is difficult to predict the exact weight loss.

Difficulties can arise due to:

Errors in calculating calories consumed;

• Erroneous assessment of your own activity;
• Fluid retention in the body;
• Retention of fluid in the female body in certain phases of the cycle;
• Simultaneous muscle growth and fat burning;
• Failure to slow down baseline calorie expenditure.



To avoid the above difficulties, eat properly within the calorie and BJU corridor, soberly assess your own non-training activity, trying to maintain it at approximately the same level every day, exercise regularly, weigh yourself and measure volumes at the same time, and also take into account the phase of the menstrual cycle.

Author: Ekaterina G., nutritionist, fitness blogger (specially for Calorizator.ru)

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