The calorie calculator, also called the TDEE calculator, can help you in determining how many calories should you eat a day – or what your starting point is if you want to gain or lose weight. In this article, you will find not only the formulas our calorie counter uses, but also what kinds of food to eat to cut down your weight in a responsible way.
How many calories should I eat a day?
The recommended calorie intake, or TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure), depends on many factors. They are quite easy to measure, and you (hopefully) already know some: your age, height, weight, and sex. There are others, like the level of your physical activity, which are more qualitative than quantitative, but it’s still possible to measure and classify them. Other ones, like your metabolism or overall health, are very difficult to estimate. That’s why, even though our calorie calculator takes into account most factors that influence the number of calories you need every day, it may not give results that are 100% accurate. Consider it more of a guideline than a rigorous directive.
For example, a 40-year-old man who has a physical job (equivalent to exercising six days a week), is the average American height (5 ft 9 in) and weight (194.7 lbs) should ingest 3567 calories a day. On the other hand, his daughter, an average 18-year-old girl (5 ft 4 in, 117 lbs) who exercises once a week only, needs only 1814 calories a day – over a thousand calories less than her father.
What are calories, exactly?
Calories are measures of energy. 1 calorie is equivalent to about 4.18 joules.
In nutrition, we actually deal with kilocalories (kcal), where 1 kcal is equal to a thousand of the “small” calories. As you could expect, 1 kcal = 4.18 kJ. (This article uses the term “calories” to describe kilocalories, like probably every other healthy diet arti