HOW YOUR BODY USES CALORIES

Now that you have a better understanding of the Calories IN side of the Energy Balance Equation, let us discuss the Calories OUT part of it.

Here is a hot tip you may already have known but forgotten. One Pound of body-fat is the equivalent of 3,500 Calories. So, if it’s Calories in vs. Calories out, it only makes sense that if you were to restrict 3,500 Calories over the course of a week that you would drop one lb of body fat.

That is a 500 calorie deficit per day from the way you are CURRENTLY eating, which is manageable for almost anyone. Especially if you have been eating a calorie surplus, ie: Over Eating.

Understanding your metabolism and how to determine how many calories your body is currently burning is a good place to start. It may sound like a complicated mess, but it’s not too bad. It goes down like this….

Your body burns calories in 4 ways:

• BMR: Basal Metabolic Rate This is just what it takes to keep the lights on. Think: heart pumping, lungs expanding/contracting as well as all other organ functions…...Basically this is the amount of calories you burn during complete rest, like when you are sleeping.

• NEAT: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis This is when you are upright, moving around. This can include almost all Activities of Daily Living, but you are not specifically exercising or just sitting still.

• EAT: Exercise Activity Thermogenesis is pretty straight forward. This is the amount of energy you expend during exercise.

• TEF: Thermic Effect of Food is the amount of energy it takes to digest food and it usually equates for around 10% of the calories you burn each and every day.

Maintenance Calories

When you take into account all the factors above, this becomes your Maintenance Calories or, your body's total calorie expenditure for each day. This is called your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE

So the next question you’re probably contemplating is how to determine what your maintenance calories are.

Am I right?

There is no test or calculation that will give you an exact answer to what your individual maintenance calories are. If you want, you can spend an ass-ton of money by climbing into a direct calorimeter chamber for an hour, but that will only give you your Resting Metabolic Rate. You would still have to figure out the other three components to your metabolism. But here’s the thing, your metabolism is always changing as it is always adjusting to your calorie intake and expenditure, so it’s basically like trying to hit a moving target unless you are willing to do one thing.

One SIMPLE thing. Want to know what it is? Of course you do.

Track your food intake.

That’s it. For at least a week. Check your weight at the beginning and then at the end of that week. If your weight stayed roughly the same, you know that your daily calorie average over those 7 days are in the ballpark of your Maintenance Calories. If you gained or lost weight, of course you would need to adjust accordingly and track again for another week. This may sound crazy to someone who has never literally tracked everything they eat or drink, but it truly is the simplest way.