what are calories and how to calculate it

Every day we read about calories and we see how effective it is to gain or lose weight but we don't know what are calories or how much calories we burn every day so in this article I will answer all these questions so let's start without wasting any time

What is calorie?

Calorie simply is the energy that food gives us in different quantities according to the type of food

Well, what is the point of counting the number of calories we consume in a day?

first, you will deal with any type of food

according to the energy or calorie it gives, and thus it becomes easy to calculate the amount of food you need in your day to get the energy you need

Second, you will understand how you should eat to gain or lose weight or until your weight remains stable

Well, let's make it clear, Every activity we do even if we assume you want to raise your hand

The process of raising the hand requires an amount of energy, and let's assume that it is 10cal. If you ate a type of food that gives you 100cal, it will give you the energy that allows you to raise your hand 10 times and in this case, your body will have used all the energy that the food gave it and didn't store anything that is. Your weight remains stable

Well, if you ate a type of food that gave you 200cal and did the same effort, which is, you raised your hand 10 times

In the process of raising the hand, you dispensed 100cal and left another 100, which the body stores, thus increasing the weight

Of course, weight gain is related to several factors, including genetics, the activity of some hormones you have, your level of activity per day, your muscles size, and many other things

are we only expending energy when we're doing a muscle activity like movement?

The answer is no, the body spends energy per day in 3 main forms

Firstly, the BMR is the basal burning rate, which is the energy that the body spends without making any effort to operate its apparatus and perform vital processes such as breathing and heartbeat

BMR spends between 60-75% of the daily energy you spend per day

Secondly, the level of your daily activity, for example, if you work a lot and move a lot, the level of energy you expend is greater. Your daily activity consumes 15-35% of the amount of energy that you spend daily

Third, the thermal effect of eating in the sense that eating when digested and burned gives the body the energy that it expends, and it represents 5-10% of the energy that the body spends daily and this percentage we can neglect as we calculate the number of calories we need

The number of calories we need per day is equal to the sum of the 3 forms that we talked about, which are BMR + your daily activity level + caloric energy that we said can be neglected

Now we will go over how to calculate your BMR and the daily calories you need

To calculate BMR, there are many methods, but the most realistic and correct equation is the following

For Men, Your weight in kilograms x 1 x 24 is the number of hours of the day For women, this is the equation Your weight in kilograms x 0.9 x 24 is the number of hours of the day

Second, how can you calculate your

activity level for the day

Of course, the topic varies from person to person depending on the degree of activities, and here we will explain to you each daily activity and the amount of its impact on BMR, so don't worry

Second, how can you calculate your

activity level for the day

Little activity, for example, work on the computer only, If you are a man, your activity level is 25-40%, but if you are a female, your activity level is 25-35%

Regular activities such as going to university If you are a man, your activity level would be 50-70% If you are a female, your activity level is 40_60%

High activity, such as walking an hour a day or cycling If you are a man, your activity level would be 65-80% If you are a female, your activity level is 50-70%

Doing a lot of activity and effort, such as going to the gym 5 times a week If you are a man, your level of activity would be 90-120% If you are a female, your activity level is 80-100%

The total BMR we calculated and the level of activity you do daily give you the number of calories you need per day to maintain your weight

Let's say there is a boy who weighs 60 kilograms whose daily activity is walking to the university every day

How do we calculate the number of calories that he needs daily to maintain a stable body weight

First, we calculate the BMR. Cause he is a boy, we perform the following calculation 60 × 1 × 24 = 1440 cal

To explain

60: the boy's weight

1: cause he isn't a girl

24: the number of hours per day

1440: This is the BMR

Second, his daily activity level

Since he walks daily to the university, his activity is normal, so, he spends 50-70% of his BMR, so we do the following process:

We multiply the BMR first by the minimum activity which is 50% So 1440 x 50% and the result is 720cal

And secondly, we multiply the BMR by the maximum activity limit which is 70% So 1440 x 70%, and the the result is 1008cal So his daily activity level is from 720cal to 1008cal

Third, we add the BMR to the daily activity level

To explain, We add the BMR to the minimum daily activity level which is 720cal and the result is 2160cal

Then we add the BMR to the upper limit of the daily activity level which is 1008cal and the result is 2448cal

That is, this student, maintains a constant body weight will need calories from 2160cal to 2448cal

More simply, if he consumed more than 2448cal, he would gain weight and If he eats less than 2160cal, he will lose weight

And now you can apply this equation to yourself in order to know the number of calories you need to reach your goal