How Many Calories Should You Eat Daily
in Order to Lose Weight?

Now that you know how much you “should” weigh, from the desirable weight tables and your BMI calculation covered previously (Why is BMI So Important?), how do you get from where you are to where you want to be?

To answer this, first we will first work out how much energy (Calories) your body really needs each day to maintain your weight. Obviously, you will want to make sure you eat less than this amount.

Your body needs to expend a certain amount of energy each day to maintain both your life and lifestyle. If it can't get this energy from food it’ll take the energy from your stored fat. Naturally, we want it to do a lot of that. (Duhh!!J) So we must make sure you don’t give your body too much energy from food.

In order to ensure you create a daily calorie deficit, you will first determine approximately how much energy you need daily to maintain your current body weight. Then you determine how much of it you can reasonably cut out to lose weight at a sustainable rate.

There are three factors that control how much energy you need to eat to maintain your weight at its current level. These factors are:

1. Your resting energy expenditure (REE).
2. Your activity energy expenditure (AEE).
3. The thermic effect of meals.[2]

1. Multiply your kg weight by the factor in column 5, add the adjusting number in column 7.
2. Write the result in column 8. This is your REE in Calories per day. Remember this number. You’ll see it again.

Resting Energy Expenditure (REE)

For most people, the REE (resting energy expenditure) is the largest component of total energy expenditure. It represents the amount of energy you use when quietly lying down in a warm room. It is very close to the basal metabolic rate, (BMR) which is the amount of energy your body needs to expend just to keep you alive. (BMR is a somewhat more precisely defined measurement than the REE, but the two are really almost identical.) The size of your REE depends on the size of your “lean body mass” which is the muscles and other organs, not including stored fat.

Men and women of the same height and weight have measured differences in whole-body REE. A woman’s REE is usually about 10% less at the same height and weight than a man’s. This is due only to the difference in the size of women’s muscle mass. A woman’s muscle expends energy at exactly the same rate per pound as a man’s, but women don’t have as much muscle, so their total body REE is lower. This is the main reason that women gain weight more easily than men. Women don’t have as much muscle to burn off any excess Calories that The Beast may make them eat when it gets low on some other nutrient that it needs.

You can estimate your REE by using equations that have been derived from controlled laboratory measurements. One such set of equations is used below.

To calculate your Resting Energy Expenditure:

1. Men select Table 6, women select Table 7.
2. Find your age range in column 1 of the table.
3. Enter your actual weight in pounds in column 2.
4. Divide by the conversion factor in column 3 to calculate your weight in kilograms (kg) and enter it in column 4. (If you normally measure your weight in kg, just enter it directly.)