Recommended daily calorie intake

Everybody's daily calorie needs differ according to their height, age, weight, gender and amount they exercise. Probably sounds a bit tricky, but luckily you can use our required calorie intake calculator to calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate) and then your daily calorie requirements depending on whether you want to lose weight or maintain your current weight.

A very rough guide to daily calorie intake requirements would be:

• 1 500 calories per day for women who would like to lose weight
• 1 800 calories per day for women to maintain their weight
• 2 200 calories per day for men who would like to lose weight
  
• 2 400 calories per day for men who would like to maintain their weight

Note: Doctors recommend a daily calorie intake of not less than 1200 calories for women and 1800 calories for men. I would personally suggest not less than 1400 for women and 2000 for men. Why? Because a certain amount of exercise should play a part of all of our lives. It burns more calories and also creates a healthier more efficient engine which then in turn burns calories more efficiently.

When working out your daily calorie requirements you also need to consider that:

• Heavier people burn more calories per day
• Active people use up a lot more calories per day

Recommended daily calorie intake should go hand in hand with one's daily nutritional requirements:

Nutritional requirements can be categorized into 2 basic groups

We need the correct amounts of foods that provide us with energy, and also foods that provide us with chemicals (vitamins and minerals).

1) Carbohydrates, like whole grains, provide us with fuel which the body uses to create energy.

2) Certain meats, fruits and vegetables provide us with chemicals (known to us as vitamins and minerals) that create chemical reactions to make our systems run efficiently.

Discover more about food and nutrition at proper nutrition for athletes. This is not only good advice for athletes but a good common sense approach to clever eating.

Recommended daily calorie intake to lose weight

A pound of body fat contains approximately 3500 calories, so in order to lose this amount of weight you can either burn off those calories by exercising (visit calories burned during exercise), dieting, or a combination of both. In other words you require a negative daily calorie intake. (See our negative calorie food list).

If you create a negative daily calorie intake of 500 calories you will lose one pound in a week.

Doctors recommend that you shouldn't lose more than 2 pounds a week through the above method, and they also suggest a combination of calorie intake reduction, a healthy nutritional diet, and exercise. And it's also a well known fact that continued weight loss and weight maintenance beyond a certain point is very difficult without regular exercise and proper education about the nutritional values of foods.

For more on this subject visit our daily calorie intake calculator and recommended nutrition for athletes.

 

Go from recommended daily calorie intake to how many calories burned during exercise or to Good carbs Bad carbs list.
Or return to stomach flattening exercises home page.