Easy Meal Prep For Cutting Or Bulking - Part 1
How To Figure Out Your Maintenance Calories
One of, if not the most significant challenge facing the average person in their quest to improve health, fitness and appearance is understanding the role, strategies, and ability to consistently incorporate nutritional practices that align with their goals.
Generally speaking, we all need to consider the โenergy in - energy out equationโ. How much energy we take in, in the form of food (or more accurately digested and absorbed calories) versus the amount of energy we require for sustaining life, and our physical activities need to essentially balance each other if we are to maintain the same body weight over time.
In order to lose weight, we need to shift the equation toward using more energy than we take in, and to gain muscle (essentially gain weight), we need to shift the equation toward taking in more energy on average than we use per day.
This is of course a simple approach to using nutrition and โcaloriesโ to support our weight-loss and muscle growth goals. There is a third goal, which is possible under certain conditions and in some people, known as body recomposition, but for the sake of simplicity, I will not explore that in this post.
START HERE
The place to start, when attempting to understand how to align what we eat with our goals - aka affecting the energy in side of the equation, is to determine how many calories we need to take in on an average day, in order to keep our body weight the same; this level of intake is commonly called our โmaintenance caloric intakeโ. While figuring this out over the course of 5-10 consecutive days, itโs important not to modify the way we would normally eat, nor change our typical level of activity or exercise regimens.
Determine our maintenance calories:
Like almost anything else, there are different ways to determine our maintenance calories. As a scientist by training, I like experimenting and looking at numbers and data, even though I know that numbers and data may not tell the full picture. For determining the number of calories, and how these calories are divided into the 3 macronutrients (proteins, carbs and fats), there are a variety of food database-driven mobile apps that can be used to relatively accurately capture your consumption. However, many people find keeping such accurate food diaries to be challenging and another strategy which is a bit less time consuming would be the use of newer artificial intelligence (AI)-driven photo food journaling apps.
While using these approaches to understanding average food intake, you should weigh everyday, preferably at the same time and under similar conditions, such as upon waking up before having anything to eat or drink.
Once youโve been able to track your intake and your body weight, you will be able to determine a reasonable estimate for your maintenance calories, assuming your body weight does not change significantly from the first to the last day that youโre measuring. If your body weight does change by a significant amount (in excess of 2-3 lbs) over the course of 5-10 days, the ability to estimate maintenance calories will be less accurate from the food diary approach, and an option to consider as a starting point is described next.
If someone is completely averse to using apps or written record-keeping to understand their consumption, it becomes relatively more challenging to truly understand intake but standardised equations for calculating the basal metabolic rate, BMR which is relatively close to the resting metabolic rate, RMR (or the number of calories required to sustain vital life functions while at complete rest) can be used, and along with a multiplication factor that takes relative job and leisure time activity into account, estimates maintenance calories, or the number of calories on average to be consumed each day in order to maintain a stable body weight.
BMR Calculation for example for a 40 year old male, 183cm, weighing 85kg, who works a sedentary job, but works out for about 4 hours per week at a moderate level of intensity
WORK OUT YOUR BMR:
BMR = 66 + (13.7 X weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) โ (6.8 x age in yrs)
= 66 + (13.7 x 85) + (5 x 183) - (6.8 x 40)
= 1,873.5 calories
WORK OUT YOUR TDEE:
TDEE (essentially maintenance caloric intake) = BMR x Activity Factor (in this case, 1.7)
TDEE = 1,873.5 x 1.7 = 3,185 calories
Increased activity levels is one goal of an exercise / training regimen and contributes some minimal to modest percentage to total energy output over the course of a week (or other defined time period), depending on the types and frequencies of training.
NEXT STEP:
Regardless of which method is used, once an estimate of maintenance calories has been obtained, the next step will be modifying intake and / or activity levels to align with your goal of losing weight or body fat, or of gaining muscle, and this will be discussed in detail in a future post.
Stay tuned!
DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS? GET IN TOUCH WITH ME NOW!
We all have a sense that highly-processed foods arenโt exactly healthy for us. BUT, did you know there is a classification of foods (really products) that are called Ultraprocessed Foods orUPFs?
Chances are you arenโt aware of what this specifically means and the types of additives that are included during processing.
In Part 1 of this 2 Part Blog, weโll review what ultraprocessed foods are, the top 3 reasons why you eat ultraprocessed foods in the first place, the 4 keys to grocery shopping to minimized process food consumption and how ultraprocessed foods have become a part of our culture - from the Hawaiian perspective.
Enjoy!