Ok, here it goes..

I am wondering how many calories a day I need.

I am 6'3 310lbs, and I am 20 years old. I understand to lose one pound per week I need to burn 500 calroies per day, but I don't know how much I need to take in.


Any help?


Thanks,

Troy

BMR Calculator

According to your website your basal metabolic rate is 2,813 calories per day. This means that this is how many calories your body burns just keeping itself alive. However, you also burn calories from daily activities and exercise. So, depending on how active you are and/if you exercise daily, the number of calories you burn per day could be 500-1500 higher. For example, with this second link, you can multiply your BMR by the numbers given based on your level of activity. Example: if you are sedentary, you are going to burn around 3,375 calories per day.


Harris Benedict Equation

Having said all this, its up to you how many calories you want to eat. The more you have to lose the faster you can lose it (in the beginning). You could take 1000 off of that 3,375 calories and consume 2,375 calories per day. Or, if you are more active/exercising you can increase this.

Lol I'm not an expert, this is just all stuff I have learned on here. I hope I helped some.

Using simple methodology presented here by one of the experts (Steve), you need to consume 15 calories for every pound in order to maintain a weight. Then, you need to create a deficit of between 10 and 15% depending on your goals, with a combination of diet and exercize.

So, in order to maintain 310, you would eat 4,650 cals a day.

To lose weight, you would create a 10-15% deficit, so that would be about 650 cals deficit (on the high end) per day. If you burned 325 over ordinary, and ate 325 cals less, then you would be able to achieve a loss of about 1 lb. a week, as I understand it.

Thank you very much guys, good info on this site!!

Actually, I am still kind of confused. I understand that to keep the weight that I am at now I need to take in 4,650 calories per day. So if I want to lose 1 pound per week I would want to only take in 4000 calories.... I think that is impossible to take in 4000 calories LOL.

OK - I'm NOT an expert, and I don't play one on TV but I tried eating 15 calories per pound of my body weight and started gaining weight when I was at 12 calories per pound of boyd weight - but I've been in a deficit for a long time, eating way too few calories and have probably screwed up my system.

I would imagine if you're new to weight loss - you could consume 10-12 calories per pound and lose weight, so at your weight that's 3100-3720 calories a day. I wouldn't go under that.

Have you checked out FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal or Free Diet Plans at SparkPeople ? Both are sites for tracking calories, nutrition and fitness. I was *amazed* at how many calories I was eating when I first started out!

Who knew a can of pringles wasn't a single serving?

Just don't drop your calories too low - or you won't have room to drop them further if you hit a plateau or as you lose body weight.

Best of luck to you!

You would actually be surprised at how many calories things have. Say you go to McDonalds and get a Big Mac, large fries and large coke. That is 1500 calories. If you get a large chocolate shake, thats another 1100 calories!!! For a total of 2600 calories. Also a lot of things you eat have oils in them which make the calories add up VERY quickly.

However, you can lose more than 1lb per week when you have more to lose. If you feel you could eat 3000 calories a day and be comfortable and not hungry, then go for it. When you start losing weight, your BMR will lower so you won't have as big of a deficit so the weightloss will slow down. Also, the starvation response is less likely to happen the more you have to lose since your body has plenty of fat to rid itself of.

So if I am right I am subposed to be bringing in 4560 calories per day, to maintain my weight. If I take it down to 3100 calories/day then that would mean that I am eating 1460 calories less. So 3500 calories equals 1 pound of stored body fat. So if you muliply 1460x7 (1 week) which is 10220 and then devide that by 3500 (1 pound) I would lose 2.92LBS per week just by watching what I eat, right?

That's about right - although as you lose weight you won't be losing as much as quickly.

I think if I were in your shoes, I'd eat 3300-3500 calories a day though, increase my activity for one month and see where you are afterwards.

Right on, thanks alot all of you. This has helped me understand ALOT! I REALLY appreciate it!

Yes, that is an approximate, though. the 15 calories/per lb of body fat may rely on that the person is relatively active/exercises. But you can probably expect to lose 2-3lbs a week easily. I have not been great with exercising, so my weight loss so far is pretty much reliant on the way I eat (1200-1800 calories a day). The amount I lose per week varies GREATLY depending on many things including salt intake. But yes, if you cut your calories down to 3100-3200 you should expect to lose at least 2lbs a week on average (though the first couple weeks you may lose a LOT more because of water weight - I lost 9lbs in one week when I first started because of water weight).

Thanks again.