How Much Calories Do I Really Need?

How Many Calories Do I need In A Day?

This question must have crossed your mind before as it would have anyone who has ever been concerned with their health or weight. If you’re consuming more calories than you need per day, you’re bound to keep piling on the pounds year after year. This can lead to being overweight, standing the risk of developing cardiovascular disease or diabetes, and even becoming obese. On the other hand, consuming to few calories can be just as dangerous. Depriving your body of essential nutrients, minerals and vitamins can easily lead to future health problems. So how much do you really need in a day and what do you need to do in order to lose weight, maintain your current weight or gain weight?


An average woman needs to eat about 2000 calories per day to maintain, and 1500 calories to lose one pound of weight per week. An average man needs 2500 calories to maintain, and 2000 to lose one pound of weight per week. However, various factors such as age, height, current weight, activity levels, metabolic health and several others may affect the above figures. From the above, it can be easily deduced that to lose 1 lb of weight in a week, all you need to do is to consume 500 less calories than you are usually used to consuming.

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The Calorie Intake Calculator

Your recommended calorie intake depends on several different factors, including gender, age and daily activity. The caloric needs calculator takes all of these variables into account. Gender, for example, plays an essential role in daily calorie intake calculation. Men generally have a higher muscle percentage than women. Since muscle burns calories faster than fat, the calorie requirements for men will be naturally higher than the calorie intake needs for women. Age also plays an essential role. As our bodies age, they burn fewer and fewer calories per day. 

That means, as an individual ages and their metabolism slows, their daily caloric needs decrease as well. This is an essential factor, especially if someone fails to reduce their calorie intake from year to year. Weight gain is generally the result. Lastly, but most certainly not least, is the factor of lifestyle and activity. Those with a physically active lifestyle will burn more calories during the day and will have higher calorie requirements. Furthermore, individuals participating in sports, and building more muscles as a result, will have a higher recommended calorie intake.

What Is A Calorie?

A calorie is a unit that measures energy. Calories are usually used to measure the energy content of foods and beverages. To lose weight, you need to eat fewer calories than your body burns each day. See the simple mathematics below:

If calorie consumed > calorie burned = Weight Gain

If calorie consumed < calorie burned = Weight Loss

If calorie consumed = calorie burned = Weight Maintenance

 The Importance Of Daily Activity

Daily activity is an essential element for the daily calorie needs calculator. Daily calorie intake for extremely active daily routing, like that of a construction worker, teacher or waiter, for example, should be much higher than that of an office worker, or someone with a less active lifestyle. To incorporate this vital factor, the calorie intake calculator adjusts the formula based on your daily activity. The calculator takes into consideration the following levels of activity:

“Low Activity” = (little or no exercise, sedentary),

“Somewhat Active” = (exercise 1-3 times/week),

“Active” = (exercise 4-5 times/week),

“Very Active” = (daily exercise or intense exercise 3-4 times/week) 

(Exercise: 15-30 minutes of elevated heart rate activity and Intense exercise: 45-120 minutes of elevated heart rate activity.)

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Weight Loss - Does Water Really Matter?

So, in the last quarter of 2018, I did a 2 L per day Whatsapp Water Drinking Challenge, and I asked participants to do it for 21 days (according to studies, or maybe fiction, it takes about 21 days of consistency to form or break a habit. However, some schools of thoughts have it that this is, as a matter of fact, a myth and that it takes even way longer, but that's not our focus today). I started by mentioning some wonderful benefits of water and why we would only be shortchanging ourselves by drinking less than the body really daily wants. I also posted daily reminders and motivations on my Whatsapp story, while also sharing my personal progress. One of the benefits I mentioned was that it helped in weight loss. But how?

How Can Drinking More Water Help You Lose Weight?
Many studies show that drinking more water may benefit weight loss and maintenance (1). In fact, studies have also 30–59% of US adults who try to lose weight increase their water intake. I will try to explain in this post how drinking water helps with weight loss, backing it up with a couple of  scientific research. Read on...

Drinking Water Can Make You Burn More Calories

Long-term weight management is directly proportional to calories absorbed from feeding. The importance of calorie monitoring just can't be overemphasised when you are trying to shed or maintain shed weight. Drinking water increases the amount of calories you burn, which is known as resting energy expenditure (2). In adults, resting energy expenditure has been shown to increase by 24–30% within 10 minutes of drinking water. This energy, in lay man's English, is the energy used to heat up water in the body. This is called thermogenesis and it lasts at least 60 minutes (3).

Most of the studies listed below looked at the effect of drinking one, 0.5 litre (17 oz) serving of water.

One is the study of overweight and obese children which found a 25% increase in resting energy expenditure after drinking cold water (4).

Another is a study of overweight women that examined the effects of increasing water intake to over 1 litre (34 oz) per day. They found that over a 12-month period, this resulted in an extra 2 kg (4.4 lb) of weight loss (5).

Additionally, both of these studies indicate that drinking 0.5 litre (17 oz) of water results in an extra 23 calories burned. On a yearly basis, that sums up to roughly 17,000 calories — or over 2 kg (4.4 lb) of fat. These results are very impressive, especially since all these women did was to drink more water, with no further lifestyle modifications in particular.

These results may be even more impressive when the water is colder. When you drink ice cold water, your body uses extra calories to warm the water up to body temperature.

Think about this.

If the colder the water means the more energy your body need to 'heat it up', and ultimately the more calories you are likely to burn. Wouldn't you rather chew ice blocks? 😄

Several other studies have monitored overweight people who drank 1-1.5 litres (34–50 oz) of water daily for a few weeks. They found a significant reduction in weight, body mass index (BMI), waist circumference and body fat (5, 6).

Drinking 0.5 litre (17 oz) of water may increase the amount of calories burned for at least an hour. Some studies show that this can lead to modest weight loss.

Drinking Water Before Meals Can Reduce Appetite Or Lead To Early Satiety

Some people claim that drinking water before a meal reduces appetite.

There actually seems to be some truth behind this, but almost exclusively in middle-aged and older adults.

Studies of older adults have shown that drinking water before each meal may increase weight loss by 2 kg (4.4 lbs) over a 12-week period (2, 7).

In one study, middle-aged overweight and obese participants who drank water before each meal lost 44% more weight, compared to a group that did not drink more water (2).

Another study also showed that drinking water before breakfast reduced the amount of calories consumed during the meal by 13% .

Although this may be very beneficial for middle-aged and older people, studies of younger individuals have not shown the same impressive reduction in calorie intake.

Drinking water before meals may reduce appetite in middle-aged and older individuals. This decreases calorie intake, leading to weight loss.

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The SMART Gameplan

December 2017: In 2018, I want to lose a total of 60 lb by December (Yes, again, and I am gonna take it serious this time). By April, I must have lost 20 lb (a third of my goal). I will exercise more and eliminate junk foods from my sweet life. I will drink more water. I will blah blah blah...
December 2018: Well, I can't kill myself. I will try again next year, I guess this year wasn't 'My Year of Losing Weight'. After all, the church's theme for the year was 'My Year of Abundant Expansion', so who am I not to key into the Bishop's vision? Next year, 2019, I am gonna lose 60, scratch that, 70 lb before November.

 Fun fact: The abbreviation "lb" comes from the Latin word libra, which itself is short for libra pondo, or in English, "pound weight." So this explains why the unit of pound weight is "lb" and not "pd" as we would have expected.

Have your weight loss resolutions turned to recurrent casual promises to yourself that you repeat and edit every other year? How many times have you decided, “I want to lose weight”, only to find out, weeks or months later, that you’ve gone back to the same old habits that either made you gain much weight in the first place or rendered your last attempt futile, that your enthusiasm is now close to zero, and you’d rather give it all up? Well, January is almost over, so tell me, honestly, how far? (winks)


Weight loss goals can be complex and daunting if not well planned and when there is not enough motivation so to do. Usually, this complexity can be simplified with setting up a structure that can help you achieve your goals, with adequate accountability as an icing to the cake. I am assuming that you already scaled the first hurdle, the decision to lose weight. Next is, how do you go about it? How do you measure your progress? How do you know when you’ve realized your goal? That is where planning comes in.


You must have, at one time or the other, heard about setting SMART goals. These are goals that are:  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, Time-Bound. It is never late to be SMART.


This method can be used (and has been proven very efficient) for pretty much any form of goal setting. Just adjust it to suit your project. For now, we want to take the resolution, “I Want To Lose Weight”, and give it a SMART makeover, together.


SPECIFIC


Your goal needs to be specific. Rather than saying ‘I want to lose weight’, make it a little more specific, including a milestone to achieve. Say, I want to lose: 1 lb every week; 10 lb by the end of April; 20 lb by the end of July. Yours might be to lose 2 lb per week till you have achieved your goal weight. (PS: it is not advisable to lose more than 2 lb a week.)


Now, your specific goal becomes: “I want to lose 40 lb**.”

MEASURABLE 

Taking stock of your success is also key to staying motivated. How will you measure your progress so you know when you’ve achieved your goal? If I lose 2 lb per week, it means in a month I would have lost 8 lb. So in 3 months I should have lost 24 lb. You just made it track-able. And every week, you score yourself to see how good or bad you are doing, because you have also broken it down into weeks. (PS: The safe limit is anything not more than 2 lb in a week.)

The new goal now is: “I want to lose 40 lb. I will lose 1-2 lb per week and track my progress each week on my phone/journal.” 

ATTAINABLE

There’s no sense in picking a goal you low-key know you might never achieve. We live in an age where everyone wants stuff gotten done fast. It's quite bogus to say I want to lose 50 lb in 3 months, it's almost as unattainable as it is unhealthy. Have you ever tried to lose weight in the past? Evaluate your weight loss history – what have you managed to achieve in the past? Your new goal should be around, but not a strict rule, your known capabilities. Setting a goal way beyond this might be unfeasible. However, you are allowed to set a higher benchmark for yourself, as long as it is not too unrealistic.

Rather than deciding from the offset to get your weight right down into the healthy BMI range, why not aim for a 3, 5 or 10 percent body weight loss? Research suggests that losing just 5% of your body weight can bring significant health benefits. Of course, once you reach your goal, you can always set a new one.

At this point, the goal becomes: “I want to lose 40 lb. I will lose between 1-2 lb per week and track my progress each week on my phone/journal. I will then re-evaluate whether I want to lose any more weight.” 

RELEVANT

Next, the goal needs to matter to you. What do you want to lose weight for? Perhaps your doctor has told you it will bring health benefits and could get you off your diabetes medication. Maybe yours is to fit into that beautiful wedding gown that your mum has gifted you or you just want to altogether be in good shape. Now this is the motivation part. Keeping this positive end-point in mind is crucial to staying motivated. I usually ask the people I am helping to lose weight to have a journal and on the first page write their motivation. Another option is to keep it as a part of your vision board (if you have one or know how to make one), putting it in a strategic position in your room where it can be seen as often as possible.

Our goal has now become: “I want to lose 40 lb. I will lose between 1-2 lb per week and track my progress each week on my phone/journal. I will then re-evaluate whether I want to lose any more weight. Losing weight will help me manage my diabetes, potentially bringing down my blood sugar levels and allowing me to come off my medications.”  (Insert your own motivation as applies)

TIME-BOUND

Finally, every resolution needs to be time-bound in order to give it impetus. Decide on a reasonable amount of time to achieve your goal (1-2 lb a week is a common goal). Stick to your plans and timelines and ensure that each milestone synchronizes with the time set. I usually advise that you include the year so your subconscious knows that it is not another year's August, but this year's.

“I want to lose 40 lb by the end of August 2019. I will lose between 1-2 lb per week and track my progress each week on my phone/journal. After August 2019, I will then re-evaluate whether I want to lose any more weight. Losing weight will help me manage my diabetes, potentially bringing down my blood sugar levels and allowing me to come off my medications.” 

SMART STEPS TO WEIGHT LOSS SUCCESS

By setting a SMART goal you not only give your weight loss journey structure, but also provide yourself with accountability and motivation along the way. Of course, setting the SMART goals aren’t the only keys to success in achieving your feat, and everyone could do with a bit of a helping hand.  That’s where Fit 360° comes in. If you would love to belong to a group where you can be sure of accountability or motivation, kindly send an email here, and in due time you shall be contacted and added up. The group aims to be meant for the serious minded only so make up your mind before you join so you are not left behind. But first, answer in the comment section, how have you been able to achieve your goals in the past or what did you do that made you fall short? Let's learn from one another's successes or shortcomings. Ciao


**If you are used to kilograms (kg) instead of pounds (lb), the conversion rate is

1 kg = 2.2 lb (approximately)

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The Verb Called Try - Just Do It!

“Trying is always enough.” ― Patricia Briggs, Dragon Bones

Recently, I have been speaking and writing more French! Before now, I had always prided myself, whenever I am around the people whom I know can’t speak French or those whom I feel are unlikely to know as much as I do, as one who could speak basic 'française' and hold up a conversation in the language (and Yes I can. Although it’s much easier for me, and I do that pretty well, to read and write than to speak.). However, whenever I get to be among the native speakers of the language or even non-natives who speak it so well, I tend to crawl all the way back to the beginners level. I am pretty sure we all do this, belittle ourselves.
As an instrumentalist, probably the best in your church or area, you are in a jam session, and some strange dude asks to 'test' your instrument (and most of them guys never look like what they play). So you proudly give them and probably wait for them to disgrace themselves plus or minus their family tree and entire village, but instead you end up watching in awe their dexterity and ‘mad’ skills. Then after they are done with their show-offs and hand you back your own instrument, you instantly develop a verbal diarrhea', ejecting all sorts of unsolicited speeches. You be like, boss I am just learning o… blah blah blah (Little secret- I do this too… but sshh, don’t loud eet lol). We should be humble, I know, but there is probably just a thin line between Humility and Low Self-Esteem, as there is between Pride and Knowing your worth, believing in yourself!
Back to my french story, although I learnt the basics and fundamentals of the language in primary and secondary schools, majority of my french is self-taught, as is my oral English. And for those who probably knew me as the best English student in my college days, the trick was oral English (now you know). With about 95% accuracy, I could literally transcribe anything into phonetics and I knew all the principles of ‘oral English’. However, my oral English doesn’t show much in my spoken English, as I still speak like every other average Nigerian (with a tincture of Igbo accent... just a tiny liru bit). No ‘phonay’ in my English, I just sabi theory. And by the way, I think we are taught too much English in Nigeria than those who even own the language.



I was speaking with an American friend (who speaks good American English) and somehow our talk went to the transcription of words. I told her there was a ‘j’ sound in ‘manipulate’, ‘university’ and ‘you’, but she found it quite strange. She argued vehemently and possibly could have bet her salary on it. I softly, like a grammar boss, asked her why she thought we don’t say ‘an university’. Told her it was because the ‘u’ in ‘university’ actually has the consonant diphthong ‘/ju:/’. I could tell that I must have confused her the more so I got a screenshot of the internet search for the word ‘manipulate’ and sent to her, only then did she understand me ( or I hope she did). I digress again.
OK, so in my quest to develop my spoken French, I made new friends recently, French friends. Ismail is from Morocco and Pascaline is from France but lives on the Reunion Island. They both speak french and would love to learn English. So it was gonna be a symbiotic relationship between us… The reason for this long story ladies and gentlemen is that ever since I started chatting with them and sometimes speaking, I have surprised myself gazillion times with the pool of french vocabulary I would have unknowingly stored up. I would just think of any English word and the “Young Translate” app in my head automatically brings up the french word for them, and in split seconds too. This made me realize this truth, that you wouldn’t know how good (or bad) you are if you don’t at least try. So,come on, slap your neighbour and say JUST DO IT (But be sure you can outrun them, because not everyone knows they are supposed to turn the other cheek... hahaha)



I will post stuff about my french speaking progress once in a while and also give anyone who wants, tips with which you can learn any new language, any language at all. Please keep in touch.

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