Standing on the scale doesn't burn many calories, however. (Photo by Alan Cleaver)
It’s become something of a running joke around here that “eat less and exercise more” is overly simplistic, and not all that sexy. In that respect, this mantra is kind of like Bejeweled (actually, there is Bejeweled pron out there. Verily, the internet is full of things. Whether those things should exist is left as an exercise for the reader).
However, sometimes it’s useful to know more precisely how much we should be eating. This is especially true if you’re not on any kind of scripted dietary program, or one that gives you a daily allotment of something other than plain old calories.
Handy tool is handy.
To quickly recap, the main three macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates, and fat) can, much like the components of Voltron (I’m talking five-lion Voltron here, not that thirty-car abomination), combine to make up your daily caloric intake.
Protein: 4 calories per gram
Carbohydrates: 5 calories per gram
Fat: 9 calories per gram
And, because we do have some beer aficionados on the staff and in the audience, alcohol weighs in at 7 calories per gram.
Armed with these two numbers – the calories you expect to burn over the course of the day, and how much you’ve eaten – it’s pretty straightforward to figure out whether you should expect to gain weight, lose weight, or maintain your current mass (not counting the vagaries of hydration and/or bathroom visits).
For instance, I need about 2700 calories on days when I work out for an hour (which is generally six days a week, barring injury or epic Anarchy Online session). To meet my energy needs following a pretty normal eating pattern (40% calories from carbs, and 30% each for protein and fats), that works out to 270 grams of carbs, 205 grams of protein, and 90 grams of fat. If anything, I tend to skew a bit more towards a higher-protein diet most of the time. I have not, however, shared an elevator with Scott. Not only do we not work together, we always end up taking the stairs anyway.
In order to lose weight expressly to look good (because, frankly, my purported six-pack remains annoyingly well-insulated), at a sane and healthy pound a week, that works out to roughly 2200 calories a day, comprised of roughly 220 grams of carbs, 165 grams of protein, and 75 grams of fat. That’s hardly the extremely restricted caloric regimen we’ve all heard of, where folks are down around 1200 calories per day.
Extreme under-eating is unhealthy, people. When your body thinks you’re starving, because OMG WHERE ARE MY NOMS? it responds by trying to hold on to as much of your stored energy (read: fat) as it can. At the end of the day, calories are still calories, but the healthier the source of those calories – fresh fruits and vegetables, animal products from naturally-fed sources, and so forth – the better.
Now, if anyone feels like humming some Depeche Mode, I’m not going to stop you. It’s been earworming me the whole time I wrote this (though it was In Flames’ cover version about 3/4 of the time).
Related posts:
I don’t believe Handy Tool. It’s telling me that I should have 2300 cal/day, and that was skewing my activity to almost all sitting, all the time. I know from recent personal experience that if I have more than about 1800/day I will gain weight.
There’s also the school of thought that cheating actually makes you lose weight, so you actually eat more rather than less. It helps to speed up your metabolism. Sounds good in theory, i read a review at Cheat Your Way Thin Review which helped to explain it more. might be worth a go.