Calorie Calculator
What is the Calorie Calculator
Our Calorie Calculator can help you determine your daily caloric needs based on various personal factors and activity levels. With the knowledge of your physical details, such as age, height, and weight, the calculator can give you an accurate assessment of your daily calorie needs, depending on how active your lifestyle is.
The Importance of Calories
Calories are the units of energy that we usually use when talking specifically about the energy retained from various types of foods. It is very easy to find different calorie values foods provide us with at various portion sizes online.
Understanding your daily caloric needs is crucial for effective weight management.
By knowing how many calories you need to consume to maintain your current weight, you can make informed decisions about adjusting your diet to achieve your health and fitness goals.
How to Use the Calorie Calculator
Our Calorie Calculator allows you to input data specific to you, and then assess the daily calories needed to reach your goals. In order to use our calculator, input the following parameters:
| # | Step | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Select Your Gender | Choose between Male or Female at the very top of the calculator. |
| 2 | Choose the BMR Equation | Our calculator offers four equations. Unless you have deeper knowledge about the nuances of each equation, we recommend you use the Mifflin – St Jeor default equation, as it is the most accepted one by the dietician community. Alternatively, if you have the data on the percentage of your body fat, we recommend working with the Katch – McArdle equation |
| 3 | Choose Your Activity Level | See table below |
| Activity Level | Description |
|---|---|
| BMR | No activity, just the basic metabolic rate. This information will give you an idea about the daily calorie needs of your body at full rest. |
| Sedentary | Little or no exercise. This refers to days when you mostly sit and do not do any significant physical labor or sports. |
| Light | This means, that you do moderate exercise between 1 to 3 days a week. A moderate exercise can be working out for 40 minutes, running at a moderate speed for 30 minutes, or doing some light cardio work for 30 minutes. |
| Moderate | This means, that you exercise 4-5 days a week at a moderate level. If you walk every single day for at least 1 hour, or you work a reasonably hard manual job, such as construction work or warehouse work, you may include yourself in this category as well. |
| Active | Hard exercise. This means, that for 6-7 days a week, you engage in moderate exercise, or you do advanced exercise for 3-4 days a week. |
| Very Active | This means, that you do very hard exercise daily, alongside a physical job. You can also include yourself in this category if you are a semi-professional sportsperson, who trains twice a day. |
| Extra Active | This group is reserved only for professional athletes who spend 4 or more hours every day doing advanced exercise. |
| # | Step | Description |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | Enter Your Age | Input your age in years. |
| 5 | Enter Your Height | Choose either centimeters (CM) or feet (FT) for your height measurement. |
| 6 | Enter Your Weight | Choose either kilograms (KG) or pounds (LB) for your weight measurement. |
| 7 | Input Your Body Fat | In case you chose the Katch – McArdle equation, an extra section will appear, where you can insert the percentage of your body fat. This information can be acquired from a health professional, or with special weights and scales designed for this purpose. |
| 8 | Calculate Your Daily Caloric Needs | Calculate Your Daily Caloric Needs: Click on the CALCULATE button to get your results. |
Your results will appear below the calculator in a neat table. This table will summarize your calory needs, based on your parameters, in order for you to achieve certain goals, such as maintaining your weight or losing weight at different rates.
Keep in mind, that any significant weight loss or weight gain journey should always be first consulted with a health care professional!
Example Calculation
Let’s calculate the daily caloric needs for Amanda, a female, aged 28, weighing 143 lb (65 kg), and 5 ft 7 in (170 cm) tall, using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation and a moderate activity level. Keep in mind, that if you attempt to calculate manually, the equation takes weight in kilograms and height in centimeters, so convert first: 143 lb × 0.453592 = 64.86 kg, and 5 ft 7 in = 67 in × 2.54 = 170.18 cm.
| Step | Interest Calculation |
|---|---|
| 1 | We need to know the formula for the Mifflin – St Jeor equation. These formulae are all available in detail in the BMR calculator. |
| 2 | We write out the female equation as BMR = 10×WEIGHT+6.25×HEIGHT−5×AGE−161. |
| 3 | We substitute with the values for Amanda. We get BMR = 10×64.86+6.25×170.18-5×28-161 = 1411.2. Now we know, that her BMR is about 1411. |
| 4 | We now need to know the scale factor for her type of activity. The scale factors are in the table below. |
| 5 | Now we simply multiply her BMR by the activity factor we desire, in our case, it is 1.465. We get 1411.2×1.465 = 2067.4, or about 2,067. This is the amount of calories she needs to keep her weight while maintaining moderate physical activity. |
| Activity Level | Description | Activity Factor |
| BMR | No activity, just the basic metabolic rate | 1.0 |
| Sedentary | Little or no exercise | 1.2 |
| Light | Light exercise/sports 1-3 days a week | 1.375 |
| Moderate | Exercise/sports 4-5 days a week | 1.465 |
| Active | Daily exercise/sports, or intense exercise 3-4 days a week | 1.55 |
| Very Active | Intense exercise/sports 6-7 days a week | 1.725 |
| Extra Active | Very intense exercise/sports daily, or a physical job | 1.9 |