Ahhh, calories.  Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em.  From a young age we’ve all heard countless tales, both horrific and dramatic about the dreaded calorie.  But what’s the truth?  What is really important about calories? How should we deal with them?  Should you count calories?  Should you ignore calories?  Essentially, this article is designed to answer the question, what is a calorie really, and how should I deal with it.

This is a website dedicated to dieting, so let’s start there.  The bottom line is this.  If you want to lose WEIGHT, you have to take in fewer calories than you burn throughout the day.  An obvious question arises…how many calories do I need in a given day?  There are three components to this, your actual BMR (basal metabolic rate i.e. amount of calories your body burns on its own every day), the adjustment for activity, and how much you should cut or add to lose or gain weight, respectively.

BMR Calculation For Women:

655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)

BMR Calculation For Men:

655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)

Then consider your activity level.  Consult the table below, and multiply by the associated value.

This new number is your adjusted calorie maintenance level.  That is, this is the number of calories you need to ingest to stay the same weight you are.  Most experts suggest that you not go beyond 500 calories less or 500 calories more than your adjusted BMR to maintain healthy weight loss or gain.

So now you know how many calories you’re trying to hit, now you need to know how to count the calories right?  There are two major ways to accomplish this.  The first is to read the calorie content of whatever package you’ve purchased, consult the nutritional value menus at restaurants (or online for bigger chain restaurants), or you can check tables online for the foods you eat.  The second main way to do this is to keep track of the categories of food you eat (and amount) and simply do the math.  The table below is handy for telling you how many calories you’ve had to eat.

And yes, you’re reading that correctly, alcohol has calories.  Alcohol refers to hard liquor, not beer, which will likely have much more calories.  Remember however, that most hard liquors are 80 proof, or 40% alcohol.

Okay, so we’ve discussed it.  We know that in order to lose weight we have to consume fewer calories than we burn, we know how to calculate how many calories we need, and we know how many calories are in the foods we eat.  We’re done right?  All we have to do is count calories right?  WRONG.

This is quite possibly the most frustrating thing about most peoples’ “independent” approach to dieting.  Most people believe that they just have to know the total number of calories they’ve eaten, but this can be a dangerous road to go down.  For instance, this type of thinking may lead you to believe that you can either eat healthy and reach your 2000 calories OR, since it’s all the same, just drink beer until you’ve hit your 2000 calories (about 10 beers on average).  This is not sustainable!  In my opinion, the best way to count calories, is to count your calories by category, i.e. set calorie goals for your carbs, your proteins and your fats, and count that way.

The way you’ll decide your ratios will completely depend on your weight loss goals.  The FDA recommends for nutrition that you stick to a ratio of 40:30:30, that is 40% of your calories come from carbohydrates, and 30% come each from proteins and fats.  If you want to build lean muscle mass, more of your calories should come from protein.  But whatever your ratio, that’s what you should focus on.

The reason this is so important can be illustrated through an anecdote.  A friend and I were on similar tracks with similar fat loss and muscle building goals.  He got hungry early in the morning and went and got a donut.  Oops!  That’s okay, we all have moments of weakness and sometimes we just need to have a donut.  As long as we moderate it, we’re fine.  His solution, however, is what was truly troublesome.  He was pretty high on his calorie count for the day, and he was making steak for dinner.  In an effort not to go over his calorie needs for the day, he cut down on his steak pretty significantly.  This is completely wrong, he had chased one “bad” decision, his donut, with another, cutting his protein calories.  He should have accepted that he went over on his carbohydrate allotment for the day, and moved on.  Instead, he went over on carbs and too low on protein, ensuring that any weight he gained or loss that day would be the exact opposite of what he wanted!  Moreoever, this behavior reinforced the healthy food vs beer dilemma discussed earlier.

The moral of the story is this; if you’re going to count calories, please count by category, accept that you’ll hit some rough patches, and keep your eyes on the real prize.  While you say you want to lose weight, you most likely want to lose fat.  Happy dieting!