Calculate Your Daily Calorie Needs: A Comprehensive Guide

The calories you should have in a day are called maintenance calories because your body needs them to maintain a relatively constant body weight. Most people's weight fluctuates on a daily basis because of elimination factors, salt and water intake, fluid retention caused by menstruation, and activity levels. There are several methods you can use to determine your maintenance calories as well as ways to determine the impact of activity on that number.

Determine your daily caloric needs

• Multiply your present weight in pounds by 12 if you are female or by 14 if you are male. This gives you the total number of maintenance calories to maintain your body weight. It does not take into account calories burned through activity, however.

  Use an online calculator to do the figuring for you. Simply plug in your numbers, and the calculator will do the work for you. Click on the calorie counter link below for a calorie calculator.

  Estimate the number of calories you burn using the activities below: Added this number to your total number of maintenance calories.They are based on a 155-pound person doing the activity for one hour. Add approximately 100 calories burned per hour for every 25 pounds of body weight above 155. Subtract 100 for every 25 pounds below it.
  Low-impact aerobics = 352
  Bicycling light (less than 10 mph) = 281
  Calisthenics (push-ups, sit-ups) light = 317
  Cleaning light/moderate =176
  Running 5 mph (12 minutes per mile) = 563
  You can also plug your numbers into an activities calculator that will do the work for you; click on Activity Calculator below.