Calculate Your Daily Calorie Needs: A Comprehensive Guide

Counting and tracking calories is an important part of any diet, whether your goal is weight loss, weight gain or sports performance. A calorie is a measure of energy either burned by your body through effort or stored in your body as fat. You need to know if you're burning more calories than you're taking in. Although counting calories is at best an imprecise science, the following steps will help you get a decent handle on your calorie budget.

Things You'll Need

• Calorie counting guide
• Journal

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Instructions

• 1

  Using a calorie counting guide, estimate the normal caloric burn of your daily routine. (Ref. 1.) Do not count any formal exercise routines, such as an aerobic workout, in this estimate. Do count any inherent exercise, like walking to work.

• 2

  Calculate the caloric burn of any formal exercise or extra effort you expended during the day. Record that number, along with your basic daily caloric burn, in your journal.

• 3

  Remember to include any sustained extra effort. Cleaning the garage on Saturday might not seem like a workout, but it burns a surprising number of calories.

• 4

  The total of steps 1, 2 and 3 will be your approximate caloric output for the day.