How to Count My Food Calories & Burn Calories with Exercise

Calories are basic units of energy used to measure the amount of food you're eating. To maintain a healthy lifestyle, it's helpful to learn how many calories your body needs. Then you can count your calories and work toward a goal. Supplement your eating plan with exercises that burn calories, and keep in mind you need to burn 3,500 calories to lose one pound. There are plenty of benefits to counting food calories and getting exercise. For example, according to Johns Hopkins University, good nutrition can make you feel better and help make you less susceptible to disease.

Things You'll Need

• Food journal

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Instructions

• 1

  Learn about calories and macronutrients. Before you start counting calories, it's important to understand the basics. The three types of macronutrients are protein, fats and carbohydrates. Proteins and carbs have four calories per gram of food, and fat has nine calories per gram of food. You need to eat a balanced diet that contains proteins, carbohydrates and fat.

• 2

  Use the Harris-Benedict equation to calculate the number of calories you need to eat each day to maintain your current weight.

  First, calculate the number of calories your body burns while at rest, also known as your basal metabolic rate, or "BMR." Here are the equations for both men and women:

  Men: BMR = 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)

  Women: BMR = 655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)

  Once you calculate your BMR, multiply this number by an "activity multiplier," which takes into account how active you are. If you live a sedentary lifestyle, multiply your BMR by 1.2; if you're lightly active, multiply your BMR by 1.375; if you're moderately active, multiply your BMR by 1.55 ; if you're very active, multiply your BMR by 1.725 ; and if you're extremely active, multiply your BMR by 1.9.

• 3

  Adjust the number of calories you figured out in Step 2 to accommodate your individual goals. If your goal is to lose weight, you can subtract calories until you reach a number that will allow you to reach your weight-loss goal. For example, if the Harris-Benedict equation shows your daily calorie intake to be 2,000, you would have to eat 250 less calories each day to lose 2 pounds per month, considering you need to burn 3,500 calories to lose a single pound.

• 4

  Use a food journal. Write down everything you eat and drink, and record the number of calories and grams of carbohydrates, protein and fat. You can do this manually with a paper and pen, or use one of the many online programs available to help you count calories. Focus on eating lots of fruits and vegetables, whole grains, lean proteins and healthy fats from olive oil, fish and nuts. Drink plenty of water and tea, and limit your consumption of alcohol and sweetened beverages.

• 5

  Add fat burning exercises to your diet plan. Interval training is one of the most effective ways to burn calories with exercise. An "interval" simply means alternating periods of intense activity with periods of light activity. You can do interval training with running, swimming, biking or lifting weights. For example, if you enjoy running, jog for 30 seconds and then sprint for 30 seconds. Repeat the jog/sprint cycle 10 times.