How to Determine Daily Caloric Intake

Calories are the energy provided by a food or beverage you consume. Depending on your age, gender, height, weight and activity level, your body may need anywhere from 1,600 to 3,000 calories per day to function properly. Recording and counting your calories can assist you in maintaining or losing weight. To lose weight, you should consume fewer calories than you burn every day. Reducing your caloric intake by 500 calories per day can help you lose one pound per week.

Instructions

Recording and Counting Calories

• 1

  Determine how many calories your body needs. There are numerous reliable calorie intake estimation tools available online through websites like MayoClinic.com. In most cases, you will need to input your age, height, weight and activity level to get an accurate estimate. Once you have figured out how many calories your body needs to function every day, you can make educated decisions about your food and drink choices.

• 2

  Keep a food journal. Using a small notebook is ideal, because its portability allows you to more easily keep track of your caloric intake throughout the day. If you have a smart phone, you may be able to use a calorie counting program on the device. The iPhone, for example, offers calorie counting applications.

• 3

  During or immediately after your daily meals, record what you ate and drank. Be sure to include the number of servings or overall amount. Leave space to fill in the number of calories you consume--an amount you can figure out right away or at a later time. Consider using a scale to help you calculate servings for foods that come in prepackaged serving sizes, such as fruits, vegetables, cheese and meat. If you don't have a food scale, do your best to estimate portion sizes. One serving of meat is about the size of a deck of cards, and one ounce of cheese is about the size of a few dice.

• 4

  Write down any other foods you consume between meals. You should even record a piece of candy, a sugar packet or a small bite of another food. Anything that you eat or drink should be recorded in your food journal.

• 5

  Calculate the number of calories that were in each food you ate. You can either do this after your meal or at the end of the day. To do this, use the nutrition information found on the labels of the foods you consumed, or you can request nutritional information from whomever prepared your food. If you are eating food that doesn't come with a nutrition label, such as fruits and vegetables, you can look up the food's calorie total in a calorie counting book, through a smart phone application or online. Be sure to take into account your serving size. If you ate two servings of chips, for example, you will need to record double the amount of calories in one serving.

• 6

  Calculate the number of calories you consumed in each meal by adding together each food item. Consider also keeping track of snacks as a fourth meal component. Then, add up the calories in each meal to find your daily total.