How to Calculate My Daily Calories

Calculating your daily calories it the first step to maintaining a healthy lifestyle. It enables people to be aware of how much they should eat in order to maintain, lose or gain weight. Although the process of calculating daily calories is the same for everyone, the outcome is always different because it is based on age, weight, sex and exercise level. The number is just an estimate based on all the factors provided. Because everyone's bodies have different ratios of muscle to fat, weight maintenance, loss and gain will be specific to their body.

Things You'll Need

• Calculator
• Scale

Show More

Instructions

• 1

  Determine the minimum number of calories you need to consume during the day to simply exist. To do so, men need to take their weight and multiply it by 11. If you're a woman, multiply your current weight by 10. This is your minimum number of calories needed to survive.

  Example:

  180 lb. man
  180 x 11 = 1980

  125 lb. woman
  125 x 10 = 1250

• 2

  Calculate calories for activity. Exercising affects the number of calories you should consume each day, so you will need to calculate how many calories you burn as a result of exercise. Multiply your minimum number of calories needed with your activity level. Base your activity level on the following: 20% if you do little to no activity, 30% if you exercise a small amount, 40% if you are moderately active, 50% if you exercise regularly.

  Example:
  180 lb. man (exercises moderately, 40%)
  1980 x .4 = 792

  125 lb. woman (little to no activity, 20%)
  1250 x .2 = 250

• 3

  Calculate the amount of calories your body needs for digestion. To do so, you will add your minimum number of calories (step 1) and your activity-based calorie needs (step 2) and then multiply by .10.

  Example:

  180 lb. man
  1980 + 792 x .10 = 277.2

  125 lb. woman
  1250 + 250 x .10= 150

• 4

  Step 4
  Add the calories in steps 1, 2 and 3 together. This is the number of calories you need to maintain your current weight.

  Example:

  180 lb. man
  1980 + 792 + 277.2 = 3049.2 calories

  125 lb. woman
  1250 + 250 + 150 = 1650 calories