Geschatte leestijd: 3 minutenFor everything you do, you need energy, even when you’re doing nothing or sleeping. Even in rest mode, your body needs energy to maintain certain activities, such as your breathing and heartbeat. So your body always needs a basic amount of energy.
Table of Contents
- How many calories do nutrients provide?
- Calorie requirement per body type
- How many calories should I eat to lose weight?
The amount of energy your body needs in rest mode largely depends on your age and muscle mass. The energy requirement that the body needs at rest is also called BMR, or basal metabolic rate. The BMR is composed of the activities your body performs at rest.
When you move, you also use energy. You need to add this amount of energy to the BMR, the basic requirement, to calculate your total energy needs. If you consume less energy than you burn, your body will seek this energy from other sources. This is called a negative energy balance. With a positive energy balance, you have consumed more food than your body needed, and your body will store this as reserves, often in the form of fat. Below, we’ll tell you about the relationship between calories and losing and gaining weight. You’ll gain insight into how many calories you need to purposefully change your body.
How many calories do nutrients provide?
Let’s start by explaining what a calorie is. A calorie is nothing more than a unit of measurement in which we measure energy or heat. The literal definition of a calorie is:
A calorie is the amount of energy needed to raise 1 gram of water by 1 degree in temperature.
Since calories are often used in thousands in practice, we use kilocalories (abbreviated kcal) to indicate calories. Technically, we should speak of kilocalories, but because a calorie is a very small amount, the kilocalorie was named, and we use the term: calorie. Clear, right?
Calories can be obtained from proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. These are the so-called macronutrients. These macronutrients, in turn, provide a different amount of calories, knowing:
- 1 gram of protein / protein provides 4 kcal
- 1 gram of carbohydrates provides 4 kcal
- 1 gram of fats provides 9 kcal
Calorie requirement per body type
Below you’ll find the calorie recommendations and guidelines per body type. Note: these are guidelines, as we mentioned in the opening of this post, much of the calorie requirement depends on age, weight, body composition, and activity.
- Ectomorph – Body weight x 16-18 = daily calorie requirement
- Mesomorph – Body weight x 14-17 = daily calorie requirement
- Endomorph – Body weight x 12-15 = daily calorie requirement
For your body, every calorie is the same. Once the energy in the form of food reaches your body, no distinction is made between the calories that come in the form of proteins or fats. After all, the calories are the energy units. Nothing more than that.
When people say that “not all calories are the same,” they often mean that the body handles the different macronutrients differently. Your body handles proteins, carbohydrates, and fats differently, but your body does not differentiate between the energy provided by these macronutrients.
How many calories should I eat to lose weight?
Okay, so calories are crucial when you want to gain or lose weight. But how much do you exactly need? We already gave a rough estimate based on body type, but because the calorie requirement depends on various factors, we have a calculator below, where you can calculate what your BMR is and where you can also specify your activities to calculate your calorie requirement as closely as possible. This will never be 100% accurate, but based on this calculator, you have a good direction.
How large your deficit should be is very personal. It is advisable to go about 400 – 500 kcal below your maintenance. Do this for a period of 2 weeks, and based on your body fat percentage and the number on the scale, you can see if you are on the right track.
If you are not losing weight and your body fat percentage is not decreasing, you can increase your calorie deficit.
- Weight (kg)
- Height (cm)
- Age
- Activity level
12345 - Your BMR
- Maintenance
Activity Level
1. No athletic activity — x 1.2
2. Exercise 1 – 3 days a week — x 1.375
3. Exercise 3 – 5 times a week — x 1.55
4. Exercise 6 – 7 days a week — x 1.725
5. Training twice a day, training camp — x 1.9
