It is well known that anyone who wants to lose weight needs to limit calorie intake. On a day, the female body should receive at least one thousand calories, and the male body - one thousand two hundred. These are the "lower" standards for those who want to get rid of excess kilograms.
Limiting the calorie content of the daily menu below this limit allows you to quickly lose weight in a short time, but this is mainly due to the loss of water and muscle tissue, as the body processes it into energy much faster than stored fat.
In addition, a menu that delivers less than the above calorie intake per day, if used for a long time, is harmful to health. This leads to a shortage of nutrients, threatens with stones in the gall bladder and weakens the heart. Reducing calories below 800 kcal per day affects the functioning of the brain and may soon lead to anorexia.
How many calories do men and women need per day?
According to the World Health Organization, a man should eat about two and a half thousand calories daily with food. At the same time, for women, the upper limit is two thousand calories. It's about how many calories you need per day on average to maintain a stable weight.
In general, the body's need for a particular calorie size is due to many factors. This is age, weight, waist and, of course, the level of physical activity.
In order to calculate in practice how many calories you need per day in each case, you need to solve a real puzzle. We will have to take into account everything that is absorbed with food, and that is burned. In order to solve this problem and learn how to perform the recalculation, consult with a doctor - a nutrition specialist.
For a quicker and easier calculation of how many calories you need per day, there are special tables. They were developed by specialists, following the recommendations of FAO, an international organization dealing with agriculture and food. Everyone can enter there their age, vest, waist and physical activity in order to calculate how many calories should be eaten per day.
There is another method for calculating daily calories.
1) Your weight is taken as the initial figure. We determine 20% of it (for example, with a weight of 50 kg, the figure we need is 10).
2) Next, you need to consider physical activity. Choose the item that suits you and multiply the figure obtained earlier by:
0.2 - if you have sedentary work;
0.3 - in the presence of homework and short walks;
0.4 - if your day is moving;
0.5 - with regular exercise.
The resulting number is added to what was received in the first paragraph. For example, during office work there is little traffic, therefore 10 X 0.2 = 2; 12 + 2 = 14.
3) Then we multiply the amount obtained above by 10% to take into account the energy costs of the body when assimilating food 14 X 10% = 1.4.
4) Add up all the results and multiply by 100: 10 + 14 + 1.4 = 25.4; 25.4X100 = 2540. This is the daily calorie intake.
5) To take into account age-related characteristics, if you are over twenty years of age, we subtract 10% for every 10 years. For example, you are 30 years old, then 2540 - 10% = 2286.
Calories and Nutrients
Good calories are those that provide the body with a variety of nutrients, and not only satisfy the hunger. Without them, the proper functioning of the body is impossible, which is reflected primarily in the condition of the skin, nails and hair. The human body is a wonderful creation of the Almighty, but this miracle requires daily care. The basis of health and good condition is a daily balanced diet.
At times, we do not realize that the requirements of our body are very high. To provide it with all the necessary elements for proper functioning, about sixty nutrients must be supplied daily. These include amino acids, polyunsaturated fatty acids, macrocells (calcium, iron, phosphorus, iodine, potassium, magnesium, sodium, sulfur, chlorine), microelements (zinc, manganese, copper, cobalt, selenium, molybdenum, fluorine, nickel, chromium , silicon, vanadium, titanium), as well as vitamins and various compounds (vitamins A, D, E, F, C, B1, B2, B6, B12, H, PP, folic acid, lipoic acid, para-aminobenzoic acid, pantothenic acid, choline, rutin, inositol). The diet should also contain enough fiber, which helps to remove toxins from the body and ensure proper metabolism. Thus, we can say that food is better, the more nutrients it contains.
Taking such food, we not only fill the stomach, but also take care of the normal functioning of the heart, brain, eyes and skeletal system. Thus, if the food contains a lot of nutrients, the calories supplied by it can be called good.