Day 1 - Calories - Your Body’s Energy Engine 🚀

I know calories can make you anxious. You will say: it's complicated, boring, old-fashioned or even dangerous for mental health. There are fancy types of diets: interval fasting, intuitive, paleo, keto plant-based and so on - everything but not the principles of the scientific approach to food.

The truth is that calories were invented as a tool, a measure of energy.

I believe that basic understanding of how our metabolism works can help us achieve our goals more efficiently.

That is why I want to teach you to understand how our energy metabolism works and to decide for yourself how much energy we need to use to achieve certain goals.

🟢Goal: understand your baseline calorie needs (BMR), active calorie expenditure, and how to calculate total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).

🟣Purpose: The foundation for setting calorie goals (weight loss/maintenance/gain). Maintaining energy balance, avoiding red-s (relative energy syndrome in sports), eliminate vitamin and mineral deficiencies.

👉Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)👈

So our bodies need energy mainly to keep us alive - breathing, blood circulation, body temperature, organ function and so on. The energy required for these processes is called basal metabolic rate.

Our basal metabolic rate can be calculated using this formula:

Mifflin-St Jeor Equation :

Men: BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) – (5 × age) + 5
Women: BMR = (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) – (5 × age) – 161

My baseline metabolism : (10x59) + (6.25 x 168) - (5 x 31) - 161 = 1324 cal

🛌We have calculated the amount of energy our body needs even if we lie in bed all day.🛌

It is important to realise that we should never approach such low levels of energy intake when we are moving, walking, talking, exercising, as this would mean a severe energy deficit. However, when trying different diets to lose weight, people often limit themselves to consuming even less energy than they need to maintain their metabolism. ⛔

👉Active Calories👈

Energy consumed on different activities - these are the calories burned through movement (exercise, steps, daily activities, talking).

👉Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)👈

1) Using devices that calculate the calories consumed based on your weight, height and age, as well as the intensity of your training (heart rate, power). More accurate as you can track daily and weekly your energy consumption as it can vary day to day.

TDEE = BMR + Active Calories

My watch shows me average daily active calories - 1092 cal

So, using formula I will get: 1324ccal + 1092= 2416 cal ( TDEE)

2) Estimate your daily activity calorie burn using the coefficient

Sedentary (little exercise): BMR × 1.2
Light activity (1–3 workouts/week): BMR × 1.375
Moderate activity (3–5 workouts/week): BMR × 1.55
Very active (6–7 workouts/week): BMR × 1.725

Use higher multipliers based on hours/week of intense training:

1.7–1.9: 10–15 hours/week running (e.g., 50–80 km/week)
≥2.0: 15+ hours/week (e.g., 80–120 km/week, marathon prep)

Using this formula I will get : 1324 cal x 1.725= 2283 сal (TDEE)

Watches and other trackers are more accurate, but if you don't have one, using a coefficient will give you numbers that are pretty close to the truth.

The only thing this formula does not take into account is the ratio of muscle to fat mass in a particular person. Athletes have a higher percentage of muscle mass, which increases energy expenditure!

What do these numbers tell us?

✅The ability to compare our actual calorie intake with our body's actual needs.

✅For some people, it can help to understand why they aren't losing weight.

✅For others, it may help them realise that they're not eating enough for training, so they're not recovering well, they want to snack, their running results aren't improving and they're getting injured.

🐣 TASK :

Calculate your BMR and TDEE
Track your calorie intake for 3 days (using Apps like Yazio, Fatsecret or similar)
Compare your actual intake and TDEE , share results 👇

9 comments