A General Calorie Breakdown Guide...The Healthy Way!

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Having a goal in your exercise programme generally means you will need to tailor your diet accordingly. Be it a weight-loss goal, looking to increase muscle mass or generally work on your aerobic fitness, there are way to tinker with your food intake to maximise the chance of reaching these goals healthily and sensibly.

First Calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) - This is the number of calories you will burn each day just to maintain your body and it is very dangerous to drop below these numbers. To calculate this then follow the following calculations (pretty much what MFP is doing for you when you enter your weight and height).

Men: 66 + (13.7 x wt in kg) + (5 x ht in cm) - (6.8 x age)
Women: 655 + (9.6 x wt in kg) + (1.8 x ht in cm) - (4.7 x age)

Next you will need to calculate the number of calories you will expend each day by multiplying your BMR by a specific number depending on your lifestyle/exercise amount: Sedentary = 1.2; Light = 1.4; Moderate = 1.6; Highly Active = 1.8/2.0

Working out your breakdown of this calorie input will then depend upon your goals. For someone who wishes to lose weight they will want to cut down the calorie intake across the board but mainly from Carbohydrates (and never below the recommended minimum of each food group). For someone who is looking to maximise their muscle gain then a high protein content would be sought after while others concentrating on aerobic fitness would opt for a Carb heavy diet....but again making sure each diet programme includes enough of Fat, Protein and Carb to be healthy.

Protein: 1g of protein = 4 calories. You should be looking to get around 0.8g of protein per kg of body weight for a sedentary lifestyle with 1.2-1.7g for a fitness based regime and 1.8-2.7g for muscle building. It is also highly recommended to take 0.25g/kg of protein directly after exercise to increase your muscle repair and synthesis.

Fat: 1g of fat = 9 calories. Normal/sedentary lifestyle will require anywhere from 15% to 80% of their calories to be from fat content, and a lot will depend upon the exercise undertaken. Most people will want to stick around the 60-70g of fat intake a day depending on their overall BMR. Aerobic exercise will require upwards of 25% from fat while bodybuilding typically would be around 30-40%.

Many people may underestimate the amount of fat they intake due to the false belief that fat is bad for you. To the contrary, if you fail to get the required amount of fat each day your body needs you could actually set your progress back severely. There are a number of fat soluble vitamins and hormones that simply won't do their job if you don't get the fat into your diet, so be aware to not cut fat out completely or things like testosterone and other hormones may not work to their optimal level.

Carbohydrates: 1g of carb = 4 calories. Like before there are recommended values - Light = 1-2g/kg of body weight; Moderate = 2-6g/kg and High Exercise = 6-10g/kg. Be careful however, intake of carbs before exercise can actually stunt fat loss.

You should then be able to use these numbers as a way of assessing your calorie intake, where your calories are coming from and where you are "making up the rest" from. For example, knowing you wish to build muscle mass you will want to work out your total fat and protein as priorities, and then subtract these from the total expenditure of the day to find out how much Carb to include. likewise if you are a highly aerobic marathon runner, you will need to focus on carbs and as such work out your carb and fat intake and then subtract these from the total expenditure to reveal how much protein to top up your calories with.

I hope this makes sense and sheds a more helpful light on the make up of your calorie intake for those who are looking for a little more control over their dietary requirements.