How to Determine How Many Calories You Should Burn Every Day

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The word “calorie” may conjure up thoughts of nutrition labels and treadmill readings, but in reality, calories are just units of energy. Your car runs on gasoline, your home runs on electricity, and your body runs on energy from food. So how many calories do we burn every day and how many should you burn? Let’s dig in.

You actually burn most of your calories at rest.

It’s not just during exercise that you burn calories. It takes energy to keep the lights on, so to speak: to keep your heart beating, your brain thinking, your cells repairing, and more.

In fact, most of our calories are burned while performing these maintenance tasks. Scientists call this baseline calorie burn our “basal metabolic rate” or BMR. There are several equations that can help you estimate your BMR; The calculator can be found at tdeecalculator.net . (It uses the Mifflin-St. George formula if you don’t know your body fat percentage, and the Catch-McArdle formula if you do.)

To give you an example, I entered my stats – I’m 150 pounds and 5’6″ tall – and the equation assumes someone my size is on fire:

  • 1352 calories for most of my body’s major functions (not including digestion!)

  • Only 1623 calories if I’m sedentary

  • Only 2,096 calories if I do moderate exercise three to five times a week.

  • Only 2569 calories if I’m an avid athlete or someone who plays sports in addition to physical work.

Keep in mind that these are just estimates; actual calorie expenditure may be more or less. Factors that influence the total number of calories burned include:

  • Body size: The larger you are, the more calories you burn initially and the more you burn during exercise.

  • Muscle mass: Muscle burns more calories than other tissues (which is why you’ll get a more accurate estimate if you know your body fat percentage; the less body fat you have, the more muscle you have in comparison).

  • Age: These formulas assume that as you age, your metabolism slows down slightly (although there is evidence that this may not make much of a difference ).

  • Activity: The more you exercise, the more calories you burn.

  • Genetics and other factors not factored into the formula: There is actually a huge amount of variation from person to person, even when comparing people of the same size, age, etc.

To give you an idea of ​​the range, the Dietary Guide for Americans states that a man who is 5 feet 10 inches tall and weighs 154 pounds will burn a total of 2,000 to 3,000 calories each day, depending on his age and activity level. In their example, a woman is 5’4″ tall and weighs 126 pounds, and she burns between 1,600 and 2,400 calories .

So if you’re used to thinking of 2,000 calories as some kind of upper limit for how many calories you eat, or 1,200 calories as your calorie budget for a diet , you might be surprised to learn how many calories you’re probably already burning.

How (and why) to burn more calories

If you’re trying to lose weight, logic dictates that you should focus more on diet than exercise. After all, if most of your calorie burn is your BMR, exercise will be a drop in the ocean in comparison.

However, I don’t think that’s the only thing you should consider. If your BMR is 1300 calories and your total burn is 1600, then of course you can eat 1300 calories without working out and probably lose weight. But it’s hard to be healthy while you eat so little.

Burning more calories through exercise helps your body in two ways:

  1. Exercise is good for us regardless of the calorie burn; we should all be doing at least 150 minutes of cardio per week, as well as strength training to help build or maintain muscle mass.

  2. The more food you eat, the easier it is to absorb nutrients: vitamins, minerals, fiber, healthy fats and a variety of vegetables.

A person who burns 2,300 calories and eats 2,000 is in a much better position to benefit from exercise and good nutrition than a person who burns 1,600 and eats 1,300.

So how can you burn more calories? You can’t get younger, and if you lose weight, you don’t want to get bigger. The biggest levers you can use are:

  • Exercise more

  • Gain muscle mass (through strength training and eating plenty of protein)

  • Don’t diet all the time

I previously wrote about how I noticed that my overall calorie expenditure increased when I ate more food ; when you feed your body, it is more willing to expend energy. This is one of the reasons why it is considered useful to take “diet breaks” if you plan to be in a weight loss phase for a long time.

Why you shouldn’t rely on “calorie burn” numbers from wearables or exercise equipment

You’re probably wondering how much exercise is “enough” to burn more calories. However, this is a trick question: you want to change the type of person you are – stop being sedentary and become a frequent workout participant – instead of worrying about exactly what numbers you burned in each workout.

This is because over time our bodies become more efficient through exercise . In theory, a half-hour run can burn 300 calories, but at the end of the day you may only have burned, say, 200 more than if you hadn’t jogged. You may feel more tired later in the day, or you may simply become a better runner and burn fewer calories. (This is an ongoing area of ​​scientific research.)

There is evidence that exercise calorie burn estimates are highly inaccurate ; Wearables like Fitbits and Apple Watch are probably a little better since they’re personalized according to the intensity of your workouts, but ultimately they still rely on estimates that aren’t always accurate.

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