Here’s How Many Calories You “should” Burn Each Day.

The word “calorie” may conjure up images of food labels and treadmill readings, but calories are actually just units of energy. Your car runs on gas, your home runs on electricity, and your body runs on the energy from food. So how many calories do we burn each day, and how many should we burn? Let’s find out.

In fact, you burn most of your calories at rest.

Calories are burned not only during exercise. Energy is necessary to maintain the body’s vital functions, such as heart and brain function, cell regeneration, and much more.

In fact, most of our calories are burned to maintain our bodies. Scientists call this baseline calorie burn “basal metabolic rate,” or BMR. There are several formulas for estimating your BMR; use the calculator at tdeecalculator.net to calculate it. (It uses the Mifflin-St. Jeor formula if you don’t know your body fat percentage, and the Katch-McArdle formula if you do.)

For example, I entered my information—I weigh 150 pounds and am 5 feet 6 inches tall—and the formula predicts that someone of my build would burn to ashes:

• 1352 calories are needed for most of my body’s basic functions (not counting digestion!).

• Only 1623 calories if I lead a sedentary lifestyle.

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

• Only 2569 calories if I am a professional athlete or someone who plays sports in addition to physically active work.

Keep in mind that these are just rough estimates; your actual calorie expenditure may be higher or lower. (Based on years of tracking my calorie intake, I typically fall somewhere between the last two numbers, depending on my activity level.) Factors that affect your total calorie expenditure include:

• Body size : The larger your body, the more calories you burn in your normal state and the more you burn during exercise.

• Muscle Mass : Muscle burns more calories than other tissues, so a more accurate estimate can be obtained by knowing your body fat percentage; the lower your body fat percentage, the more muscle mass you have.

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

• Physical activity : The more you exercise, the more calories you burn.

• Genetics and other factors not taken into account in the formula : In reality, there is a huge difference between people, even when comparing people of the same height, age, etc. We are all different.

To give you an idea of ​​the range, the Dietary Guidelines for Americans 2020–2025 lists calorie intakes for two people slightly shorter than the average American height, but let’s take a look anyway. The document estimates that a man who is 5’10” and weighs 155 pounds will burn a total of 2,000 to 3,000 calories per day, depending on his age and activity level. A woman, for example, who is 5’6″ and weighs 125 pounds, will burn 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 much food you can eat and 1,200 calories as the optimal calorie budget for a diet , you might be surprised to discover how many calories you’re probably already burning.

How (and Why) to Burn More Calories

If you’re trying to lose weight, it’s logical to assume you should focus more on diet than exercise. After all, if most of your calories are burned through your basal metabolic rate, exercise will be a drop in the bucket in comparison.

However, I don’t think this is the only thing to consider. If your basal metabolic rate is 1,300 calories and your total calories burned are 1,600, then of course you can eat 1,300 calories without exercise and probably lose weight. But it’s hard to be healthy eating so little.

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

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

2. The more you eat, the easier it is to include beneficial nutrients in your diet: vitamins, minerals, fiber, healthy fats, and a variety of vegetables.

A person who burns 2,300 calories and consumes 2,000 is much more likely to benefit from exercise and proper nutrition than a person who burns 1,600 calories and consumes 1,300.

So, how can you burn more calories? It’s impossible to look younger, and if you’re losing weight, you won’t want to gain it back. The most effective levers you can use are:

• Exercise more

• Build muscle mass (through strength training and eating enough protein).

• Don’t go on diets all the time.

I’ve already written about how I noticed that the total number of calories I burn increases when I eat more food ; when you feed your body, it expends energy more readily. This is one reason why it’s considered beneficial to take “diet breaks” if you plan to maintain a long-term weight loss phase.

Why you shouldn’t rely on “calories burned” numbers from wearables or exercise machines.

You’re probably wondering how much exercise is “enough” to burn more calories. However, this is a tricky question: you need to change your lifestyle —stop being sedentary and start exercising regularly—rather than counting every penny, calculating how many calories you burn with each workout.

This happens because over time, our bodies become more efficient at physical activity . Theoretically, a half-hour run might burn 300 calories, but by the end of the day, you might only burn, say, 200 more calories than if you hadn’t run. As a result, you might feel more tired later in the day, or you might simply become a better runner and burn fewer calories while running. (This is an area where scientific research is ongoing.)

There’s evidence that calorie burn estimates provided by exercise machines are wildly inaccurate ; wearables like Fitbit and Apple Watch are probably a little better because they’re personalized to the intensity of your workout, but ultimately they still rely on estimates that aren’t always accurate.

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