Determining Your Caloric Needs

As you embark on your action plan you will need to know how many calories you should consume through your diet. There are multiple ways to do this, and these are all dependent on your health, weight, activity level, and goals. Your dietitian will be able to provide you with a starting diet plan geared toward your goals. The dietitian will likely have you keep a food log before formulating your plan so that he can see what you have been consuming in the past in relation to your activity level. From this food log, he will calculate the number of calories you should consume in a day depending on your goals, current activity level, medications, lifestyle, and habits. If you are overweight, then you will likely be given a diet plan that gives you a negative energy balance. If you are already doing a considerable amount of exercise, the focus of your plan will likely be reducing the number of calories consumed.

Say that you are currently overweight and consuming 2,000 calories per day. In addition, you have not been exercising and have a stable weight. You have a weight-loss goal of one pound per week (a deficit of 500 calories per day) and plan on doing 20-minute exercise sessions daily (250 calories). You can decrease your current caloric intake by 250 calories instead of 500 calories because you are exercising.

In some cases, such as when it is difficult for you to complete a food diary, the doctor or dietitian may arbitrarily assign a caloric restriction to your diet, which means an optimal amount of calories that you should consume in one day. These caloric restrictions typically are from 1,800 to 2,000 calories for men and from 1,200 to 1,500 calories for women. These are considered moderate caloric restrictions depending on weight. For instance, if you a have a BMI of 28 (overweight) and you are a male, then choosing an 1,800-calorie diet would be a good starting point. However, if you have a BMI of 50 (severely obese) and have been consuming upwards of 4,000 calories per day, an 1,800-calorie diet would be a 2,200-calorie deficit. This would be classified as a very low-calorie diet and would require close medical supervision because of the rapid weight loss and other metabolic changes that would occur.