How Many Calories Do I Need?

Posted by in News

Today’s current “guru” books and gym equipment all can tell you how many calories you  need a day or are burning, but they are all based off of common ground and are not that precise.  In fact, if you are at all serious about understanding how to achieve your own personal weight gain/loss it would be very very effective for you to go out and get a Skin Fold Caliper.

Don’t be fooled by the fancy (and scary name).  This amazingly simple device will give you a quick and easy body fat test which tell you 2 things:

1. How much of you is muscle
2 .How much of you is fat

How can this help you?  Let me use my extremely terrible basic math skills to explain.  Someone who is 150 pounds who finds out their body fat to be 15% would then carry 85% msucle.  That is if 15% of him were fat then 85% is muscle.  So a 150 pound person walking around with 15% fat would have 22.5 pounds of body fat and 128 pounds of muscle mass.  With me so far?


So someone with 127 pounds of lean body mass will require approximately 1270 calories a day, at complete rest.  This number is called the basal metabolism (“BM” for us non-nerdy people).  BM is the total number of calories required daily to maintain muscle mass and to provide fuel for the organs and brain.  Basically it is the bare minimum to maintain life.  So as you can see the greater the muscle mass, the greater the basal metabolism.

This is great information when trying to figure out how many calories YOU need for YOUR diet, not some generic diet for the common person your age.

You think you got more “Muscle Mass” then me?  I’m gonna grab my SKIN FOLD CALIPER and I’ll see YOU outside… as I get in my car and drive away.  Leave notes cause they make me happy.

Resource: Information pulled directly from Everything You Need To Know About Fat Loss by Chris Aceto.

Learn more about how Calculate Body Fat or your Daily Calorie Needs.

WithAmyMac.com

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