I’m always thrilled when a patient asks me this question, because, I believe, an individual’s understanding of how many calories he/she needs to maintain current weight is the first, and most important, of the three “anchor points” that we must embrace if we are to be successful maintaining weight, losing weight or maintaining weight loss. The second “anchor point” is using the scale regularly (weekly is best) to monitor how we’re doing weight wise and the third “anchor point” is the performance, on a daily basis, of as much physical activity as we can do – preferably a cumulative hour plus per day.
Estimating (its not an exact science) the daily calories needed to maintain our weight is easy – for women, multiply your weight by 10 - 11 calories per pound and for men by 12 – 13 calories per pound.
A woman who weighs 150 lbs can eat only 150 x 10 – 11 = 1500 – 1650 calories per day.
A man who weighs 180 lbs can eat only 180 x 12 -13 = 2160 – 2340 calories per day.
Surprised? When one understands that a meal of a burger, fries, and a soft drink averages 1000 + calories and that this equals 2/3 of the daily calories a 150 lb woman can eat to maintain her weight (leaving only 500 or so calories for the rest of the day) its no wonder women, especially as they get older, and especially if they áre physically inactive, have trouble not only losing but maintaining their weight. That same 1000+ calorie meal represents around 1/2 of a 180 lb man’s maintenance calories per day leaving 1000 to 1300 calories for the rest of the day.
Getting the picture? One has to deficit (not eat or consume) 500 calories per day or 3500 calories per week to decrease one’s weight by one pound. This means that a 150 lb woman would have to decrease to 1000 -1200 calories per day and the 180 lb man to 1600 -1800 calories per day to lose 1 lb per week!
I want you to think about all of this. I’ll discuss calories further as well as the other two anchor points in upcoming posts.
As usual, I’d appreciate your comments.
Tags: All Calories Count, Controversies in Lifestyle Management, Dieting, Disease Prevention, Dr George S Motto MD, Good food vs. Bad food, Lifestyle, Maintenance Calories, Principles
A friend of mine told me to check out your blog. This is precisely the kind of details I was hunting for. I wish I have come across your blog sooner.
I plan to resume my blog.
Dr. Motto
How do you modify the formula for those of us with a lot of weight to lose? For example, I weigh 370 right now; am I really supposed to eat 3700 calories a day to maintain, and 3200 to lose one pound/week?
It agree, rather useful message
Thanks,
Dr. Motto
Many thanks!
That is top notch document, We are beneath amazed examine all of them became a joy.
An interesting discussion here is worth comment. I think that you must write more on this kind of topic, it might not be described as a taboo subject but generally everyone is not enough to speak on such topics. To the next. Cheers
Yes, indeed, at times the subjects of calories and “dieting” are taboo. However, I agree that the subject is much to important to ignore. I’ll keep on discussing it.
Dr. Motto
Thanks regarding spreading that excellent subject theme with your web-site. I came across it around the search engines. I could look again as soon as you post additional aricles.
Thank you.
Dr. Motto
I definitely wanted to type a brief word so as to express gratitude to you for all the wonderful instructions you are giving at this website.Please find my blog post found here as a helpful follow-up.
Thank you kind words. I’m happy you found my post useful.
Dr. Motto
Howdy! This is my first comment here so I just wanted to give a quick shout out and tell you I genuinely enjoy reading through your posts. Can you suggest any other blogs/websites/forums that go over the same subjects? Appreciate it!
I’m in my sister’s wedding in about a week and I’ve been looking for some fast, but effective weight loss ideas… I appreciate the info and I’ll be checking back for updates..Thanks!
One week – that’s not much time! Good luck in the short term, but, better luck for the rest of your life. Daily physical activity and knowledge about your calorie needs will make all the difference in the long run.
Dr. Motto
Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. I am starting today to ramp things up a bit, so, there will be more updates. The government websites cdc.gov have a tremendous amount of info. Remember, there are no really easy solutions for weight management.
Dr. Motto