I think the standard is the Harris Benedict formula, which takes into account your height, age, sex, current weight, and (optionally) activity level. The activity level is a fudge factor that can also be thought of as a "body type" multiplier.
Essentially, it's just:
Calories for women to maintain weight = (4.35*w + 4.70*h - 4.7*a + 655)*m
Where:
w = weight in pounds
h = height in inches
a = age in years
m = multiplier, defined by:
m=1.2 if you are sedentary
m=1.5 if you are moderately active
m=1.8 if you are very active
This multiplier, as I said, can be thought of as incorporating your body type, as well. If you are broad-framed, knock it up slightly. If you are slim-framed, knock it down slightly. That's why it's kind of a fudge factor that you can determine empirically if you're tracking your calories. I recommend doing this instead of relying on the formula exclusively, but using the formula as a rough starting point (which is what I've done, and determined that my needs are slightly more than what the formula would predict, although I'm broad-framed for a girl).
Oh, and to get the calories you need to eat to lose weight rather than just maintain it, use the fact that one pound is roughly equal to a deficit of 3500 calories. That is, if you want to lose one pound per week, subtract 3500/7 from the number you got in the formula...
You want to lose 37 pounds, so first determine in how many weeks you want to lose it in, call this y. If the result of the formula above (for maintaining your weight) was x, then you will get:
Calories per day = x - (3500*37)/(7*y)
That is, this gives you the number of calories to net each day (that is, calories in minus calories out), in order to lose 37 pounds in y weeks.
That was more long-winded than I thought, but I'm blissfully avoiding homework. Anyone let me know if I'm missing something...
Good luck!
Last edited by nimbus3007; 11-28-2007 at 06:54 PM.
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