Um... I guess... Sorta... It might wok on a slow loss method?... It really depends on how fast you want to lose, what your body really burns in a day, etc.
Ok... So here is what I know about the number of calories we burn in a day:
The average adult burns 1800 calories a day. Average being someone who is relatively active but not excessively... But typically men burn more than women so take this into account when you read an "average".
I've actually tried to look this type of thing up and found most pertained to weight training vs weight loss but here goes:
Quote:
DETERMINING BMR
An average 20-year-old, adult male who weighs 150 pounds, burns 1,800 calories a day to sustain BMR, and the average 20- year-old female who weighs 120 pounds, burns 1,320 calories a day to sustain BMR. Here is a simple formula for calculating BMR:
Adult Males: Multiply individual's weight by 10, add double the client's weight to this value. For example, for a 150-lb male:
1,500 + (2 x 150) = 1,800 cal/day BMR
Adult Females. Multiply individual's weight by 10, add the client's weight to this value. For example, for a 120-LB female:
1,200 + 120 = 1,320 cal/day BMR
AGING AND ENERGY
After age 20, BMR should be lowered by 2 percent per decade. That is, estimated BMR should be lowered by 2 percent for people in their 30s, 4 percent for those in their 40s, 6 percent for those in their 50s, and so on, because mitochondria increase without end. The energy combustion engines of our cells convert sugar to energy and heat inside our bodies.The ability to increase one's endurance in muscular activity year after year after year is a well documented fact. As you age you should ibe able to train more. Your strength may wane but your endurance should increase.
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How many calories does a person need daily?
The number of calories the body consumes in a day is different for every person. You may notice on the nutritional labels of the foods you buy that the "percent daily values" are based on a 2,000 calorie diet -- 2,000 calories is a rough average of what people eat in a day. But your body might need more or less than 2,000. Height, weight, gender, age and activity level all affect your caloric needs. There are three main factors involved in calculating how many calories your body needs per day:
* basal metabolic rate
* physical activity
* thermic effect of food
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body needs to function at rest. This accounts for about 60 to 70 percent of calories burned in a day and includes the energy required to keep the heart beating, the lungs breathing, the eyelids blinking and the body temperature stabilized. In general, men have a higher BMR than women. One of the most accurate methods of estimating your basal metabolic rate is the Harris-Benedict formula:
Adult male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)
Adult female: 655 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
The second factor in the equation, physical activity, consumes the next highest number of calories. Physical activity includes everything from making your bed in the morning to jogging. Walking, lifting, bending and just generally moving around burns calories, but the number of calories you burn in any given activity depends on your body weight. Click here for a great table listing the calories expended in various physical activities and for various weights.
The thermic effect of food is the final addition to the number of calories your body burns. This is the amount of energy your body uses to digest the food you eat -- it takes energy to break food down to its basic elements in order to be used by the body. To calculate the number of calories you expend in this process, multiply the total number of calories you eat in a day by 0.10, or 10 percent.
The total number of calories a body needs in a day is the sum of these three calculations.
Hope these help.
Oh and for weight loss I would go with the second calculation if I was going based on these:
2805 (top for a body building site) vs. 2202.7 (from Harris-Benedict formula)
And the reason I say that I would count that as the more accurate is this:
I was hooked to a machine by a nutritionist that measured my actual metabolic rate. *Yes they are out there... Mostly used on cancer patients but I have a friend who wanted to hook me up to find out what was going on... and she was stunned as mine was so high.*
My actual metabolic rate came back at 2346... Which is higher than average *probably why I am kicking 3.5 lbs a week now that I am back on track and not just working on maintaining*.