Calories. What are calories? You hear everyone talking about them, but do you know what they are, and what they do? Everyone tells you that calories make you fat, and you need to burn them to lose weight, but how do you do that? How many calories do you need to burn in order to lose weight? How many calories do you eat in a day? It can get confusing. Let’s do a mini deep-dive into understanding what calories are, how they affect your person and what they do for fat loss. You’ll learn just how important they are for your day-to-day life.
WHAT ARE CALORIES?
A calorie is the way your body measures the amount of energy is uses to function. You get this energy from food you eat, and calories (AKA energy) are what keeps your body moving and alive. Calories aren’t just used for when you go on a run or lift weights, without calories you would die. This is why if you starve yourself, eventually your body will run out of energy to function, and you’ll die. When you eat too many calories, our body saves those extra calories as stored energy. The body doesn’t know for sure that you’re going to have another meal, so it wants to make sure it has energy in reserve so it can still function if you don’t have another meal. This storage of calories is what is known as body fat.
HOW YOU BURN CALORIES
NERD ALERT! NERD ALERT! I’m gonna start off being a little “fitness nerd-y” in my explanation of how you burn calories, so bear with me. Whether you like it or not, you are burning calories right now. Whether you’re reading this while sitting in bed or reading this on the treadmill, you’re burning calories. The total amount of calories that you burn throughout the day is called your TOTAL DAILY ENERGY EXPENDITURE (TDEE). This is the total number of calories that you burn throughout the day. Your TDEE is comprised of four parts: Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT) Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT)
TDEE BREAKDOWN
BMR This one might be a bit of a surprise for you. How do you think your body burns most of its calories? Through exercise? By running on the treadmill? Nope! Most of the calories that you burn throughout the day is just by living. It takes a lot of energy to live, so that’s where most of the calories that you eat gets used. Breathing, pumping blood, producing cells in your body, all things that require calories. And the amount of this that your body uses throughout the day become the main way that your body uses the calories you eat. Of course, exercising, losing weight and building muscle impact your BMR, but each workout in itself does not make such a significant impact on how many calories you burn. But over time, if done consistently, it will affect your BMR. BMR makes up roughly 70% of the calories you burn during the day. NEAT When you go for a quick walk, or go grocery shopping, or fold laundry, these are all activities that burn calories too. They’re not as intense as a spin class, but you’re burning calories nonetheless. And the amount of time you spend on these things actually makes an impact on how many calories you burn throughout the day. These activities make up your NEAT. They are non-exercise activities. Not as intense as working out, but still very important for you. For a lot of people increasing your daily NEAT is a great way of burning off some extra calories throughout the day while still being able to stick to your daily routine. Walking to the store instead of driving. Taking the stairs instead of the elevator. Standing by your desk instead of sitting. These minor changes impact your daily NEAT. NEAT makes up roughly 15% of the calories you burn during the day. TEF There’s nothing too fancy with this one. Just like you have BMR which is the calories burned to live, there’s a separate category for the calories burned in the process of digesting food. You get to burn calories even when you eat! TEF makes up roughly 10% of the calories you burn during the day. EAT This one is pretty straight forward too. These are the calories you burn during active exercise. The percentage varies in the type of exercise that you’re doing, and how hard you’re working during your workouts, but the calories you burn during exercise is actually smaller than you'd realize.
EAT makes up roughly 5% of the calories you burn during the day.
WHY YOU SHOULD KNOW YOUR TDEE
For whatever your health/fitness goals are, odds are it’ll be important for you to have an idea of how many calories you burn during the day. If your goal is to lose 15 lbs of fat, it’s important to know your TDEE. If you’re trying to build 10 lbs of muscle, it’s important to know your TDEE. There’s no exact way of knowing your TDEE, unless you have a way of knowing exactly how much energy your body burns during the day, so the majority of the world works off of TDEE estimations. These estimations may not be 100% accurate, but they’re a good estimate. There are a bunch of good TDEE calculators online. Input all of your info (height, weight, age…) and your activity level and it’ll give you your TDEE estimate. This will be an estimate* of how many calories you burn in a regular day. If your goal is to lose weight, you’d want to eat fewer calories than the TDEE number, but if your goal is to gain weight, you’d want to eat more calories. *It’s an estimate. The calculator can’t know your precise TDEE. Track the calories that you eat based on that number, and if you’re seeing progress then keep going, but if you’re not progressing it means the TDEE number was off, so you can readjust the number on work from there. This is the energy balance. You’re balancing the energy (calories) you’re eating for your goals.
HOW YOU CAN CHANGE YOUR TDEE
Your TDEE is not a set number. It’s not something you were given and have that same number for the rest of your life. It changes all the time. Did you exercise today? Then your TDEE is different today. Did you go to the grocery store today? Then your TDEE is different today. These differences day to day are minor, but depending on what you’re doing it can make a difference. The biggest differentiators are your activity level and/or how much muscle you have. For TDEE, these are two things that you can control, and they can impact your daily calorie burn. Build Muscle You know all those huge bodybuilders who you see eating ridiculously big meals just to maintain their size, this is because since they have so much muscle on their body, their TDEE has gone up. Just like other parts of your body, it takes energy to maintain your muscle mass. So the more muscle mass that you have, the more calories you need. So with consistent strength training over time you will build more muscle, and as a result you can raise your TDEE from exercise. Strength training FTW!!!
Stay Active This is one you can do starting today and make an impact with. Just. Move. More. It doesn’t have to be intense or crazy. Just go on a 20-30 minute walk. This exercise can add on an additional 25/50/100 or however many calories to your expenditure. While it might not sound like a whole lot, it is. It can really add up. This is why so many fitness and health professionals recommend walking as step #1 for someone who’s looking to lose weight or add more exercise into their daily life. Now That You Understand Energy Balance, What Should You Do? The simple answer? Stay active. Try and build some muscle and strength. Don’t be afraid to workout hard, but make sure that you workout smart. Eat well. Stay consistent. In a nutshell, that's it. In theory, you know all the answers, but in practice is where it gets hard. Life gets in the way. Work, kids, good food. It gets hard. This is why I preach the importance of structure and planning. Both for your exercise and nutrition. A good plan can keep you focused when life tries to get in the way. You may not be able to give 120% effort every, and that’s ok. Some days you’ll give 80%. Some days only 40%. As long as you stay consistent, and I’m sure you’ll balance the hell out of your energy!
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As always, I’m here to help with anything fitness or nutrition related. I offer online fitness and nutrition coaching, along with in-person training if you’re in the Jerusalem area.
If you ever have any questions or need any help, you can always message me here or on my Instagram and Facebook pages.
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