The relationship with your calories: sometimes is difficult, sometimes you are disciplined but some times everything goes wrong! But how many calories do you need to stay within your normal weight or even lose a few kilos!

How many calories should you take daily?

Our daily caloric needs are calculated either by laboratory measurements with specific devices - or calorimeters based on specific tables and simple mathematical calculations. Of course, in both cases there may be deviation from reality, because of different physical activities and environmental conditions from day to day. To calculate precisely the "caloric intake" you should keep in mind: the basic consumption (basal metabolism), the caloric energy needed for digestion of food, energy required to climatic conditions (very cold or very hot), the caloric requirements of your daily activities (e.g. exercise). If you find this quite complicated, the simplest way to calculate how many calories you need is: older adults and low vigour rarely need over 20 to 25 calories per kg of ideal weight. Adults performing mild work need 25-30 calories per kg of ideal weight, people with a medium difficulty activities takes about 30-35 calories per kg of weight, people with heavy work 35-40 calories. Athletes need between 30-40 calories per kg of lean mass.

How many calories do you need to stay on your weight or lose weight?

To stay in weight, your calories to receive on a daily basis should not exceed the number of those arising from the activities you did. To lose weight, you need to combine the reduction of daily caloric intake through diet and increased physical activity. Since 1 kg of fat provides about 7,500 calories every day if you eat 500 fewer calories at the end of the week you will lose about a kg of fat. In order to achieve steady weight loss rate of 1 with 1.5 kg per week (4 to 6 kg per month), you should get about 1000-1500 calories less per week. According to experts, losing1 to 1.5 kg per week is safe for your health.

How to count a portion?

A "standard portion" corresponds to the classic restaurant, i.e. amount of food that fits in a medium bowl, for example, pasta or steak with vegetables. However, we need to give attention to portions, because the current restaurant portions are larger than the dietary understood "portion”. Moreover, the ration should be varied according to age, sex, height, daily activity, medical history; amount of fat used in the preparation of meals based on your habits.