Daily Calorie Intake

A calorie is scientifically defined as the heat quantity required to raise the temperature of one gram of water from a standard initial temperature by one degree Celsius. From a nutritionist’s viewpoint, a calorie is a unit of energy-producing potential that is equal to this quantity of heat contained in food that is released upon digestion by the body. Food digested in the stomach and small intestines enable the body to build muscle proteins and strengthen bones. People who wish to maintain proper weight often count their average daily calorie intake.

While the caloric diet of the average person ranges from 1,500 to 2,400 calories most people require an average daily calorie intake of 1,000 to 4,000 calories depending on their gender, age, lifestyle and exercise. This means that the ingestion of high calorie foods without the corresponding exercise that would burn up the calories would result to fat build-up and storage.

Different people have different energy needs and their average daily calorie intake requirements are generally determined primarily by their weight, muscle mass and activity level. The weight of a person matters because his body burns up calories to keep it going. This can be likened to a truck – the heavier it is, the more fuel it needs to burn up to keep it moving. A person’s muscle mass is also an important consideration because an extra fifty calories daily is burned up for every pound of muscle. Finally, a person’s level of activity needs to be factored into the equation because a steel worker, for instance, burns up more calories to perform his job than an office employee with a sedentary desk bound job.

If you are overeating and want to lose weight, you need to cut down on your average daily calorie intake. It is important to note that for every pound that you would want to reduce from your body weight, you would need to cut down an equivalent of 3,500 calories from your food intake. While this amount of calorie intake reduction is obviously not possible to achieve in a single day, it is certainly achievable within a week. This would mean that you should cut down 500 calories from your average daily calorie intake for a week to reduce your weight by one pound. Nutritionists warn, however, that in no case should your calorie intake reduction drop below 1,100 to 1,200 calories daily because of the possible grave consequences on your body and metabolism.

Alternatively, if you wish to lose weight you can cut down on your average daily calorie intake and increase your caloric output, which simply means doing some exercise to burn off more calories. Therefore, to lose one pound in a week, you can just simply reduce your average daily calorie intake by 250 calories and burn off another 250 calories by doing half an hour of cardio exercise. Another recommended method of losing weight the less painful way is to lower your daily calorie intake on weekdays and increase your calorie intake during weekends to enable you to better resist the temptation of breaking your diet during weekdays at the office.

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