How much calories should I eat daily?
I am teenager, 16 years old. Currently my activity is low to nothing as I have a popped ligament in my knee. I am just now started physiotherapy. I have the ability to do normal exercises such as sit ups. I cannot do push ups nor planks or lift weights as advised by the doctors and physiotherapist. My diet is average, consisting of mainly meat for lunch only. I regularly eat fruits and vegetables. I weigh 100kg and I am 174cm tall around 5ft 8. I have gained this weight due to my injury. I have all the time right now to work out. My plan is to:
Work out 2 times a day
Meal prep my food (calculated to exact calories to create a caloric deficit)
Focus on my knee injury by doing physiotherapy exercises 2x a day
Drink 2.5 LITRES a day
My question is how much calories should I eat a day? And how much of the total calories I should eat, are protein carbs and fats?
Thanks In advance
6 comments
I would recommend having a look at the wiki page on somewhere like /r/fitness or similar.
Estimating your calorie expenditure is quite difficult, but that sub will have some guidance in their FAQs.
This needs quite a complex answer, and probably better placed in another sub.
hi op, not completely sure but I think this might be breaking the “no medical advice” rule on this sub. also your probably not going to get then most accurate advice from this sub, maybe try a weight-loss/fitness sub?
Firstly, I would honestly say don’t worry too much. Monitor your weight weekly, and either increase your excersise, or reduce your food intake, and check what happens to your weight over a few weeks. But if you do want to go full calorie counting then…
There are sites you can use to calculate your BMR. This is the basic number of calories you burn by simply existing.
*This is not an exact science however!*…but it will give you a reasonable idea.
You will then burn more calories by excersising. The only way to track these is with a fitness tracker such as a Garmin or Fitbit that measures heart rate etc and uses the various data points to work out calories burned for an activity.
Again, this is not an exact science, but better than nothing.
Use an app like myfitnesspal to monitor all the calories you eat. Not just meals, but snacks, coffees from the coffee shop, alcohol etc.
You then need to measure your weight weekly, at a consistent time, as your weight fluctuates throughout the day (so eg do it when you wake up every Saturday after your wee).
You need to track calories in, calories out, and weight over a period of a few weeks. As calorie counting is not exact, you can now monitor your weight and then adjust your diet and activity level accordingly. E.g if you were on what you thought was a 500 calorie deficit, but you were maintaining weight, then you know your calorie counts are wrong, so can adjust things so your weight is going in the direction you’d like.
Don’t worry about macros (protein, fat, carbs) just yet. As your still new to this, don’t overcomplicate it. Calories in vs out will always be the main driver of change. Macros are expert settings. There’s still debate in the fitness comunity as to how important different ratios actually are.
Try to get your calorie intake to 1500 kC.
This is not the right sub, but probably around 1500/1800, see if your weight stays the same or goes lower, and adjust accordingly