Are you ready to figure out how many calories you should eat?

I know, one of the toughest daily “chores” is eating healthy. In our “Exercise Is Medicine” program that Dr. Kim Smith and I are leading for 12 weeks, one of the components is exploring if are you eating enough. Too many times, people start on their healthy eating journey and actually are not giving the body enough calories. Crazy, right? And what happens when you don’t give your body enough calories to function? You feel lethargic, even angry, and most of the time your body wants to hold on to the fat and get rid of the muscles because they burn too many calories.

Each body needs a minimum amount of calories just to survive. It’s called resting metabolic rate (RMR). Too many times, crazy diets are completely messing up our system, and yes, you might lose weight, but is it sustainable? Absolutely not. Most people have experienced those diets where they lost weight and then gained most, or more, of it back. As I have mentioned before, people take better care of their car than their bodies. Your car would absolutely not run when you don’t put gas in it, but our bodies continue to figure out how to keep going. The following has math in it, so if it’s a challenge ask one of your family members or friends to help you with the following.

You need to know the following: gender, age, weight in kilograms (divide your pounds by 2.2) and height in centimeter (your inches x 2.54)

If you are a male: RMR = 66 + (13.75 x weight in kilograms) + (5 x your height in centimeters) – (6.8 x your age in years).

Female: RMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilograms) + (1.8 x height in centimeters) – (4.7 x your age in years).

So for me it would be the following 665 + (9.6 x 61 kilograms = 586 rounded up) + (1.8 x 170= 306) – (4.7 x 57 = 268 rounded up). 665+586+306-268= 1,289. So my resting metabolic rate is 1,289 calories per day just being efficient, doing nothing, being awake. Are you still with me? Next step is to see where your activity level is and we are calculating our TDEE = Total Daily Energy Expenditure. The calories you need to live and move. The following is the number you need to pick that fits the best for your activity level per day.

• 1.1 if you don’t exercise at all or very infrequently

• 1.275 if you are a bit active and exercise 1 or 3 times per week

• 1.35 if you exercise 3 to 5 times per week

• 1.525 if you are very active and exercise nearly daily

And you are correct, my TDEE is RMR of 1289 x 1.525 = 1966 (rounded up again) calories per day should be my intake with my activity level. I am right around that number and feel good and fit. As I told our class, I eat because I need calories. When I wait until I get hungry, I actually become “hangry!” And when I am hangry, my choices of food are typically not good. I grab what I can find and quick, unplanned choices are typically unhealthy with a low nutritional value. Dr. Suzanne Bowser (another gem in our community) will start a nutrition course in the New Year to help people with their healthy eating journey. She is helping Dr. Kim and I with the nutrition part in our EIM (exercise is medicine) program. This program will finish sometime before Thanksgiving and plan to start with another group in the New Year.

To see where your calorie intake is now, record your food intake (all of it) for three days.

And I leave you with a quote by Benjamin Franklin: “If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail.”

Ester Marsh is director of healthy living at the J.F. Hurley Family YMCA.