- Have you ever wondered how many calories
a person needs every day?
Well, the simplest answer to that is, it depends, a lot.
Now, you many notice on your nutritional labels
of the foods that you buy
that if you flip it over and look at the nutrition facts,
the percent daily values are based on 2,000 calorie diet,
but that doesn't mean that everybody needs 2,000 calories
and that's it, no more, no less.
It is simply based on an average amount of calories
that an adult might need.
It's gonna vary based on a host of factors
like height, weight, gender, age, muscle mass,
activity levels, where you live, etc.
But, there are three main factors involved in calculating
how many calories your body needs every day.
So, first off, we have the Basal Metabolic Rate, or the BMR.
This is the amount of energy that your body needs
to function at rest, and incredibly, it actually accounts
for 60-70% of the calories burned every day,
just keeping your body in motion,
doing things like keeping your heart beating,
keeping your eyelids fluttering, and your brain thinking,
because, cool fact, it actually takes calories
in order to think.
So, maybe thinking really hard
can help prepare you for swimsuit season.
(man whistles) Probably not.
Now, in general though,
I am sad to report, ladies out there,
that men do have a higher BMR than women do,
which means that guys will just naturally burn more calories
during the day not doing anything extra than women will.
So, ladies, we gotta hit the gym.
One of the most accurate methods
for estimating your Basal Metabolic Rate
is something called the Harris Benedict Formula.
For example, for an adult male,
get out your pencil and paper.
You're gonna take the number 66,
add your body weight in lbs,
sorry Canada, you gotta convert those kilograms.
Now, multiply that number by 6.3,
add in your height in inches,
yet again, sorry metric system folk,
and then multiply that by 12.9.
(laughs) We're not done yet.
Subtract in your age in years, times 6.8,
and that will give you your Basal Metabolic Rate.
Now, if I lost you at 66,
'cause I think I lost me at 66, too,
you can just go online,
there are a ton of different calculators on there
that will automatically calculate your BMR for you,
all you have to do is put in things
like your gender, your height, and your weight,
and boom, you've got it.
The next ingredient in our calorie equation
is physical activity.
This is the additional stuff that you do
on top of sitting down and just letting your brain think
and your heart beat and burn calories that way.
It's going jogging in the morning, it's taking yoga,
it's twerking, you could twerk, too.
I'm not gonna twerk, 'cause these hips do not lie,
they can't twerk, at all.
But, the number of calories that you burn
in any given activity depends on your body weight.
Now for the final slice in our calorie pie,
we have something called the thermic effect of food.
This is the amount of energy that your body uses
to digest the food you eat, because it takes energy
to break food down to its basic elements
in order to be used in your body.
In other words, once I get all tired
from twerking all night, and I want to eat some pizza,
the very fact of allowing that pizza to digest
is going to burn some of those pizza calories.
But, how many of those pizza calories?
Well, to figure that out,
you're going to take the total number of calories
that you eat in a day, and multiply it by 0.1.
So, you can think about it as roughly 10%
of the total calories that you eat
are going to be burned off
through that natural digestion process.
So, how many calories do you need in a day?
Obviously, it's gonna depend on a lot of different factors,
but there are so many different apps out there
and websites and calculators
that can help you determine things
like your Basal Metabolic Rate,
the amount of calories that you're gonna burn
from different types of physical exercise, etc,
to help tailor your health and lifestyle and eating
to the calorie needs that you have.
So, if you want to learn more about how to twerk,
wait, no, not how to twerk,
but how your body works, maybe, when it twerks,
you should check out more of our Brain Stuff videos,
and don't forget to be kind and subscribe.