Kcal intake

Back to basics

While various specialists debate what is best for your body: adding something specific or omitting something specific, they sometimes forget a fundamental fact:

As long as you take in more energy than your body uses, your body will store it, regardless of whether the focus is on adding or eliminating certain foods.

In other words: as long as you eat more than you exercise, you'll gain weight. There are all sorts of nuances to this, but roughly speaking, it boils down to this.

Suppose your body needs 2500 kcal daily and you eat 3000 kcal worth of yogurt with superfoods, spelt rolls with low-fat goat cheese, and fruit, then that's still 500 kcal too much. The same applies if you eat a low-carb diet but still consume, for example, 3000 kcal. In both cases, you'll consume 500 kcal too much, and this will eventually affect your stomach.

Determine your calorie intake

To properly align your diet with your goals, it's important to calculate the correct calorie intake. You can do this on various websites, consult various documents, or consult a fitness coach. Feel free to choose the method you're most comfortable with, but make sure the following factors are considered when determining your calorie intake.

1. The amount of calories you need to stay alive and keep your metabolism going (because digesting food also takes energy).

2. The number of extra calories you can consume depends on your daily activity level. You can imagine that a construction worker uses more energy than a banker.

3. The amount of extra calories you may consume based on your sporting activities.

4. Your goal: lose weight, stay the same, or gain weight.

Based on this, you will reduce, maintain or increase the total number of calories you determined in steps 1 to 3.

When you add the results of the first three steps and add or subtract the result of step four, this is the number of calories you need to consume each day to work towards your goal.

Stick to your calorie intake

You now know exactly how many calories you need to function daily and achieve your physical goals. Now it's just a matter of sticking to it. That sounds easy, but everyone who starts this journey faces the same pitfalls. To protect yourself against these challenges, here are a few tips:

- Go food tracking

Food tracking is simply counting calories. A good app for this is MyFitnessPal. Here, you can indicate how many calories you want to consume daily. By selecting the foods you've eaten, the app calculates how many calories you can still eat that day. This way, you always know how much you can still eat.

- Determine meals in advance

Pre-planning your meals ensures that before you eat each day, you've already checked the calorie content of your meals. You can enter this information in the app beforehand. You'll then see exactly how many calories you would consume with the meals you've planned. If the amount is too much or too little, you can adjust the quantities. But if the difference is too great, you can choose different meals. Pre-planning your meals allows you to go as far as you like. Bodybuilders are known to prepare their meals for several days at a time and divide them into multiple containers. Carefully calculated and accurately weighed, ensuring they get exactly what they need to achieve their training goals.

- Don't sabotage yourself

It's common for athletes who start counting calories to sabotage themselves. They might think they deserve to eat a little extra because they've trained hard, for example. However, the nutrition for this training activity is already factored into their calorie intake. These athletes are now eating twice as much as they need for their training.

But even "just throwing in the last bit of meat because it has to be used up anyway" is a form of sabotage. Self-sabotage is often a logical, but ultimately, it causes you to consume more calories than you need.

Finally

Determining your calorie intake and sticking to it is the foundation of a sound diet. If you're serious about fitness, it's advisable to take your nutrition at least as seriously. In the coming weeks, Kaats Coaching will be addressing the topic of nutrition, which you can read here on the Gorillasports blog.