HOW MUCH YOU
SHOULD EAT?
IN THIS SHORT GUIDE I WILL TEACH YOU
HOW TO CALCULATE THE DAILY
CALORIES YOUR BODY EXPENDS.
Ever wondered why despite you’ve been eliminating all the
“bad foods” from your diet, cutting out bread, sweets, sodas,
alcohol and yet there are no results? Feeling hopeless? Do
NOT, I will help you figure out why this happens.
There is one simple answer to that. You don’t know how much
energy (calories) your body needs daily to maintain your
weight. You might be eating all the right foods but if you
consume over the calories your body burns each day you will
be putting on fat, regardless of eating “clean” or not.
So I decided to create this short guide to show you the basics
you need to get started on your journey. So let’s dive right into
it. I’ve broken it down to sections so it’s easier for you to follow
the steps outlined below and make the calculations yourself.
By Simeon Krastev
Step 1: Estimating total calorie requirements
Calculating your BMR(Basal Metabolic Rate)
My method of choice (Mifflin St. Jeor Equation)
There are four different formulas that are used to calculate
your BMR but Mifflin St. Jeor equation has been proved to be
the most accurate one so we will use it for our calculations.
The formula:
Men: (10 x weight kg) + (6.25 x height cm) – (5 x age) + 5
Women: (10 x weight kg) + (6.25 x height cm) – (5 x age) – 161
Examples:
For a 40 year old 80 kg. male at 180cm in height:
(10 x 80) + (6.25 x 180) – (5 x 40) + 5 =
800+1125-200+5=1730 calories
For a 40 year old 65 kg. female at 162cm in height:
(10 x 65)+(6,25 x 162)-(5 x 40)-161=
650+1012,5-200-161=1301,5 calories
Step 2: Multiplying the calculated BMR by activity level
Once you have the BMR calculated, you will then multiply it by
your activity level.
 Sedentary - (little or no exercise, desk job) x 1.2
 Lightly active - (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) x 1.3-1.4
 Moderately Active - (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) x
1.5-1.6

Very Active - (Hard exercise/sports 6-7 days per/week) x 1.7-1.8
 Extremely active - (Very hard daily exercise/sports & physical job
or twice a day training) x 1.9-2.0
Examples:
Our 40 year old male who trains 4 times per week (moderately active) x
1,5-1,6
1730 (from the previous page) x 1,6 = 2768 calories
That would be his daily maintenance calories
Our 40 year old female who trains 2 times per week (lightly active) x
1,3-1,4
1301,5 (from the previous page) x 1,4 = 1822,1 calories
That would be her daily maintenance calories
TIP: Always choose the higher end (in these cases 1,6 and 1,4),
it’s better to start with more calories and as you hit a plateau you
adjust the calories from there.
VOALA!
So I’ve thought you how you can calculate your daily calorie
expenditure but I will add few extras so you can get a head start.
I will teach you how to breakdown this calories into
macronutrients.
www.study.com has provided an awesome description of what
macronutrients are so I will just present it for you:
Nutrients are environmental substances used for energy,
growth, and bodily functions by organisms. Depending on the
nutrient, these substances are needed in small amounts or larger
amounts. Those that are needed in large amounts are
called macronutrients.
There are three macronutrients required by humans:
carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Each of these macronutrients
provides energy in the form of calories. For example:



In carbohydrates, there are 4 calories per gram
In proteins, there are 4 calories per gram
And in fats, there are 9 calories per gram
This means that if you look at a food label and it lists 10 grams of
carbohydrates, 0 grams of protein, and 0 grams of fat, that food
would contain 40 calories.
I will teach you how to estimate the breakdown (protein, fats and
carbohydrates) of the calories we calculated above so bear with
me.
Step 3: Setting macronutrient targets based on the
calories we’ve figured
1. Setting protein targets – we are aiming for 2.5 – 3
grams of protein per kg. of bodyweight.
–For muscle growth start at the lower end of the range as
you will be in a caloric surplus so the body will be in anabolic
rather than catabolic mode(2,5grams of protein per kg of
bodyweight)
-For fat loss stay in the higher end of the range as amino
acid oxidation will be greater during calorie deficit(3 grams
of protein per kg of bodyweight)
Examples:
Note: For the following examples I will use our male athlete,
there is no difference between the female and male so you can
apply the same calculations regardless of your gender.
Let’s take our 80kg. male athlete who’s goal is muscle growth:
2.5 x 80kg = 200grams of protein or 800 calories
If our athlete goal is fat loss we will take this approach:
3 x 80kg = 240grams of protein or 960 calories
Extra Note: Always start your macronutrient breakdown with
the protein because adequate intake helps you build muscle
and/or prevent muscle loss if you are in calorie deficit. It also
controls appetite and staves off hunger better than fats and
carbohydrates. So you will feel fuller for a longer period of time.
2.Setting fat targets – we are aiming for 0,8 – 1,1 grams of
fat per kg. of bodyweight.
Note: Try to start at the lower end here because fats are high in
calories, 9 calories per 1 gram of fat. It’s better to have some
margin for error if you go over by mistake.
Examples:
For our 80kg. male athlete the equation would look like this:
0,8 x 80 = 64grams of fat or 576 calories
3.Setting carbohydrate targets – fill in the rest of the
remaining calories with carbohydrates
Examples:
For our 80kg. male athlete the equation would look like this:
The total calorie target we have is 2768 calories a day.
If his goal is fat loss that would be his daily maintenance calories:
-960 calories from protein – 240grams of protein (higher protein intake)
-576 calories from fat – 64 grams of fat
-1232 calories from carbohydrates - 308 grams of carbohydrates
We came up with this numbers by substracting the calories we have from
fats and protein from the total calories we have and that’s what we have
left for our carbohydrate intake. We then divide by 4 ( 1 gram of
carbohydrates equals 4 calories) and come up with the daily number of
carbohydrates.
Step 4: Adjusting your calories for muscle building or fat
loss
1.Adjusting your macronutrient intake for MUSCLE
GROWTH:
Note: My preference is to use non-linear approach which means
to match the calories consumed with the training output. This
simply means that an individual would consume more calories on
training days than non-training days.
Non training day calorie & macro nutrient targets for our
80kg male (maintenance targets).
2,768 calories
Protein 200g (800 calories)
Fat 64g (576 calories)
Carbohydrates 348g (1,398 calories).
Training day calorie & macro nutrient targets for our 80kg
male. (increase calories by 500 on training days from
carbohydrates).
3,268 calories
Protein 200g (800 calories)
Fat 64g (576 calories)
Carbohydrates 475g (1,898 calories)
2.Adjusting your macronutrient intake for Fat LOSS:
Note: For fat loss, being able to consume the most amounts of
calories while still losing fat is the primary goal, this gives you
more calories to cut from when you hit a plateau. Hence why I
still like to start at approximately maintenance calories on
training days, and calorie deficit for rest days.
Training day calorie & macro nutrient targets for our 80kg
male (maintenance targets):
2,768 calories
Protein 240g (960 calories)
Fat 64g (576 calories)
Carbohydrates 310g (1,238 calories).
Non-training day calorie & macro nutrient targets for our
80kg male. (decrease calories by 500 on non-training days
from carbohydrates).
2,268 calories
Protein 240g (960 calories)
Fat 64g (576 calories)
Carbohydrates 185g (738 calories).
Step 5: Micro nutrients vitamins/minerals & water, fiber
intake
Fiber intake:
Fiber is important to digestion and regularity, weight
management, blood sugar regulation, cholesterol maintenance
and more, according to Paige Smathers, a Utah-based
dietitian. It has also been linked to longevity and decreasing
the risk of cancer. 10g of fiber per 1,000 calories is a very good
starting point.
Example:
For 2700 calories daily consumption you should aim for 27
grams of fiber.
Micro nutrients vitamins/minerals:
Note: Total calorie intake & macronutrient intake are the number
one priorities, secondary to that is fiber, micro nutrient/vitamin
intake.
Micro nutrients:
Fruits & fibrous vegetables
 1,200-2,000 calories per day = 2 cups of fruit & vegetables.
 2,000-3,000 calories per day = 3 cups of fruit & vegetables.
 3,000-4,000 calories= 4 cups of fruit & vegetables.
Water intake:
(Body weight in lbs x 0.6) divided by 34 = daily water intake
in liters
For our 80kg. male athlete the equation would look like this:
Note: Multiply your weight in kg. by 2,2 to convert it to pounds.
(80x2,2 x0,6) / 34 = (176 x 0,6) / 34 = 3 liters and 100 ml.
Note: You should have 5 clear urinations per day,
increase/decrease water intake depending on this.
Meal Frequency:
There are so many myths regarding meal frequency! I will try and keep this as
simple as possible, limit the theory and give you what you need to know to
implement immediately. With regards to meal frequency for fat loss, there is
no evidence to my knowledge that the number of meals you consume makes
any difference. Total calories, macro nutrients, fiber, micro nutrient numbers
consumed by the end of the day is the most important factor, whether that
comes in 2 or 6 meals, it doesn’t matter.
With regards to meal frequency for muscle growth, total protein intake is still
the number one priority, however maxing out muscle protein synthesis per
meal is the secondary objective. Consuming a protein containing meal every
4-5 hours ensuring at least 30-40 of protein per meal, should max out muscle
protein synthesis. However like I said earlier, total protein intake is till priority,
yet to be safe I would recommend a minimum meal frequency of 3 meals per
day for muscle growth.
If you train 2x per day or twice within an 8 hour period to be more precise,
nutrient timing is more of an importance. Having said that I won’t go into
detail with this, as this is unlikely for most.
Making changes to continually make
progress:
The real art to this is knowing when and how to make changes, the above
is a simple example of what are some of the factors I take into account
when I do such manipulations. However depending on the individual and
how much data I have on that person, I may go about things differently.
For instance if I know an individual tolerates carbohydrates very well, I
am likely to decrease fat intake and increase carbohydrates. Likewise I
have some clients that do not tolerate carbohydrates very well and
therefore I will bring fats higher and then decrease carbohydrate intake.
As a general rule of thumb protein intake will stay relatively constant and
fat and carbohydrates will fluctuate. With regard to making changes, this
is more of an art than a science. Some clients will progress very quickly
with minimal or no changes whereas others will require more, that is
where trial and error comes into place. As a general rule, if your goal is
muscle growth and you are not growing, you will need to progressively
increase calories, predominantly from carbohydrates. With regards to fat
loss the opposite holds true (and also a decrease in fats possibly) & or an
increase in energy expenditure (training volume). Also when an individual
gets very lean, a person may do well with a high carbohydrate re-feed
day or days during the week to help reset a hormone called leptin and
give their metabolism a boost.
I wanted to keep this guide short so I won’t go in detail. If you want to
learn more make sure you visit my blog @
http://simeonkrastevfitness.com/
How to track your daily consumption:
You can either do it old school by writing everything down
on piece of paper which could be time consuming or track
down everything with this amazing FREE application called
“My Fitness Pal”.
Step 1: Download it to your Phone
Step 2:Select Custom Goals and place everything to ZERO
Step 3: Put in the foods to hit your daily calorie targets
NOTE: DO NOT consume the targets that myfitnesspal
have put together, protein is set ridiculously low along with
total calories, in hope that you will lose a lot of weight
quickly leading to more use of their product. This weight loss
is NOT sustainable however.
References:
 http://www.livescience.com/51998dietary-fiber.html
 http://study.com/academy/lesson/wh
at-are-macronutrients-definitionfunctions-examples.html
 http://dailyburn.com/life/health/howto-calculate-bmr/
Conclusion:
Hey it’s Simeon here I really
wanted to THANK YOU FOR
TAKING THE TIME TO READ
THROUGH MY REPORT. I
know that the internet is a
crowded space and I feel
special by having you going
through my educational
materials.
I really hope you learned a thing or two here and you will
apply it to get closer to your goals.
If you would like to read more about me and see
I’m up to make sure you check out my website:
http://simeonkrastevfitness.com/
what
If you want to learn more about my coaching services
make sure you visit:
http://simeonkrastevfitness.com/coaching/
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