How Many Calories Should You Burn a Day? (Image Credits: iStock)
You burn calories when you move around, work, and do your daily tasks. Being a measure of energy that is used to express the nutritional value of foods, calorie intake matters a lot. According to experts, all your life-sustaining functions, like breathing and heartbeating, happen because of the number of calories you take in and then burn.
And so, when your calorie intake matches your body's energy needs, your weight gets maintained. Consuming fewer calories than your body uses leads to weight loss, while taking in more calories than your body uses can lead to weight gain and subsequent obesity.
How many calories do you need in a day?
The number of calories your body needs in a day depends on a lot of factors like your gender, age, and body size. So, a bigger person needs more calories to maintain their body weight than a smaller one.
Experts use the term total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE, to describe the total number of calories your body burns on a daily basis. TDEE includes the energy used for critical processes like breathing, circulating blood, and heart function while at rest. Your basal metabolic rate, or BMR, accounts for 60-70 per cent of your daily energy needs. Several factors impact your BMR, like age, muscle mass, pregnancy status, and diet.
Also, it depends on what you eat the entire day for the number of calories consumed. Experts say protein has around 20-30 per cent which means your body uses that much amount of protein's calories to digest the food. Carbohydrates have a TEF of 5-10 per cent and fats have a TEF of 0-3 per cent, meaning you keep more calories from these foods. And so, following a high-protein diet helps you burn more calories daily.
How many calories are needed to be burnt in a day?
The number of calories you should burn in a day depends on your personal health and fitness goals along with a few factors like:
- Age
- Sex
- Height
- Weight
- Activity levels
So, if you are looking to lose weight, you need a calorie deficit from your diet—which means you must eat fewer calories than your body requires. Nutritionists say for sustainable weight loss, the ideal calorie deficit diet should be around 500-750 fewer calories than your total daily energy expenditure.
Similarly, to gain weight, you need a calorie surplus in your body. This means you need to expend fewer calories than you take in. A mild daily calorie surplus of around 300-500 calories allows for slow and gradual weight gain.
Calories burnt in physical activities
Here's how many calories a 70-kilogram person can burn in 30 minutes of engaging in the following types of workouts:
- Biking 145 calories
- Walking 140 calories
- Running or jogging 295 calories
- Swimming 255 calories
- Basketball 220 calories
- Dancing 165 calories
- Golfing 165 calories
- Aerobics 240 calories
- Light weightlifting 110 calories
- Heavy yard work 220 calories
More sure-shot ways to burn calories
If you are trying to lose weight or body fat by burning more calories, it is important to use safe and effective methods, like:
Be active
Add more steps into your day or try a new exercise program to burn more calories.
Eat protein
Follow a high-protein diet to burn more calories, as this macronutrient takes the most energy to digest.
Add resistance training
Get into a resistance training programme like weightlifting, which helps you gain muscle mass.
Eat healthy food
Follow a well-rounded diet high in whole foods and cut back on foods known to cause weight gai like added sugars and fast food.
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