Despite the negative reputation calories tend to get, understanding how they work and how to use them to your advantage is essential for achieving the body composition of your dreams! You don't need to totally obsess over them, but keeping a close eye on your calorie intake can be super helpful when you're working to reach your goals. Don't worry, though—it's not about stressing over numbers! Today, I share two super easy methods to determine the right amount of calories for you and your lifestyle. 

If you've been feeling confused about how much you should be eating, this episode will give you a good idea of the amount of food you need in terms of calories. By the end, you'll know your ideal calorie target for your goals and how to know if you need to adjust your intake. Understanding calories doesn't have to be overwhelming! Once you learn about common misconceptions and how to monitor your body's signals and symptoms, you'll be on the right track to achieving the body you want to live the life you love.

Want FREE access to my brand new four-week strength training plan, Strength Without Stress? Head over to hollyperkins.com/review where you can upload a screenshot of your review and gain immediate access. This is a limited-time offer before it sells for $197, so be sure to grab it now!

Topics Covered:

• The amount of energy you really need to support your goals
• Common misunderstandings about calories 
• How to calculate your ideal calorie intake 
• The truth about adjusting calories to your current weight and activity level
• Why you need to eat consistently and monitor your symptoms
• A calorie range of 1400-1600 for weight loss 
• The Muscle Tipping Point
• My quick and dirty method for understanding calories 
• Knowing when your calorie deficit is too small or too big

Resources Mentioned:

• Listen to the first 34 episodes of Holly Perkins Health Podcast HERE
• Check out The Body Composition Project HERE
• Transcripts can be found on the official blog page for this episode at hollyperkins.com/blog

Follow Me: 

Find me on Instagram: @hollyperkins

Learn more on my website: hollyperkins.com

Connect with me on Facebook: facebook.com/HollyPerkinsFitness/

Disclaimer: Content and information as part of The Holly Perkins Health Podcast is for general interest, education, and entertainment purposes only. The use of information on this podcast or materials or products linked from this podcast or website is at the user’s own risk. The content of this podcast is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Users should not disregard or delay in obtaining medical advice for any medical or mental health condition they may have and should seek the assistance of their health care professionals for any such conditions.

It's not necessary to be overly distracted by calories in order to improve your body composition. And calories do matter. If you want to learn my quick and dirty ways to get your calories right, so that you can improve your body composition. Keep listening. Hello, and welcome back. I am so glad that you're here. Truly, thank you, I think I would be lost without you. And if you're new around here, welcome. My name is Holly. And I helped you use strength training and intentional nutrition to improve your body composition. So that you can become more muscle and less fat. Now, that might mean that you also want to achieve a lower number on the scale. But around here, we try really hard not to use the words lose weight or weight loss. And that's because I think that phrase is really misunderstood. I think it's a misnomer. And ultimately, I don't think it's serving you. So instead, it's really about helping you become more muscle, which is life changing, and is so important for your metabolism. And yes, you may need to reduce your body fat, so that you can achieve that really important body composition mark as 70%, lean muscle mass or more. If you know what your body composition is. And you're below that number, it's time for us to get to work. So today I have a special episode A while back, I had a question from a woman in my community that I thought was awesome the way she phrased it, I didn't have a chance to answer it. And so from time to time, I'm going to be offering episodes like this where you can ask your questions, and I'm going to do my best to answer it. And today's conversation is much needed. And it's going to be a great, this will change your life if you listen up and apply what I'm going to share.

So when I'm coaching clients and the women in my groups, I have a very detailed and specific way of helping you target an approximate number of calories to reach your specific goal, whatever that looks like based on your body composition scan. And when I'm offering information for free, like I am here on the podcast, I have to kind of generalize that information. And so if you're curious about how much food you should be eating each day, or how much energy you need in the form of calories, I'm going to share with you two quick and dirty ways that you can usually get your calories right for better body composition. The truth is, you don't have to be obsessed with your calories. I know calories, get a bad rap these days. And if you're someone who is more inclined towards intuitive eating, I hope you'll stay open minded because what I have to share can really help. If you feel like you're taking action to improve your body composition but you're struggling. The truth is calories do matter. And if you're confused by how much food you actually need to eat in a day, and you want a ballpark idea of that volume, ie calories. One of the two methods that I'll cover today will help you target an approximate calorie range without stress, so that you can use your symptoms to guide you. Listen, we live in an energetic world, and there's no denying that the foods that we eat, bring energy in. So if you're struggling with energy, and you are reluctant to look at your calories each day, this might be the hot tip that you need. Because if you're struggling with energy and you're tired, or you don't have energy for your workout so that you can build muscle, or you're going to the gym and you're hitting the weights hard, but your body's not changing. You might not be hitting your mark in terms of the amount of energy you really need in for your body to support those specific goals and or the distribution of the calories that you're eating might not be right in other words, your macronutrient balance might be off, but that's a topic for a different episode. Today, we're just going to focus on calories. In this episode, you'll learn my quick and dirty calculation that will give you a calorie target for your day so that you know about how much food to eat. You'll also learn an interesting observation I have as a result of coaching women for now 30 years, and you'll learn the signs and symptoms to watch for that will tell you if you need more or fewer calories to specifically reach your goal. After coaching 1000s of women over the years, I know without a doubt that it's absolutely possible for you to have some structure around your food each day. And also feel free from the obsessive worry of calorie counting. And so if you've struggled with that, in the past, I hope you'll listen with an open mind. Because they really do have a pretty good track record for helping women who don't want to feel that restriction, or too much structure or even some of that obsessive compulsive, if you will, some of those personality traits that really just cause more frenzy than it's worth, there is a way to find a balance where you can reach your goals, and not feel too overly distracted by calories.

So let's jump in with today's question that comes from Denisa. Denise, thank you so much for asking this question. It was a while back, but I kept it in the log. And I came across it recently. And I think it's brilliant. I also think what she shares is something I hear from a lot of women that come into my community. Denise asks, I am really struggling with understanding how many calories I should be eating, some say 1500, some say 1700 And some say 1300. And then there's the macros, girl. I'm so lost in all of this. And I don't seem to be getting anywhere. I used to train years ago and had an injury and had to stop. Recently, I've been back for three months doing weights now and not knowing how much to eat, and where my macros should be. I'm all over the place. I'm trying to lose weight. I'm 50 years old, and I just don't know how much food I really should be eating for my weight to actually lose this fat around my stomach. Can you please help? So Denisa I'm going to do my best here. And hey, if you have a question for me about strength training, or nutrition, I now have a new way that you can ask me anything? Well, okay, not anything. We'll save that for social. But if you come over to Holly perkins.com forward slash ask Cali, you can submit your question now. And I will do my best to answer it on an upcoming podcast episode.

So let's jump into my answer. As I said, I want to give you a quick and dirty way that you can estimate how many calories you should be eating each day. And I will tell you, if you start here, and then track it and refine based on some tips that I'm gonna give you, this method really works great for most women. Because here's the deal, if you're determined to improve your energy, improve your lean muscle mass or protect the muscle that you have, or just be optimally healthy. And yes, if definitely, if you want to reduce your body fat, you really do have to come into communion with these things called calories. And to some degree, you've got to be tracking or keep an eye on where they are, because they do matter. But the truth is, you don't need to calorie count per se. But if you want to change your body composition in any way, calories are relevant. And you'll need to use some kind of a tracking app to get an idea of where you are, at least in the beginning until you can start seeing results. So let me share with you my two quick and dirty ways that you can estimate your calories, so that you can improve your body composition and our energy so that more of you as muscle less of you as fat and you feel awesome and up and ready for life. So the first way is to actually sit down and calculate with pen and paper or at least your mobile device so that you've got a calculator and sit down and get some real numbers. Once you get a range and you get these specific numbers based on my calculation that I'm gonna give you in a moment. I'll then give you some tips for what to do going forward in the weeks ahead to know how to adjust that number. It's a ballpark place to start and I will tell you this, it works if you do it. So the first way to get an idea of about how many calories you need each day is to calculate your current body weight in pounds us pounds times the number 10 The number 12 And that's going to give you a calorie range, which is a great place to start, if you weigh 150 pounds in US pounds, you're going to calculate by the number 10. That would be 1500 calories per day. And you're going to multiply by the number 12. And that's going to give you 1800 calories. Now, if you weigh, let's say, more than 150 us pounds, or 200 pounds, or over 200 pounds, yes, that calorie range is going to feel like a lot, it's going to feel like a high number. Here's the mistake I see so many women make you hear a lot of phrases from the world around you, whether it's television, or social media, or other experts. And you may have heard these generic numbers like Denise that did that you should be eating 1400 calories a day, or you should be eating 1200 calories a day. And here's the thing that really drives me nuts. If you're hearing these messages, and the person that sharing that knows nothing about you your activity level, your current body composition or your current body weight, how on earth could you know if that's the right amount of energy that your body needs for your goal. And oh, by the way, a lot of the messaging that you hear is focused on weight loss only. And if that's not your top top top concern, you've got to take that into consideration. But we have really been indoctrinated to think that we are always eating for weight loss. And that's just not the case. So take a moment and make sure that achieving a lower number on the scale is actually relevant important for you, or are you just wanting to improve your energy and become more muscle and less fat to support your strength training workouts to build muscle, your follow. So the mistake is and to touch upon what Denise says it's not, she should be eating 17 or 14 or 13. It's sit down and figure out what your body needs to get a ballpark of the numbers. I like this method, because it takes into account where you are. So there's a very popular television show that's on the air that's been running forever, where a male doctor is guiding his patients to extreme weight loss to prepare them for gastric bypass surgery. And there's mixed results in terms of the success of clients who have gone through that journey. And that process, I want to talk about this just illustrate a concept for a moment. Imagine we have a person who weighs 300 400 500 600 pounds. To tell that person, they can only eat 1400 calories, when their body currently needs 300 400 or 500 pounds worth of energy is absolutely insane. And in my opinion, that is a recipe for failure, the size of your body right now reflects to some degree, the size of the food that you need. And when I say size, I mean the amount of energy in now, we also have to take into consideration how active you are, how much muscle you have, how old you are, all of those other factors. But I'm going to keep it simple today, as I promised that I would, because those are the more complicated calculations that I do inside of my programs. So it's important to remember where you are, we have to look at what your current body size is. The best way to do it quick and dirty, is to calculate that number based on us pounds. Now, if you weigh yourself in kgs, you're going to multiply your kgs by the number 2.2. And that's going to give you the number that I'm talking about here today, body weight in US pounds times 10. And times 12 is going to give you a ballpark, start there. And then track what you're eating each day using a tracking app. You don't have to be precise. You don't have to worry down to one or two calories here and there. But make sure you're hitting that range for at least two weeks so that you can get some feedback. And then a moment when I give you the second way to get your calories right I'm going to talk about what you should be looking for in terms of feedback. And so if you don't want to be tracking your food each day, if you don't want to be trying to hit this window, I've got away that you can estimate your calories and then adjust upward or downward to hit your goal based on symptoms.

But first, hey, and on that note, thank you to everyone who has been posting reviews of the podcast and submitting them over on my website, it has been such a joy to get your feedback. And it's also been really wonderful to get some of your messages for those of you that are using my program at strength without stress, and seeing success, it's really, really rewarding for me. And so if you are listening, and you haven't yet posted a review, please do it really gives me some direction in terms of what you're liking about the podcast. And I want to reward you with one of my really and truly best free strength training programs that I've ever created. To date. I love this program, and you will too. So post your review, wherever you're listening, grab a screenshot of it and come over to Holly perkins.com, forward slash review. So if you're not so into the mathematics of your calories and tracking them, I'm going to give you another way that works if you'll stay consistent, and you're open to observing your symptoms and how you feel over the coming weeks, once you get a ballpark of how much food to eat.

So the second way to get your calories, right for better body composition is to eat consistently, and then monitor your symptoms. Because here's the deal, this goes back to what Denise asks, to some degree, there is not a precise number of calories that are going to get you to your goal because every single day, your energy in and energy out is in flux. We don't know exactly how many calories you're burning today, or tomorrow, or the next day, it fluctuates. And the truth is, your body doesn't gain or lose weight in a 24 hour period. It does it over a cycle. And maybe that cycle is a week or 10 days or two weeks. But it's happening based on what you do consistently. And so the second method here is to target approximately a certain amount of food that you're eating, eat that consistently. And then after two weeks, monitor the symptoms that you're experiencing, because the body never lies, it will tell you if you're under eating, it will tell you if you're over eating and there are certain symptoms to look for, so that you know how to adjust approximately the volume of food that you're eating. If you've got a certain set of symptoms eat a little less. If you have a different set of symptoms, you're going to eat a little bit more. So here's an interesting observation that I have noticed in the past handful of years. Now that I've been coaching women for 30 years, sometimes it just takes a lot of data and a lot of time to really get clear on trends. Most women, regardless of their body weight, start to lose body fat, and see the scale number go down when they are below 1500 calories per day. And that sweet spot is somewhere around 13 to 1500 calories per day, regardless of your current bodyweight. My suspicion is, this is why a lot of medical doctors recommend that calorie range. And now it's not precise. Because again, if you are lifting weights to build muscle and you're exercising consistently, without a doubt, you're going to need more calories than that, which is why I like to actually calculate so that you know exactly what it is. But if you don't have time for any of that, and you just want to target a certain number that's very, very simple. Let's aim about 1400 calories per day, then I'm going to give you a list of symptoms to watch out for.

Now. If you are strength training three times per week consistently and you're really trying to improve your body composition, you would consider yourself a fitness person, you're active you're walking each day, you've got to have at least 200 calories more than that 1400 Now listen, like I said, this is simply a starting point. That may or may not work for you, especially if you're active and you probably are if you're in my community. But if you're struggling to see the scale move and that is your top priority right now. Oh, and you just want to know where you should start this as an option. And like I said, I have noticed that if a client's body composition is not yet at my suggested target of at least 70% lean muscle, meaning your body fat is above 30%, then often a calorie range of 1400 to 1600 will usually cause weight loss for most people. If you then stay consistent with activity and strength training workouts, in particular, you're going to eventually get to your optimal body composition. And that's most often when you're within about eight to 10 pounds of your optimal body weight. That correlates to your lean muscle mass being above 70%. And at this point, the game totally changes. And you'll either need to calculate your calories like I've talked about, or you're gonna have to watch for the symptoms that I'm gonna go over in a minute. I have this happened recently with one of the women inside of my coaching program for the body composition project, I used a more precise calorie calculation for her to target initially, and then after about eight to 12 weeks, her body composition improved to where she was beyond that minimum 70% lean muscle and in truth, she probably was closer to 78, or even 80% lean muscle. As you know, I like to approach body composition this way instead of focusing on body fat. But to put it into terms that most people understand more obviously, she was around 20% body fat, which is excellent. At that point. Most women over 40 or 45, do not need to get their body fat, any lower than that. Once she crossed this threshold and became more muscle and less fat. She started experiencing noticeable fatigue in the afternoons before her workouts. And we did some troubleshooting, we looked at all of the different factors that could be related. And after sorting through all of it, it was clear that she simply needed to start increasing her calories, she had gotten to that point where her muscle was so much more powerful, and more substantial than her body fat, metabolically. And so you have to start to feed the machine. And this is how it goes.

When you reach what I call the muscle tipping point of sorts. It's the threshold when your muscle is more metabolically active, and therefore requires you to eat more. And we can then begin a system of reverse dieting. And it's the Holy Grail of health. It's where I want every woman to get to, that's where it becomes fun. Because then you start to look at your diet as Oh, wow, I get to eat more, it really does happen. The thing is, there is a process here at play. As you can see, it doesn't happen where a woman comes to me with limited strength training experience, where her lean muscle mass is not yet to that 70%. And we start reverse dieting immediately. In my experience, as a coach, I have not seen that I hear it happens out there. But I've never actually seen it. In short, there's kind of this two part process where if you're not at that 70% lean muscle mass point, it's a combined effort of bringing up your lean muscle mass while also bringing down your body fat for a period of months, two or three months depending on how consistent you are with your habits. And then you hit this muscle tipping point. And that's where we shift gears, and we start to treat you like an athlete and feed you more. Now, if this all feels like just too much emphasis on food. Too much focus on numbers and calories and you don't want to calculate. Here's the quick and dirty method. Aim for between 14 116 100 calories a day. Use the tracking app for a few weeks to learn the volume of food that corresponds to this calorie range. Once you get a sense of your portion sizes, your meal sizes and just the general volume of food that correlates to that calorie range. You can then start to eat more intuitively so that you can stay consistent without having to be tied to a tracking app. But you do have to be consistent after two full weeks. reeks of being consistent 14 days not a day shy. Watch for the following symptoms that signal a calorie deficit. Number one, hunger. Number two food cravings. Number three energy slumps. Number four fatigue during your workouts, in order to burn off body fat, you are going to have some of the symptoms, a huge mistake I see women make is that they think that they're going to lose weight without any symptoms at all. And I know that there are a lot of marketing messages out there in the world that say, Hey, you can lose, you know, X number of pounds and X number of weeks, and you're gonna feel great all the time. I have yet to see that happen in my practice of 30 years. And I always stay open minded, I keep staying hopeful I keep watching for the person who is like I lost 30 pounds and ate all the food that I wanted, and I was never hungry or tired, I haven't seen it. Now there is there is an edge of discomfort that you need to walk along in order for your body to burn off extra fat. These symptoms should be mild and manageable, where you're able to work through a bit of hunger or a little bit of food cravings. And you're able to work through it with a deep breath and some cold water. These symptoms signal weight loss. And if your symptoms are pronounced, you're probably in too big of a calorie deficit. So if you're picking up what I'm putting down is you're gonna have symptoms, but there's this window of discomfort where those symptoms tell you you're in a calorie deficit and you're going to eventually burn off body fat if you stay there long enough. But if these symptoms are really profound, and pronounced and debilitating or crippling, you're not going to be able to sustain the deficit, to get to the point where you burn off the body fat to get to the body composition where you want to be. So if you are in this window where after two weeks, you've been consistent with a certain volume of food, and you find that you're pulling your hair out because you're so hungry, and you're craving food every day all day, and you're so exhausted that you can't work out your calorie deficits too big. And in this case, add 100 calories to your day and reassess in two weeks. This is why I think it isn't a very productive process when an extreme weight loss doctor takes a patient who is 345 600 pounds, puts them on a 1400 calorie diet, which is what I just said to do, yes. But when you do that the person is in such a huge calorie deficit. They have to white knuckle through so much discomfort. And listen, that is just a fast path to over eating. We've got to find this sweet spot window that I've talked about where you're uncomfortable, but you can manage it. And it's a sliding scale. And it's subjective to your own ability to be uncomfortable. You want a slight calorie deficit, that you know you're in it through your symptoms, but not so much that it threatens your ability to stay consistent. Now, if the opposite is true, and you're consistent for two weeks, and now you have no hunger, no food cravings, you feel awesome and energized most of the day, then there's a good chance that you're not in a calorie deficit. If your macronutrients are balanced, your symptoms don't lie, they really don't. And in order to release extra body fat, you will have symptoms. Yes, this does depend on the quality of your macronutrients. You have to be balancing your macronutrients, you have to be eating all of those healthy foods that we want you eating, especially if you're eating for performance and to improve your body composition. Please hear me clearly this is important. I am not suggesting that you starve yourself or that you have to be tortured in order to lose weight. You don't. It is just not true that weight loss is going to be miserable. I have too many client testimonials to prove this. So many of my successful clients say it was easier than they thought. And yes, there were some days where they were hungry. And yes, there were some days where they were tired and they had to breathe through times of when they wanted to Eat more, but they didn't really have the hunger demand to do that. These uncomfortable symptoms should be mild to moderate and manageable. And there is a direct correlation to comfort and calorie deficit, the more discomfort, the greater the calorie deficit. And if there is no discomfort, you are either in a small calorie deficit, which is fine, or you're at energy homeostasis, which means you're in maintenance, which means you may or may not lose weight, or an off body fat. And if you do, it's going to be a little slower, which is totally okay by the way. And honestly, if you can be patient, it is the recipe for success. Big calorie deficit, big discomfort, and the more you've got to white knuckle through it, small calorie deficit, less discomfort, and really, the more successful you'll probably be, I like to find that sweet spot with my clients when I'm coaching them, where it's definite discomfort, but they can definitely manage it. Ultimately, the name of the game is to build muscle so that it manages your body fat. And once you're above 70%, lean muscle mass, you then get to increase your calories in proportion to your activity. And in proportion to your body fat level, the more muscle you have, and therefore the less body fat you have, the more muscles you need to match your workouts and your metabolism. In my experience. It's a progression, where women go from more than 30% body fat and around 1400 to 1600 calories to 20% body fat with calories increasing as high as 20 to 2400 calories. I've seen it I've done it, I have a number of clients that will attest to this. More muscle and less fat means that you need more calories. And there you have it two quick and dirty ways to get your calories right for better body composition. At the end of the day, you can become healthier and leaner simply by focusing on lean proteins, healthy carbs and moderate amounts of fat. Then simply use your symptoms to guide you. It can literally be that easy once you understand these basic concepts. And if you're still confused and want more guidance and support in your journey, the body composition project could be perfectly right for you. There will be a new round of this live group coaching program starting in September, where I am intimately involved in your journey. This is where I guide women and I coach them over a period of six months. This is my most hands on robust coaching program that I offer. You can get on the waitlist at Holly perkins.com forward slash body waitlist all one word. Yes, there's a waitlist and if you're on it, you'll be the first notified of the next round so that we can determine if it's right for you. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Make sure to stay tuned for another brand new episode on Tuesday of next week. Stay strong my friend