Why Knowing Your Recommended Daily Calorie Intake Is So Important. by Tony Matchem

Why is it important to know one's recommended daily calorie intake? Knowing your total calorie gives you two important benefits. First, it tells you how many calories you must have daily to maintain your present weight. Second, if you know your recommended daily calories, you can decrease your total calories by only 500 and you will lose a pound of fat per week.

"We are what we eat"

Some people incorrectly think that they're making the right health choices just because a magazine or their friends recommended something. Is it actually healthy to trust such unconfirmed information? Let's take a look. I think you'll be very surprised.

Let's take an avocado for example. It's very healthy for you if you have a slice with a meal because it has good fats that will break down bad fats. Some people read this and they forget that eating more than a slice isn't actually good for you. If you eat an entire medium-sized avocado, you're eating 4 grams of protein, 15 grams of carbohydrates, and 31 grams of fat.

Now what do these numbers mean? Let's take a closer look at how this one avocado would affect your overall recommended daily calorie intake. There are four calories in each gram of protein, four calories in each gram of carbohydrate, and nine calories in each gram of fat. You'll notice that there are over twice as many calories from fat than there are from proteins and carbohydrates. This cannot be a good thing.

If we add all the calories up from just one avocado, you get a total of 346 calories! Remember that even good fats get stored if you don't use them up. Knowing your recommended daily calorie intake can be helpful benefit in this situation.

Given that the average calories for females are 1400 per day, one medium-sized avocado would be a quarter of your recommended daily calorie intake. Now you see how things can get complicated and misleading? So we need a better understanding of how much protein, carbohydrates and fat we actually eat in order to have more control of our daily calorie intake. This will give us better knowledge on how to make better food choices so we all can achieve the optimal desired weight that we all dream about achieving. One must definitely know their recommended daily calorie intake then.

How does one calculate his or her recommended daily calorie intake? First we have to calculate a person's resting metabolic rate. Calculating this takes into account one's age, weight, and height. The resting metabolic rate is the amount of energy in calories you burn daily just by living. You find your recommended daily calorie intake by taking your resting metabolic rate and factoring in digestion and your other daily activities.

There is some state-of-the-art equipment available that can calculate your calorie requirements. If you do not have access to this equipment however, there are a number of formulas that you can use to calculate your recommended daily calorie intake.