"How many calories your body needs per day?"

Your calorie requirements vary according to height, total body weight, ratio of fat to muscle, age, gender, genes, health and physical exercise. In general, your calorie needs can be reasonably accurately assessed base on two calorie components : Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and Physical Exercise.

1. Your Basal Metabolic Rate is the minimum number of calories needed to power your body while resting. i.e. energy needed by your body to maintain normal functions, like heart beat, respiration and normal body temperature. It accounts for about 60-70% of your calories requirements.

2. The second major calorie component is physical exercise or activity. The more exercise you take, the more calories you burn.

The calorie calculator below only gives an approximation.

Calorie Needs - Weight Maintenance, Weight Loss, Weight Gain

Your total daily calorie needs are the calories required to MAINTAIN your weight (as calculated above). In order to LOSE weight, you need to reduce your calorie intake. In order to GAIN weight you need to increase your calorie intake.

One KG of weight is equal to 7,700 calories. Therefore, in order to lose one KG of weight per week, you should either consume 7,700 fewer calories per week, or consume 3,500 fewer calories (500 fewer per day) while burning an extra 4,200 calories in extra exercise! To gain 1/2 KG of weight per week, increase your calorie intake by 3,600 calories.

If you eat more than the above calories per day without doing extra exercise to burn them off, you'll gain weight. If your goal is to lose weight by burning off excess body fat already stored in your body, aim to eat less calories over the week and maintain or increase your exercise activity. However, do not go below 900 calories per day as it'll send your body into "starvation mode" which will start to store food as fat! Also, if you suddenly cut down too much calories per day, you'll lose energy and feel tired easily, therefore get on a diet program that you can sustain without these side effects.

Eating right by counting calories is too time consuming for most people. In a perfect world we would all have time to prepare or locate such low calorie meals in restaurant or hawker centers, but not in today's fast pace fast food society. On top of that, cutting down on calories intake is only part of the solution to permanent and successful weight lost - you still need to ensure that those low calorie meals are also nutritionally balanced. Otherwise it'll be easy to loose weight by simply skipping meals!

To achieve gradual and permanent weight lost, Herbalife has scientifically formulated a nutritionally dense meal-replacement that are also low in calorie. Each serving of the Formula 1 Protein Shake (2 heaping tablespoons with 250ml non-fat milk) is only about 190 calories. Together with 1 to 3 tablespoon(s) of Personalized Protein Powder (20 calories each) to form a meal-replacement, you'll be consuming only 210 to 250 calories per meal. Follow the weight lost chart of 2 shakes plus a 3rd normal meal per day, aiming to achieve at least 500 fewer calories but stay well above 900 calories to loose weight gradually and yet get enough energy to last throughout the day.

Related Resources:

• Diet Tracker - A useful tool that helps you keep track of your calorie and fat intake through your mobile phone!
• Energy & Nutrient Composition of Foods :  Search for commonly eaten hawker and restaurant foods, and find out its energy value and nutrient content.
• Fat Info Finder - Use this search engine to find out the total fat, saturated fat and trans fat content of commonly eaten foods, as well as packaged products by brand name.
• Calories Burned During Exercise - Calories burned during exercise is affected by body weight, intensity of workout, conditioning level and metabolism.