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To calculate daily Calorie needs, you can use the online tools described below. In case you need to convert from centimeters to inches or kilograms to pounds you can use google. One foot has 12 inches.

Calorie Calculator at freedieting.com
You need to enter your age, gender, weight (in pounds or kilos), height (in feet and inches only) and exercise level. Then you press “Calculate” button and get three numbers:

• Maintenance – how many Calories you need daily to maintain your current weight
• Fat Loss – how many Calories you need daily if you want to lose fat
• Extreme Fat Loss – how many Calories you need daily if you want to lose fat faster (note: this is only appropriate for people who are very overweight not for someone who wants to lose a few kilos)

You can also select “Advanced Options” where you can choose how the results are calculated. It can be interesting to compare different values. And if you know your body fat percentage you can use it to make the results more accurate.

There is also an option for “7 day calorie cycle (zig-zag)” which gives you Calories per day but in a weekly cycle. The idea is to vary the daily Calories intake in order to prevent so called “weight loss vicious cycle“.

Daily Caloric Metabolic Calculator at HikingUpward.com
Here you need your weight in pounds, height in feet and inches, age, gender, body type (muscular, average or overweight) and activity level. Pressing “Calculate Daily Caloric Requirement” and you’ll get two values:

• BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) – how many Calories you’d burn per day if you stayed whole 24 hours in bed.
• Daily caloric requirements to remain at your current weight – this adds to BMR the Calories required for all the activities you do during the day.

Calorie Calculator at ExRx.net
Again you need to enter a similar set of values: sex, age, weight (Pounds or Kilograms), height (in inches or centimeters) or body fat percentage. You also need to estimate your average activity levels by specifying how many hours per day you are resting or performing activities at different levels. Pressing the “Calculate” button gives you again three numbers:

• BMR – Basal Metabolic Rate
• Activity – additional Calories you burn per day due to your activity level.
• Total Calories – the sum of the above two numbers.

Diet Calculator at ScientificPsychic.com
This tool takes a bit different approach. Here beside the usual height, weight, sex and activity level you also need to enter measurements of your waist, neck and (for females only) hips. Press “Calculate” button and based on these values the page will calculate:

• Body Mass Index – values over 25 indicate being overweight unless your body is very muscular (BMI calculation doesn’t take into account fat/muscle ratio)
• Waist-to-Height ratio – values above 0.5 indicate too much abdominal fat
• Percent Body Fat
• Lean Body Mass
• Whether you’re underweight, overweight or have weight in normal range
• Minimum caloric requirements – this takes into account your BMI and automatically tries to reduce your Calories per day if BMI is over 25
• Minimum content of proteins in your diet

If you use these tools you should get a better idea on the amount of Calories you should be consuming on average. Regardless whether you want to maintain your current weight, lose some fat or gain some muscle you need to know these numbers in order to properly control your diet.

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From my occasional interest and pursuit of bodybuilding I’ve collected the following information about how to gain muscle mass. To build the muscles you need to do high resistance and low repetition count exercises, which basically means:

• Train each muscle group (for example biceps) once per week. Don’t do it more often as the muscles need time to recover and grow.
• Regardless whether you use machines or free weights, the resistance should be selected such that you can do no more than 3 series of 8 repetitions in each series. Some people recommend an even lower repetition count.
• Each repetition should be done very slowly, let’s say 10 seconds for the concentric movement (in which muscles get shorter) and 5 seconds for the eccentric movement (in which muscles are forced to elongate). The movement should be steady and controlled.
• Give yourself a couple of minutes of rest between the series.
• The last repetition in the 3rd series should trigger thoughts like “There’s no way I can do this even one more time even if someone puts a gun to my head and says ‘Do it again or I kill you’”. The muscles should hurt. No pain – no gain.

Progress:

• Each week you should be able to add a few extra kilos until you reach your physiological limit. So keep track of the weight used each week.

Diet and sleep:

• Very important is also the diet. You need high protein content. More than the usual 80-100 grams per day. Basically if you want extra kilos of muscles you have to get extra N times that of proteins in your food. So you probably have to at least double your daily protein intake. Make sure your kidneys are OK as they will have more work filtering your blood.
• During the exercise you’ll use lots of energy in a short time so you have to eat carbohydrates a few hours before. Something like pasta with tuna is good as it has carbohydrates and proteins. Avoid sugary foods as they lower testosterone levels and you need testosterone to gain muscles. There are other things to avoid like caffeinated drinks and fried foods, more about it here.
• Get enough sleep – during sleep is when the growth hormone is produced and you need it for the muscles to grow. That’s also when your imagination can roam free and show you in advance the benefits of your new improved body…

Safety advice:

• If it hurts anywhere else than the muscles you’re at the moment exercising, especially chest pain, stop immediately. I’m not counting the painful faces of other gym members…
• Remember to breath properly all the time when exercising otherwise you can get problems with high blood pressure.
• If you’re unsure about your health consult a doctor.
• If you’re unsure about your exercise program consult a professional trainer.
• If you’re unsure about your finances, go read some other blog…

That’s about it. Now go and move your butt.

Or … you could stay a bit longer and read a few more posts on olivetalks.com.

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