Okay, now that you've learned the basics of meal planning theory, let's put everything into practice. Remember how your calorie balance is the number one determinant of your diet success, and that there are three different states of calorie balances negative, positive and neutral. Of course, to reach any of the three states, you will have to know how many calories your body spends every day. There are several different equations and strategies you can use to calculate this value. Some of them are more or less accurate and more or less difficult than others. I will now show you the easiest most straightforward way which is to calculate your TV.
Your TV describes your total daily energy expenditure, which is the number of calories that your body burns in one day. It is calculated by estimating how many calories you burn while resting, which is called the basal metabolic rate or BMR. And adding a certain number of calories on top, depending on how often you exercise If you were to consume roughly the same amount of calories as your TV, you wouldn't be in a neutral calorie balance. If you consume more calories than your TV, you would be in a positive calorie balance. And if you consume less calories than your TV, you would be in a negative count. The simplest method of calculating your TV is by using an online calculator such as the one I linked in the bonus lecture.
It will ask for your age, weight, height, and weekly exercise. While the results will not be 100% accurate. Since we all have different metabolisms and be ours. It will give you a good idea of how many calories you need to consume in order to maintain your current weight. If this is not exact enough for you, or you feel that the value you get from the online calculator is a little off. You want to do the following.
Use the estimated TV value and consume around this number of calories every day. Next, weigh yourself twice a week and monitor changes in your weight. If you're a loser, Losing weight, the estimated TV was too low and you should increase it by around 100 calories. If you're gaining weight, the estimated TV was too high and you should decrease it by 100 calories. Continue the strategy until your weight stagnates, which is the point where you have found your true TV. To make things easier for you, let's take the example of a man who weighs 180 pounds is six feet tall or 180 centimeters and 25 years old.
If we assume he trains three to four times weekly at high intensity, his TDE will lie anywhere between 2000 502,700 calories per day. You would then start with one of the two values and diet accordingly for about 10 days to two weeks. If you're gaining weight, you will have to decrease your initial calorie value and if you're losing weight, increase it. So for example diet, which we will set up over the next lesson, I will assume a TD of the middle ground which is 2600 calories per day.