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The number of calories you should eat depends largely on three factors: your body composition, your activity level, and your health goals. As a general rule, the more you weigh, the more calories you need to ingest. Concerning activity level, people who are active and regularly exercise require more calories than those who lead sedentary lives. Finally, your specific health goals - losing weight, gaining weight, or maintaining your current weight - factor significantly in the equation of how many calories you should eat.

Body Composition:

With all else equal, a person who weighs 200 pounds will need to consume significantly more calories than someone who weighs 100 pounds. As a general rule, a person who lives an inactive lifestyle uses roughly as many calories as the product of his or her weight multiplied by ten to twelve. So a 175 pound person who lives a sedentary lifestyle would need to eat about 2,000 calories per day to remain the same weight.

Activity Level:

If weight loss is your goal, hopefully you will integrate exercise into your daily routine, but as a 175 pound person living a sedentary lifestyle, you would need to reduce your consumption to about 1,800 calories per day. This is certainly not the advisable method of weight loss; ideally you will combine diet with exercise. However, this simply illustrates the math of caloric intake.

Exercise and Dietary Goals

For those who engage in a moderate amount of activity, you will typically exert 200 to 300 calories more than you would living a sedentary lifestyle. So a 175 pound person who burns an average of 300 calories per day from walking would need to consume about 2,400 [(175 pounds x 12) + 300] calories to keep their weight constant. Subtract about 200 to 300 calories to facilitate weight loss or add 200 to 300 calories to promote weight gain.

Adjusting Your Diet:

Regulating the number of calories you consume can be far less difficult than we often make it out to be. For most of us, this means finding ways to reduce the number of calories we consume. Typically, when trying to cut calories, you need not look beyond what you are drinking. If your typical day includes drinking a lot of soda or other sugary drinks, making the switch to water can drop all the calories you need to cut. Also, if you find yourself eating a lot of fast food, swapping these greasy nightmares for quick homemade lunches can make a huge difference.

Finally, in all of the number crunching, one thing that should not get lost is that you want to make sure that most of the calories you take in are consistent with good nutrition. If you are moderately active and take in just 2,000 calories, but 1,200 of those calories are from potato chips, candy, and ice cream, you've effectively defeated the purpose of counting them. You don't have to give up your snacks, just have them in moderation.

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