Determining Daily Calorie Needs

Estimating daily calorie requirements is notoriously inaccurate. Even the very best calculators cannot determine the metabolic rate of an individual.
Quite simply - everyone is different!


NOTE: The Free Dieting Calorie Calculator uses the following formulas to estimated daily energy requirements:

• Uses Mifflin-St Jeor formula (see below).
• Can also select old formula (Harris-Benedict), and a formula based on Lean Mass - but you must know your body fat percentage.
• You can also choose BMR in the Exercise level. In this situation all weight loss calorie levels are blanked out.

The Best Guess

Calorie calculators will first estimate Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is effectively the amount of energy expended per day. BMR is a measure of only the most basic functions (effectively the same as if you rested in bed the whole day). Other terms synonymous with BMR are Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and Resting Energy Expenditure (REE).
Once BMR has been estimated, various "activity" factors are applied. Once again these are best guesses. One individual may burn 100 calories on a 10 minute run - another individual may burn 150 calories.

Mifflin - St Jeor Formula

The Calorie Needs Calculator currently uses the formula proposed by MD Mifflin and ST St Jeor¹.
Why This Formula? As recent as 2005, the ADA (American Dietetic Association) published a comparison of various equations². The Mifflin-St Jeor was found to be the most accurate.

Men
10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 5 x age (y) + 5
Women
10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 5 x age (y) - 161.

Katch-McCardle Formula

This can be selected on the calculator. It is a variation¹ on the basic Mifflin-St Jeor equation that will base the equation on Fat Free Mass (FFM) or Lean Mass. This is more accurate for those who are leaner (and who know their body fat percentage!).

Men & Women
21.6 * Fat Free Mass + 370
Where Fat Free Mass = Weight - (Body Fat Percentage * Weight).

Harris-Benedict Formula

This formula was created in 1919, and due to changing lifestyles, it tends to overstate calorie needs by 5%. The results tend to be skewed towards both obese and young people³.

Men
66.5 + (13.75 X weight in kg) + (5.003 X height in cm) - (6.775 X age in years)
Women
655.1 + (9.563 X weight in kg) + (1.85 X height in cm) - (4.676 X age in years)

The Freedieting Calculator

After calculating the BMR, exercise is factored in. Depending on the exercise level chosen, the BMR will be multiplied by anything from 1.2 to 1.9.
This provides us with maintenance calories. To get the fat loss figure - 20% is subtracted. The extreme fat loss figure has 40% subtracted BUT - there is a "rock bottom" figure that equates to 8 calories per pound of body weight - the extreme fat loss will never be less than this amount.

See Also

Daily calorie needs for pregnant women.


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Does Vinegar Cleanse Your Body of Toxins

Doctors don't prescribe vinegar for digestive problems! but, it is an excellent  remedy for diarrhea!
We all heard of "Pectin" that is found in apple + vinegar's bacteria-killing abilities which can be use as a remedy for diarrhea.


Anyway, I came across this video "Charlotte Skiles" she talked about vinegar in general and then she summed up by talking about especially about apple cider vinegar.

http://tv.naturalnews.com/v.asp?v=D766F6F1E5DD86D00A1F3BEF32EB1DC3

Video Transcript: "Hi, my name is Charlotte Skiles. I'm a nutrition consultant and clinical herbalist with Eat in Peace Wellness Consulting, and the question today is does vinegar cleanse your body of toxins? Well, it depends on what kind of vinegar you're talking about. I would be inclined to speak about apple cider vinegar because it's a very health promoting beverage that you can consume. You put a little bit of apple cider vinegar, maybe a teaspoon to a tablespoon diluted in water, and that can go a long way to facilitating good digestion. Now, when you facilitate good digestion you do get a flushing of toxins from the system, but the thing to realize is that you're using the substance to empower your body to do its job. The body knows what to do if it's given the tools to do so. So, does vinegar cleanse toxins from the body? Indirectly, through its enhancement of digestion if that makes sense, so vinegar is a folk remedy, a long-term remedy specifically used when people experience a certain amount of joint pain, because what happens is the joints and the connective tissue don't get a lot of good circulation so toxins and immune complexes can kind of settle into the joints over time. That's the only way I know how to explain it. If they can't find their way out of the body they just settle where they can, and over the years a person might experience a certain amount of pain. Now, that's not to say that, you know, all joint pain originates from that. It's just it depends on the person's story and the context of their lives. There's lots of reasons for joint pains, but one of the ways that apple cider vinegar serves historically is a remedy for those sorts of patterns, and you're facilitating digestion once again by increasing the acidity of the stomach with something like apple cider vinegar. We want acid stomachs. What we want is an alkaline mouth, an acid stomach, an alkaline small intestine, and a somewhat more acidic colon. It alternates, so without that acid stomach, which a lot of people are taking antacids, you upset the entire digestive process because each level of digestion prepares the body for the next, so apple cider vinegar can go a long way to acidifying the stomach and helping digestion, thus indirectly cleansing the body of toxins. So, that's what I have to say about vinegar and its ability to cleanse the body." Vinegar can cleanse the body of toxins when the right vinegar is used, such as apple cider vinegar that facilitates healthy digestive function. Take a teaspoon to a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar on a regular basis to flush out toxins with helpful information from a nutrition consultant and clinical herbalist in this free video on alternative medicine.

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Study linking diet soda, stroke 'flawed'

A study linking diet soda to an increased risk for stroke presented at the American Stroke Association's 2011 International Stroke Conference earlier this week has attracted public outcry from health officials across the nation who feel the study findings are critically flawed.


“The findings are so speculative and preliminary at this point that they should be considered with extreme caution,” Beth Hubrich, MS, RD, of the Calorie Control Council, said in a press release.


Hubrich joins a chorus of criticism from the likes of Richard Besser, MD, chief health and medical editor at ABC News, and Walter Willett, MD, chair of the department of nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health. During a Feb. 10 segment that aired on Good Morning America, Besser and Willett voiced concerns about public fear that may arise in reaction to the findings.


“I think we have to interpret the findings about diet soda very carefully, in almost any first report, we shouldn't really change our behavior, because it could easily have occurred by chance,” Willett said.


Health officials are wary to endorse the study's conclusion that diet soda “may be associated with a greater risk of stroke, MI or vascular death than regular soda,” noting that the data have not been published in a scientific journal and therefore have not been subjected to typically rigorous peer review processes.


“There are a lot of factors that were not taken into consideration, so we can't really assume that there is a causal relationship between diet soda and stroke,” Jennifer K. Cleary, APN, C-NP, of the Lipid Disorders and Metabolic Syndrome Clinic at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago, told Clinical Advisor.


Although the researchers surveyed study participants about soda consumption at the beginning of the study, it does not appear that additional surveys were conducted during the nine-year follow-up period, Cleary pointed out. Also, the study did not take into account the type or brand of diet soda. This may be relevant as the chemical additives used for dyes and sweeteners may vary.


Other critics have pointed out that studies participants were older (69 years old on average); stroke is more common among men 55 years and older, as well as women aged 65 years and older.


Additional aspects of the study that raise concerns include the self-reported nature of soda intake data, the broad terms used to categorize soda consumption and the small sample size of participants who reported drinking soda daily (4.5%) — imprecision that makes it difficult to draw meaningful conclusions.


“[The researchers] didn't look at how much salt [participants] took in, they didn't look at what other foods they ate. Those things we know are associated with stroke and heart attack,” Besser said.


Cleary echoed these concerns, stating that people who choose to drink diet soda on a daily basis are probably not making the best diet choices. “They might also be consuming fast food and making other unhealthy lifestyle choices.”


Currently, the American Heart Association recommends using low calorie sweeteners in moderation, and regulatory agencies including the FDA vouch that products made with aspartame, sucrolose or saccharine are safe.

Source of this article "clinicaladvisor.com"

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