Calculating Energy Requirements

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There is a big debate about whether calories in, calories out gives you the entire picture when it comes to nutrition. See for example, "Why most food labels are wrong about calories" or  "Not all calories are created equal". However, if you're just starting to track your nutrition then you've got to start somewhere and it's useful to have an idea of what your daily energy requirements might be. The formula I've been using is called The Schofield Equation and it calculates your BMR (basal metabolic rate) based on your gender, age and weight and then applies an activity level factor to calculate your daily energy requirements.

Here is a calculator for working out your predicted daily energy requirements based on the Schofield Equation:

Basal metabolic rate (BMR):
Estimated energy requirements:

Note: There is a margin for error provided (SEE or Standard Error of Estimation) by the equation which I haven't included here but essentially it means these figures could be 100-150 kcals above or below your actual requirements.

As I said at the start of this post there is a lot more to nutrition than counting calories but it's useful to have a ballpark figure in mind as you begin to track your nutrition.

This article was updated on May 25, 2019