Do you know how many calories every meal of the day can really have? And how can you ideally distribute calories or meals to fulfill the day’s requirements?
When you’re eating a meal, you don’t even measure the number of calories you get. It’s imperative for those who wish to lose those extra kilos by cutting off their food. Some people tend to distribute their calorie intake over three meals a day, while others like to spread it over five meals a day. This may require snacks in the morning and evening. But do you know how many calories every meal of the day should really have? Or how will you ideally break it to fulfill the day’s requirements? We’ve unlocked all the answers that could help you decide how many calories you need to consume in a day.
The average man and woman’s total calorie consumption is 2100 calories a day and 1900 calories a day.
While each person’s daily caloric consumption is individual, based on their personal goals and desires, nutrition experts estimate that the average daily intake of each meal can be broken down following:
- 300 to 400 calories for breakfast
- 500 to 700 calories for dinner and lunch
- Snacks are not supposed to exceed 200 calories
Balance and BMR
If eating most of your calories before noon just doesn’t seem possible for your lifestyle, don’t worry. If your goal is to lose, gain, or maintain your weight, you can do that by spreading your calories in the way that best fits your schedule. Weight maintenance is, first and foremost, a matter of calories versus calories. One way to do this is to determine your basal metabolic rate (BMR). BMR refers to the basic amount of calories your body requires to work optimally with a sedentary lifestyle. You can calculate your BMR using the following equation:
- Male: (88.4 + 13.4 x kg weight) + (4.8 x centimeter height) – (5.68 x age).
- Female: (447.6 + 9.25 x kg weight) + (3.10 x centimeter height) – (4.33 x age)
Once your BMR has been established, it should be adjusted to fit your physical activity level by multiplying your BMR by the corresponding amounts:
- Sedentary: BMR x 1.2
- Mildly active: BMR x 1.375
- Moderately active: BMR x 1.55
- Very active: BMR x 1.725
However, to make it easier, you could only use a calorie calculator to track math and calorie.
How do you distribute your meals throughout the day?
Many nutritionists suggest distributing five meals a day, highlighting three important meals (such as breakfast, lunch, and dinner) and two lighter meals (preferably in the morning and afternoon).
Breakfast
This seems to be a lighter breakfast, so most people don’t want to eat anything heavy in the morning.
Aim of no more than 400 calories from different components. Try to maximize your nutrient intake, and ensure that you’re satisfied till lunch rolls around.
Any breakfast in the 100-to 150-calorie range would be too little. And you run the risk of causing your hunger to build up and overeat for the rest of the day.
Ideal breakfast looks like:
- Two slices of sprinkle grain bread with half a medium avocado (350 calories)
- Or three-quarters of a cup of plain Greek yogurt, a cup of blueberries, and two large boiled eggs (350 calories)
What it doesn’t look like is a cereal bowl.
One-and-a-half cup of Raisin Bran is 300 calories, not counting milk, and includes 28 grams of sugar. This is equal to seven cubes of sugar. Considering that your daily intake of sugar is about six teaspoons, you will essentially have gone over your daily limit for breakfast.
Lunch
This is a meal that most people are likely to eat, which makes it especially easy to get wrong, especially if you don’t know that not all salads are prepared in the same way.
Restaurant salads are a perfect example of how you can make a mistake in eating more calories than you thought. Sometimes with creamy dressings and toppings like cheese and nuts, the dishes can get up to 1,000 calories.
Skipping out of calorie-dense toppings like croutons or bacon bits, ask for an oil and vinegar-based dressing, and put it aside so that you can dictate how much to pour-over.
Perfect lunch is:
- A grilled chicken salad with an oil-based dressing (500 calories)
- Or a Mexican salad bowl with beans, salsa, corn, and avocado (600 to 700 calories).
If you’re making a sandwich, skip your foot with blended cold cuts, mayonnaise, and avocado (1,500 calories) and take a six-inch turkey breast and mustard sandwich (200 to 300 calories).
Dinner
A vegetable burger seems like a healthy dinner choice, but because of the fillers used, such as rice and beans, it can be very high in calories. Add extra calories from the bun and any additional cheese, condiments, or toppings such as sautéed mushrooms, and you may choose to have a 1,000-calorie dinner.
The same goes for pasta, which claims it is chronically over-eating.
One serving of pasta is a half-cup cooked or roughly one-quarter cup uncooked— it’s not a big portion. Yet most people eat two cups of cooked pasta, which is four servings in one sitting.
A good way to eyeball your pasta portion is to aim at the size of your closed fist. Add vegetables to your sauce and lean protein, such as fish or ground turkey, to make it more substantial.
Regardless of what you eat, you do want to have protein in your meal. If you don’t want to cook, try picking up a chicken and try distributing the meat to your meals for a few days.
The perfect dinner looks like:
- Three ounces of pan-seared salmon. Half a cup of brown rice and sautéed spinach (700 calories)
- Or black bean salad with cheese and vegetables and a side of unsalted edamame (600 to 700 calories).
Snacks
Often, it’s not the main foods that are responsible when it comes to over-consuming calories. Healthy snacks can even pack a wallop. For example, most people don’t know that a medium-sized avocado can have up to 400 calories.
The fruit is a perfect snack, but you could overdo it. You don’t want to distribute more than three meals a day and spread them every day. If you eat that all at once, you’re going to consume a lot of sugar in one go, and it could overwhelm your body. This is especially dangerous for people who are diabetic or pre-diabetic.
Perfect snack seems like:
- One-quarter cup of nuts or seeds (200 calories), one-and-a-half ounce cheddar cheese (170 calories)
- Or one-quarter of avocado with a slice of whole-grain bread (150 calories).
The Bottom Line
It is advisable to contact a professional before starting this meal schedule. A professional is the right person to point to a meal schedule that works for you. In case you can’t afford a professional, there are so many apps that can help you with so.
