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Health

What is a Calorie Calculator?

By Felicia Dye
Updated May 17, 2024
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The units of energy people obtain from food are known as calories. People are commonly encouraged to be aware of and to manage their calorie intake and expenditure. A calorie calculator is a tool that can help people do this. Some help people by calculating how many calories they should consume within a day. Others help people by calculating how many calories they are burning.

Basal metabolic rate (BMR) refers to the minimum number of calories that a person should have every day. This amount depends on a number of circumstances including sex, age, and daily activities. If a person does not consume sufficient calories, she could experience unwanted weight loss or become malnourished.

To prevent this from happening, people sometimes use calorie calculators to determine their needs. A calorie calculator generally assesses the person’s individual information. Sex, for example, can play an important role in caloric needs. Height, weight, and age are also commonly assessed. This information can be fed into the calorie calculator, which can provide personalized feedback regarding a person’s needs.

Weight gain is one of the adverse effects of consuming significantly more calories than a person burns. Some calories are burned while a person is resting. This is commonly referred to as the resting metabolic rate (RMR). More calories are burned when people engage in various activities. A calorie calculator can help a person determine how many calories she is burning.

To do this, a person generally needs to supply input regarding her activities. She may be asked how many hours per day she spends resting and how many she spends engaged in activities. Some calorie counters can request a breakdown of activities and times. For example, a person may need to input that she jogs a certain distance or for a certain period and that she also swims a certain distance or for a certain period each day. Once she provides this information, the calorie calculator will provide feedback about the number of calories she burns.

Calorie calculators are available as small battery-operated instruments. A person does not have to spend money for these items however. Calorie counters are widely available on the Internet for free use.

A person who plans to buy or use a calorie calculator may want to do a bit of research about the tool. All calorie counters are not the same and some may provide inaccurate information. It is best to find out who is responsible for developing the tool and the method it uses to reach its conclusions.

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Discussion Comments

By Chmander — On Nov 12, 2014

With all this talk about calories and weight gain, I'm sure that I'm not the only one who has noticed that people tend to gain a lot more weight when they're at home, as opposed to being at college.

Using one example, when I had graduated from college a year and a half ago, one thing I noticed is that I had lost a lot of weight. Generally speaking, I didn't eat the college food that much because I thought it was pretty crappy, and low quality. However, because the food at home is a lot more "edible", that's when I had begun to get all of my weight back.

Obviously, this isn't always the case, and there are always exceptions, but it's really something you should consider, especially if you plan on going to college soon.

Before you head off to college, measure how much you weigh. When you come home during the Holidays, see whether you've gained or lost weight. It really makes for some interesting comparisons.

By Hazali — On Nov 11, 2014

While I've never used a calorie calculator before, I'm certainly considering buying one after reading this article. In my opinion, for those who want to watch their weight, it shouldn't be much of a problem unless it's around the Holidays.

Obviously, there are other days to be considered, but I've always felt that Thanksgiving and Christmas were some of the most vital, and it's not just because people eat lots of food.

During the winter, people normally stay inside all of the time and gain lots of weight, especially if it's way too cold to go anywhere. This can certainly cause a build up in calories. You could even consider it to be like a "hibernation" of sorts.

With that said, one thing I really appreciate about this article is how it brings up the fact that you need to be careful at what kind of calorie calculator you buy, especially because some of them might be very inaccurate.

In fact, this should always be something to consider when weighing yourself, as machines aren't always perfect, and can sometimes produce false information. Not always intentionally though.

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