Calories — Base Habits Coaching

Section 1

What a Calorie Is

A calorie is a unit of energy, and how many you take in versus burn decides whether you gain, lose, or hold steady.

Eat less than you burn, you lose. Eat more than you burn, you gain. Stored calories are body fat. That's the whole rule, plain and simple.

Section 2

Where Your Calories Go

Your TDEE breaks into four parts, and only one of them is really up to you.

TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure. It's the total number of calories you burn in a day. You'll also hear it called your maintenance calories, because eating that number is what holds your weight steady. Same thing, two names.

Same person, different daily steps, different TDEE

Calories per day

0 600 1,200 1,800 2,400

2,050

2,300

5,000 steps/day10,000 steps/day

BMR

TEF

EAT

NEAT

Illustrative example. The only thing that changes between these two bars is the person's daily steps. That's the difference NEAT makes.

01

BMR, Basal Metabolic Rate

Calories burned just existing. Breathing, thinking, pumping blood. This is the biggest slice by far, and it isn't something you can move much day to day. More muscle nudges it up over time, but not overnight.

02

TEF, Thermic Effect of Food

Calories burned digesting what you eat. It shifts slightly with more protein, since protein takes more effort to break down. Realistically, it's not worth chasing.

03

NEAT, Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis

Basic movement outside of a workout. Walking, fidgeting, moving through your day. This is the piece you actually control, and it's why 10,000 steps is the target during the two week rule.

04

EAT, Exercise Activity Thermogenesis

Time spent training. A small piece of your total burn, smaller than most people assume.

Here's the part people get backwards. A single gym session and a long walk burn a similar amount. The difference is that your daily movement happens every day, whether you train or not, and it adds up to far more over a week than three or four workouts do. That's not a reason to skip the gym. It's a reason to go there to build strength and let your steps handle the burn. Going to the gym takes extra planning and time. You can get your steps in anywhere.

Section 3

Eating vs Drinking Calories

A drink and a meal can cost the same calories, but only one of these makes you feel full.

Liquid calories count the same as food calories, but they don't do the same job. The problem isn't only that a drink is less filling in the moment. It's that you don't eat any less later to make up for it. A 300 calorie soda gets added to your day rather than subtracted from your next meal, so your total goes up either way.

Most drinks also carry no protein and no fiber, which are the two things that actually make you feel full. That's the difference.

This matters more once you're in a deficit, since every calorie needs to work harder for you.

The Macros page goes deeper on protein and fiber. Rule of thumb: don't drink any liquid calories. Water, diet soda, and zero sugar soda are all fine. BUT DRINK YOUR WATER. Macros

Section 4

How to Calculate Your Calorie Target

Here's how to calculate your own numbers.

You don't have to run any of this yourself. Send me your numbers and I'll calculate your target for you. This section is here for anyone who wants to understand the math or check it themselves.

01

Step 1: Find your BMR

Men: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) + 5

Women: BMR = (10 x weight in kg) + (6.25 x height in cm) - (5 x age) - 161

Quick conversion: pounds divided by 2.2 = kg. Inches x 2.54 = cm.

02

Step 2: Find your TDEE

Multiply your BMR by an activity number:

Level	Description	Multiplier
Sedentary	little to no exercise	x 1.2
Lightly active	light exercise 1 to 3 days a week	x 1.375
Moderately active	moderate exercise 3 to 5 days a week	x 1.55
Very active	hard exercise 6 to 7 days a week	x 1.725

03

Step 3: Apply your deficit

We'll talk about where to start your deficit on the Two Week Rule page, but usually I subtract 300 to 500 calories from your TDEE. Subtract that number and that's your daily target. This is what it means when I say your target sits a few hundred calories under your maintenance. Two Week Rule

04

Worked example

Weight: 165 lbs (75 kg). Height: 5'5" (165 cm). Age: 35. Activity: lightly active.

BMR = (10 x 75) + (6.25 x 165) - (5 x 35) - 161	1,445
TDEE = 1,445 x 1.375	1,987
Daily target with a 400 calorie deficit = 1,587, round to	1,600

Note on rounding: round to the nearest 50. The formula is an estimate, not a measurement, and three-digit precision implies an accuracy it doesn't have.

Worth knowing: 3,500 calories is roughly one pound of body fat. A 500 calorie daily deficit works out to about a pound a week. That math holds up early and slows down as you go, because a lighter body burns less. This is exactly why we weigh daily and adjust from your real numbers instead of trusting the formula forever.

Closing

The Bottom Line

Think of your calories like a budget. Every day your body earns a set number of calories, your TDEE. Everything you eat is a withdrawal against that number. Spend exactly what you earned and your weight holds steady. Spend less than you earned and the shortfall gets pulled from savings, which is stored body fat. Spend more than you earned and the surplus gets deposited into savings.

Normally, saving money is the goal. Here it's flipped. Progress means pulling from savings, not adding to it. Once that clicks, everything above is just the mechanics of making it happen.

Every calorie in that budget goes somewhere. Protein, carbs, fat, and alcohol are the categories you're spending it on, and each one does something different once it lands. The Macros page picks up from here.

Next page Macros ›