Training & Nutrition - How do I found out accurately how many calories I need?

Anyone know dependable calculators?

Anyone know dependable calculators?
You can get a power meter, probably the more accurate out of all the options.

40 Calories per mile, +/-

Amazingly close for most rides over an hour.

Did you mean for a ride or a day?

I use 21 kcal/km. That's about 34 kcal/mile.

I mean like how mnyn calories do I need in a day just to maintain current weight. I guess basal.

My method is to go to as many calorie calculation sites on the internet that I can find, plug my data in each ... and then pick the lowest result. Some people average them, but I prefer to go with the lowest one because I figure it is probably the most accurate.

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/bmrcalc.htm

calorie counter (http://www.kreuzotter.de/english/espeed.htm)

I mean like how mnyn calories do I need in a day just to maintain current weight. I guess basal.
Everyone's body is different so those online-calculators will have a wide range of results. Emperical data is the only accurate way to determine this. Track your weight vs. calories-eaten over time. If your weight stays steady, those calories/day is the maintenance number for you.

Everyone's body is different so those online-calculators will have a wide range of results. Emperical data is the only accurate way to determine this. Track your weight vs. calories-eaten over time. If your weight stays steady, those calories/day is the maintenance number for you.

I agree. It's especially useless if you're active. Some days, I just go to work and (mostly) sit all day. Some days I ride my trainer. Some days I do a bit of weight lifting and stretching. Some days I spend 2 or 3 hours on the road. The extra calories I burn range anywhere from 0 up to around 3000.

Any tool is only as good as the person using it.

I use that BMR calculator and my HR monitor to estimate my daily caloric needs, and it agrees well with changes on the scale.

What I do is take the lower of the two methods for estimating BMR and multiply that number by 1.2 to account for my desk job (multiply your BMR by 1.4 if you have an active job). Then I add in what my HR monitor estimated for calories burned during exercise, and eat that amount. If I want to lose weight I subtract 500 from that number.

E.g. on an easy day it might look like this (1650 x 1.2) + 800 – 500 = 2280kcal.

Sure a whole bunch of estimates are used, but any errors pretty much cancel.

http://www.hussmanfitness.org/bmrcalc.htm

This website is fascinating. Thanks. I'm hooked.

Anyone know dependable calculators?Yeah, I can depend on them to be mis-used, depend on their results being wrong.

If you really want to know, get a powermeter. Anything else is just degrees of educated hypotheses.

Other people have posted base guidelines. For myself, I find that 600-700 cal/hr is pretty standard at endurance pace. Less at a recovery pace, more for difficult riding.

Barring more precise measurements, find a calculator and see if following its guidelines seem to put you in a weight loss or weight neutral state.

I use a heart rate monitor and this BMR calculator: http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/.