Would you drive your car for a long road trip without knowing whether or not you'll run out of fuel? No. So why do people eat as much as they want every day, without knowing whether it's too much? Not knowing what your body’s daily energy requirements are means you’re almost certainly either under-eating or over-eating…and most people will tend to go over. Especially if you have a sedentary job or inconsistent exercise routine, it can be easy to go over your nutritional needs for the day without knowing it. This is because we often overestimate how much calories we’re burning throughout our normal daily activities, and underestimate how much calories are in the food we eat. When you go over your body's daily energy needs for an extended period of time, that excess energy has to go somewhere and it does - it gets stored as bodyfat.

For example, walking 30mins a day burns about 150 calories but that favourite chicken schnitzel sandwich we grab at the office café for lunch is 500 calories. If you’re 350 calories over your daily limit every day, you won’t gain weight tomorrow…or in a week. But being constantly over your limit for months or years can cause you to gain weight so gradually that you don’t notice the layer of fat forming because it happens so slowly – until one day you wonder why you look so different from how you did only a couple years ago. 

This is why it’s so important to know what your daily ‘maintenance level’ of calories is for your body, so you know whether you’re consuming too much (or too little) amount of food. I use the app My Fitness Pal as a guide to not only help me find my calorie limits, but also to track whether my meals are providing me enough calories and nutrients – or too many. If you struggle to keep your diet under control and believe you’re slowly getting out of shape because of it, I highly recommend using an app like MFP to help you get into the healthy habit of staying within your body’s daily energy limits.