Calories in / Calories Out

The most common question we get here at Prep Kitchen is ‘How many calories a day do I need to eat to lose or gain weight (muscle)?’ So here is a simple how to guide:

First things first, you need to work out how many calories a day you need to eat to maintain your current weight. This is known as Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). There are plenty of calculators available on the internet, the best one we have found can be used here: https://tdeecalculator.net/

For the purpose of this post, let’s take the average woman in the UK as an example. 35 years old, 5ft 3, 70kg (11 stone) and working an office job. Using these stats you will need to eat 1,807 calories a day just to maintain your current weight of 70kg.

So with your TDEE in hand it’s time to work out how many calories you need to eat to lose weight. A proven, comfortable and sustainable amount of weight to lose is 1 lb (approx 0.5kg) per week. To lose 1 lb of fat in a week you need to eat 500 calories a day less than it takes to maintain your current weight. In our example of the average woman in the UK that makes your target calories 1,307 per day. With Prep Kitchen this is 2 x Fat Loss meals + Breakfast each day.

Want to gain weight? Just reverse the process! To gain 1lb per week you will need to increase your daily calorie intake by 500 calories. For the average woman this means increasing your calories to 2,307 per day. With Prep Kitchen this is 3 x Muscle Gain meals per day + a protein shake.

Of course we highly recommend you do at least some exercise to speed up your progress and make you feel better (and increase your calorie allowance a bit).

But how do you know how many calories you’re eating per day? It’s time to start tracking what you eat! Simply download the MyFitnessPal app and make sure that every time you eat something you log it. All of Prep Kitchen meals are conveniently plugged into the app, so adding them to your daily tracker is easy. So whether we provide all of your calories or just some of them, Prep Kitchen is perfect for your meal prep.

At this point many of our clients are thinking “1lb! That’s nothing! I want to lose 30 lbs of fat and gain 10 lbs of muscle and look like Jennifer Lawrence / Wolverine / Brad Pitt in Fight Club!” The time for yo-yo dieting is over, you’ve found Prep Kitchen. These people achieved their goals through adhering to a sensible diet most of the time, they didn’t transform overnight. Likewise they didn’t completely give up cake, wine and burgers either. They just moderated their diet to have fewer treats and kept an eye on their calories whilst exercising. This is a change for life, you don’t want to reach your peak and only stay there for a week.

At the end of a few months following tried and tested fat loss and muscle gain methods with Prep Kitchen you’ll be a completely different, healthier and happier person!