Women's Daily Nutritional Needs

There are several ways in which to compute your nutritional needs. I have a Body Mass Indicator Chart, but it is for both men and women, so I am always suspicious that it is not as accurate as some methods, but it DOES give you a good indication to just glance at.

Online at there are several including Health Check's "Simple Body Mass Calculator.".

I always feel that the MORE information that it asks me, the better the answer, so I have been quite fascinated by the one at Dietician.com because it even asks if I am pregnant (women), nursing, or perhaps an amputee. I like the print out, but it does NOT allow you to put in your meal breakdown percentages by 40-30-30. That's okay, it doesn't seem to affect the outcome.

The funny thing is, they all tell me the SAME BODY FAT PERCENTAGE!!!

The next step of the problem is to figure out how many BLOCKS you need to be eating per day. I have a program that I use when I do consultations, OR you can figure it out yourself below. Just don't be surprised if you are like 90% of the women whose daily block intake is 11 blocks!!!

So here is the COMPLETE way of doing this: A worksheet! Compute or recompute your protein/food block needs monthly. You want to lose about 1-1.5 pounds a week--more than that and you will be cutting into your lean body mass for calories to keep going. Recompute if you change your activity level or are losing more weight a week than this.

STRONG NOTE: Whatever the computational tables read, never eat less than 11 blocks a day! Even though the blocks and Dr. Sears books say 8 is the minimum, the first two books were published before he upped the daily minimum requirements.

Never eat more than 5 blocks a meal or 18 blocks a day. Never let more than 5 hours go without eating (except at night when sleeping). Give yourself one or two extra blocks to eat if you are carrying over 30 pounds in excess weight. That's like carrying a 30 pound pack around with you all day long!

Use the chart in Dr. Sears' book on pages 218-219, "Table 1 - Conversion Constants for Prediction of Percentages of Body Fat in Females".

PROPER USE OF WEIGHING MACHINE

"I can't believe it, I've been doing it wrong all these years...
we MUST get the word out!"

That's why it's important that we MEASURE INCHES, not pounds. All machines weigh differently!

Instructions for Step 1:

Step 1: Percentage of Body Fat Calculation

Average hip measurement ________________ = ____________ Constant A from Table 1

Average abdomen measurement ___________ = _____________Constant B from Table 1

Height in inches ________________________ = _____________Constant C from Table 1

Add Constant A + Constant B minus Constant C = Your Percentage of Body Fat

_____________ + __________ - __________ = _____________________% Body Fat

Now don't freak out! Women need to have about 22% body fat! You can try to figure out how much extra you have in just a minute or two, but you are better off just saying that you will eat to feed your Lean Body Mass, and your body will find that perfect weight on its own.

Step 2: Your Lean Body Mass Calculation

Your Weight times your % of Body Fat equals your Total Body Fat Weight

____________ x ___________________ = ____________ Pounds of Body Fat Weight

(Remember, all you Numerically Challenged, to multiply your weight by say 33% body fat is 0.33, unless you have a percentage key on your calculator. Sorry about that decimal stuff, we won't do it again for another month!.)

Your Physical Activity Factors

For each pound of Lean Body Mass, you need a certain number of grams of protein to support it. Use the above table to figure out how many below:

______________ Your Lean Body Mass (LBM) from Step 1

x _____________ Your activity factor (from above Table)

= _____________ Your daily protein requirement, Divide by 7 = __________Daily Blocks

Multiply your LBM by your activity factor. This equals the number of grams of protein you need to eat each day. Divide your daily protein requirements by 7 grams of protein per block. This give you the Daily Blocks of Protein required to maintain your lean body mass each day.

You will also have the same number of blocks of carbohydrates each day, and the same number of blocks of fat each day. One complete food block looks like this:

One Block of Food

Now that you have figured out how much you need to eat each day, you are going to have to figure out when you are going to eat it and how much you are going to eat at each meal.

You will be eating:

Pardon my interruption, but perhaps you would like to start with an appetizer of Food Blocks. Maybe you feel bold enough to Plan Your Day. Now would be a good time to try either one...