How to Calculate How Much Carbohydrates to Consume

Step 1

First off, you will need to know what your daily intake for calories should be. A Recommended Caloric Intake Calculator can be found online through a simple search. By entering your Age, Height (your real height guys!), Gender, and Activity Level (be honest!); you will get an estimate of where your daily caloric intake should be for general health.

Step 2

Now that you have your Caloric intake you can find the percent of those calories that should come from carbohydrates. The most recent research states that your diet should contain 45-65% of your total calories coming from carbohydrates. You also need to know that 1 gram of Carbohydrates converts to 4 calories.

Step 3

The next step is a simple calculation. For example, if a person’s caloric intake for the day 2,000 total calories and they want to get 60% of those calories from Carbs they would take .6 x 2000 = 1200 is 60% of 2000 and the amount of calories from carbs to take in.

Step 4

Now we need to find out how many grams of carbs are in 1200 calories in order to find out how many grams of carbohydrates this person should have daily. We find that by knowing 1g Carbs = 4 calories, so 1200 / 4 = 300 grams of carbohydrates/ day for someone looking to get 60% of their 2000 Daily caloric intake from carbs.

Step 5

Why the range? Carbohydrates can be a friend or foe depending on how they are being used. A marathoner’s diet, for example, will crowd on the higher side with 65% of their daily calories being from carbohydrates. This is because the endurance athlete uses these carbs for energy and with daily training burns through them steadily leaving little left at the end of the day to be stored. The average person getting far less activity through the day will not need that amount of carbs for energy. Any additional carbohydrates they have left will be stored in the body as fat (not a desirable outcome). Instead this sedentary to inactive person should look for a lower percent of their diet to come from carbs (while keeping within the healthy recommended range).