How Many Calories Should You Eat as A Soccer Player? How to Track Your Calories

In order to be a successful athlete, and be able to perform to the top of your ability, you must build a strong, lean, athletic physique.

A low body fat, and high percentage of muscle mass, will allow you to be strong on the pitch, and be able to be physically on par, or even above, your opponents.

In the last blog post, I discussed why having a healthy, low body-fat percentage is important for soccer athletes, and I briefly revealed how to lose fat and by staying in a calorie deficit.

But not many people know or understand how to track your calories, and to make sure that they're actually staying in a deficit.

In this blog post, you will learn exactly how to count and track your calories, as well as a few tips to help you lead a successful diet to help you lose fat / build muscle as efficiently as possible, while also making sure your performance is optimized.

How Many Calories Should You Eat To Lose Fat?

In order to lose fat, you must stay in a calorie deficit. There's no way around it. There's no magic pill, supplement, exercise or diet routine, that will help you lose fat, unless you are taking in less calories than what you burn.

But be careful with that wording, this doesn't mean you have to eat 800 calories in total if you burn 1,000 calories for that day. Your body needs enough calories to function properly and be able to maintain it's internal system working properly.

So, how do you know how many calories you have to consume?

Here's a basic step-by-step procedure to know how many calories you should eat for the day.

Step 1: Calculate Your BMR

Your BMR is your Basal Metabolic Rate, which is basically the number of calories your body burns passively. Even when you aren't doing any exercise or activity, your body is constantly burning calories in order to keep it's internal systems in check.

Basically, your BMR is the number of calories your body burns if you were to sit on your couch all day, and burn 0 active calories.

Your BMR should be the minimum amount of calories you must consume in a day.

Why? Because your body needs those calories to be able to function properly.

If you only care about your aesthetics and not your athletic performance, then by all means go under that minimum and starve your body of it's function, but as competitive athletes, our body's need those calories to be able to support muscle growth, recover properly, and provide your body with the energy it needs.

In order to calculate the number of calories from your BMR, you could go online and search up an online BMR Calculator and type in your height, weight, gender, and age to approximate how many calories you roughly burn in a day.

Step 2: Find Out How Many Calories You've Burned

The next step to finding out how many calories you're supposed to eat in a day, is by calculating how many calories you've burned throughout the day during your training sessions, workouts, outdoor walks, etc.

This will be relatively easy if you have a fitness watch, which tracks your calories as you go about your day. Personally, I use an Apple Watch, which I almost never take off. The watch keeps track of how many calories I've burned throughout the day, as well as how long I've worked out for, and how many steps I've taken.

I highly recommend the Apple Watch to anyone who is looking to get an accurate measure of their activity and health.

What's so great about the Apple Watch is that is also has a workouts feature, which allows you to track your workouts, and it tells you how many calories you've burned, your heart rate, etc. as your go about your workout. There are huge varieties in the workouts, from different sports, to strength training, cross training, HIIT, swimming, runs, etc.

However, I know that not many people might be able to afford the hefty price tag of an Apple Watch. If you would like a cheaper alternative, check out This Fitness Watch, and use my code "GOGRIND" for 10% off your order!

If you're looking to stay away from spending any cash on a watch (which I recommend investing at least in a cheap one since it's an amazing tool to track your activity), then you can simply just look up online how many calories you would expect to burn through a specific workout.

For example, you would typically burn anywhere from 300-500 calories from 1 hour of lifting weights or doing traditional strength training.

You burn around 300 calories from an hour of walking.

You burn around 700-900 calories from an hour of running.

All of these different quantities can be found online, however, if you're looking for the best, most accurate results, then getting a fitness watch is your best option.

Step 3: Add The Number of Calories You've Burned to Your BMR

Once you've determined how many calories you've burned throughout the day, the next thing you should do is adding the calories you've burned to your Basal Metabolic Rate.

You should do this before you start your day. Plan out your workouts, and determine the expected number of calories you're going to be burning for the day.

For example, if I am planning to do an Upper Body Workout and a Full Training Session, I would probably expect to burn around 1,000 to 1,300 calories for the day. This is how much I am predicting to burn, so I would add these values to my Basal Metabolic Rate and find out a range of calories that I should aim to eat for the day.

My Basal Metabolic Rate is 1,743 kcal, according to the calculator I used online.

BMR + Burned Calories = Total Calories You Need to Eat to MAINTAIN

Ex. 1,743 kcal + 1,000 kcal = 2,743 kcal.

2,743 calories would be how many calories I would have to eat for the day in order to maintain my current level of bodyfat and my weight.

Step 4: Subtract 200-500 Calories From That Total

If you want to lose fat, you need to eat in a calorie deficit, so once you've calculated how many calories you need for the day to maintain, the next thing you need to do is find out how many calories you need to eat a day in order to guarantee that you are losing fat.

This is easily achieved by simply subtracting a number of calories from the total you've calculated in Step 3.

For example, if I wanted to find out how many calories I need to eat to lose fat, I would subtract around 200-500 calories from my maintenance calories, which I calculated to be 2,743 kcal. This means that the number of calories I need to eat daily in order to lose fat over time, would be anywhere from 2,243 kcal to 2,543 calories if I were to burn 1,000 calories a day.

I recommend not going under 500 calories when staying in a deficit, because eating too little will cause you to feel too fatigued, it will cause you to lose motivation in your diet, and it will lead to muscle loss since your body doesn't have enough energy from food it needs to be able to fuel itself. Since it doesn't have enough fuel, not only is it going to be using up your fat stores, it will also start breaking down muscle tissue in order to get that energy.

This is why you must take your deficit slowly, eating in a slight calorie deficit over a long-period of time will overtime shred your body of that extra bodyfat, while also still making sure you're not getting too fatigued, or losing muscle.

Step 5: Stay Consistent

The last one is probably the hardest step of all when trying to lose weight, and that is being consistent over the long term.

Many people 'go on a diet' for like a week or two and expect to see immediate results.

That's not how fat loss works.

Fat loss is a process, and it will take some time for your body to use up all of that extra bodyfat and get you to lower and lower levels in your body composition.

Especially if you're on the higher end with a high body fat percentage. It will take you a lot longer than someone who is right on the fence of achieving their desired physique.

This is because your body has more fat to use up, thus it will take longer for it to use up all of that extra weight.

Don't chase numbers on the scale, since most of the time this will be inaccurate, your body will constantly fluctuate in weight as you go about your day.

It's better to check your weight by averaging out your weight from week to week, or the month, and checking your progress that way. Also consider taking progress photos, and measurements to see results.

As long as you are staying consistent with your nutrition, and your exercise routine, you will lose fat. But you must understand that it will take a lot of patience and sacrifice.

If you're looking for ways to improve your nutrition and improve healthy-eating habits, then feel free to check out this Free Nutrition Guide.

How Many Calories Do I Need to Eat to Gain Muscle?

In order to gain muscle mass, you must follow a good strength-training program that will consistently challenge your muscles to push past their limits, break down, and then regrow those damages muscle fibers to become stronger and bigger.

You can technically gain muscle whether you're trying to lose fat, maintain, or gain weight, but it is SO much easier to gain muscle by staying in a calorie surplus.

A calorie surplus is the opposite of a calorie deficit. It is taking in more calories than what you're burning.

"But Wait!" I hear you asking, "Why would you want to eat more than what you burn? That will only make you fatter!"

And you are right by that. Staying in a calorie surplus for too long will overtime make you fatter. This is why many people struggle with losing weight and are constantly confused as to why they're not losing weight. This is due to the fact that they are unaware of the amount of calories they are eating, which means they are at a higher risk of eating at a calorie surplus, which goes against their goal of trying to lose fat.

However, if you program your calorie surplus correctly, you will actually be helping your body stimulate it's muscle building process a lot more than if you were to eat at a calorie deficit or at maintenance.

As long as you are staying in a slight calorie surplus then you shouldn't expect to see too much gain in bodyfat (but understand you will gain a little bit of bodyfat regardless), since those extra calories are going straight to your sore muscles in order to rebuild them and make them bigger.

When our bodies are trying to rebuild our muscle fibers, it relies on protein synthesis, which is why protein intake is very important when following a proper diet, but it also relies on calories (another way to say energy) in order to fuel the working cells in your body that are aiding your internal processes.

Here's a step by step guide on how to know how many calories you should eat if you're trying to gain muscle. (Hint: It's very similar to our step-by-step process above).

Step 1: Calculate Your BMR

Step 2: Find How Many Calories You've Burned

Step 3: Add The Number of Calories You've Burned to Your BMR

Step 4: Add 200-500 Calories to That Total

This is where the actual important step comes in for when trying to build muscle through your diet. It is important that you are taking in more calories than what you're burning out, in order for your body to have enough energy to send to those working muscles so that they can rebuild quicker.

Now, it's also really important to mention that you're not simply 'dirty bulking' or following a 'see-food, eat-food' diet. This will negatively impact your performance as an athlete since you will likely overeat too much and give your body more energy than it needs to fuel your muscle growth. Thus, you will gain EXTRA bodyfat that you could've avoided getting by simply sticking to a smaller surplus.

In order to make sure you are providing your body with enough nutrients to grow while also making sure you're not building too much fat in the process, you will want to stay relatively around the 200-500 calorie surplus range.

I recommend sticking to the lower number of calories if you're already pretty advanced with your training and have built a considerable amount of lean muscle mass, and I suggest sticking to the higher numbers of calories if you're really skinny and want to put on a few more extra pounds quicker.

Here's an example with my BMR and Calorie calculations:

BMR + Total Calories Burned + 300kcal = Total Calories In a Day to Build Muscle

1743 kcal + 1,000 kcal + 300 kcal = 3,043 kcal

In order for me too build muscle quickly, then I would have to consume around 3,043 calories a day if I were to burn 1000 calories from trainings and workouts.

Step 5: Stay Consistent

Just like losing fat, it's important to remain consistent with your training and your diet when trying to build muscle. You won't see huge gains from a few weeks of eating right and training right.

It's a process where you'll see small improvements over time, which will all stack up to big results in the long-term.

You can only achieve this by staying consistent, so make sure you are keeping it clean and training hard when bulking.

I Hope this blog post has helped you with any questions you might've had concerning calories and how to track them. Thanks for Reading! Get Up. Go GRIND.