That’s the secret. Nothing else really matters. As long as we are able to satisfy this inequality, the weight should go down. I’ve been trying to do this for the past few weeks, and unfortunately, the weight is not shedding. This means one of two things:
(1) I an underestimating my intake or
(2) I need to adjust my target
Over the weekend, I visited the blog of one of the people who got me into the whole physical fitness thing a few years back. Xeno Muller is an Olympic medalist in the sport of rowing, winning Silver in 2000 and Gold in 1996 in the single scull. His website is a wealth of knowledge from someone who lived this stuff while training for the Olympics. If you are serious about rowing, check out his stuff!
One of Xeno’s blog posts covers calculating Base Metabolic Rate (BMR). I used the equation to check to see whether what MyFitnessPal is telling me is correct:
BMR = 66 + (6.23 times your weight in pounds) + (12.7 times your height in
inches) - (6.8 times your age in years)
If I put the numbers in, I calculate a BMR of 2189 calories. If I reduce that by 20% to allow for weight loss, I get a calorie allowance of 1751 calories. Compare that to what MyFitnessPal has been giving me – 2030 calories! Since, I’m not losing weight with the old number, I’m going to use the new number for a while and see what happens. My goal is to lose about a pound a week and grind my weight back into the respectable range in the next year.
So, here are the new numbers for today:
Calorie budget:
- Food Allowance: 1780
- Exercise Adjustment: 290 (2 miles)
- Total calorie budget: 2070
- Total consumed: 1945
- Too few/(too many): 125
Let’s keep it cranking!
Thanks for this post! You've made me do my own check of numbers, and I've been rather off too. My weight has been maintaining, but I haven't been able to lose. Good luck! Sounds like you're in a good place to shed some of those extra pounds!
ReplyDeleteI use MyFitnessPal to keep track -- or I should say... I HAD been. I've been slacking off in my logging lately!!
ReplyDeleteHello Glenn! It was great to see you the other day. I have to admit, my most effective way to lose weight and keeping it off, with MINIMAL training are the SLOW CARB FOODS.
ReplyDeleteI read it in the 4HOUR BODY by Tim Ferris. My family thinks I am crazy to eat like that, but it is extremely effective. It is quite an awakening for me, because I had no idea how much my body assimilated simple carbs into fat straight away. I was born that efficient and I don't think getting less young is making it any easier.
In the first month I lost 25 pounds, UNBELIEVABLE. I bought lots of lentils from Trader Joes and other repetitive stuff but the weight came off and I felt so much better.
If I had the time to train 2 hour per day.... maybe I would look a thin. The problem with working out is that you might get more hungry than you need to. So exercise, like anything in this world, is best done in moderation.
Now that I am lighter, I am watching my own workouts and follow them on the Waterrower. It is funny to listen to the stuff I came up with when I ran the indoor rowing studio.
I hope your flights are uneventful.
Thanks for throwing my name into your blog!
I hope your boys are doing great.
Over and out!
Xeno
facebook.com/xenocoach :-)
But if you've lost-gained-lost-gained a number of times, your metabolism might not work so neatly as those numbers say, it could have slowed down considerably. Then you'd need to eat even less than someone of your height and weight who hadn't roller coastered. The same for when you're ready to maintain your weight, you'll still need to eat less.
ReplyDeleteI up the lb loss with mfp per week to calibrate where i wanna be so if i even lose 1 then something is right.
ReplyDelete