Yesterday I did a blog on what the nurtionist said about calorie intake and what I actually do in a day and after a comment realized that the math can be scary for some. Unfortunately there is a lot of math in dieting. From counting calories, to tracking how many you burn, not to mention the BMI charts, and of course setting your differential. So it got me thinking that maybe there is a way to make it a little more simple. It also got me thinking how many people give up because they simply don't understand it or because it just seems like there are other difficult things that need more attention. So here we go.....
To figure your BMR go to a website that has a calculator. http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm
After plugging in my height, weight, male/female, and activity level it tells me I need....3294 calories a day to MAINTAIN my current weight of 265. Well I don't want to maintain my weight I want to lose weight so I create a differential by simply subtracting 500 calories from that....3294-500=2794 calories a day to consume to stay healthy and functional. So that was easy right?
Now to figure the fitness part....Now I have a nifty website that I use to track and figure all this stuff together for me. There are a few that are free and most now have smartphone apps as well. Fitbit.com and sparkpeople.com are two of the more popular ones. You simply plug in what you do and they figure the calories for you. You can also get a pedometer which will track the calories, steps walked, and miles you do in a day. They range in price from around $5.00 all the way up to $100.00+. Find the one that works right for you. All of my figures below are from the sparkpeople.com tracker.
Gym:
To figure your BMR go to a website that has a calculator. http://walking.about.com/cs/calories/l/blcalcalc.htm
After plugging in my height, weight, male/female, and activity level it tells me I need....3294 calories a day to MAINTAIN my current weight of 265. Well I don't want to maintain my weight I want to lose weight so I create a differential by simply subtracting 500 calories from that....3294-500=2794 calories a day to consume to stay healthy and functional. So that was easy right?
Now to figure the fitness part....Now I have a nifty website that I use to track and figure all this stuff together for me. There are a few that are free and most now have smartphone apps as well. Fitbit.com and sparkpeople.com are two of the more popular ones. You simply plug in what you do and they figure the calories for you. You can also get a pedometer which will track the calories, steps walked, and miles you do in a day. They range in price from around $5.00 all the way up to $100.00+. Find the one that works right for you. All of my figures below are from the sparkpeople.com tracker.
Gym:
1 hour on treadmill walking 3+miles=452
20 min on elliptical=405
total Gym Workout=857 calories
Home work out:
Just dance 30 mins=145
Crunches=134 calories
Wall Pushups=90
1 hour of housework=607
Jumping Jacks=52
1 hour of playing with Abbie=699
These here are just the numbers up top added together broke down by day:
Sundays (Just Gym)=857 calories
Mondays(complete homework out)=1727
Tuesdays(Just dance/Gym)=1002
Wednesdays(complete home)=1727
Thursdays(complete home)=1727
Fridays(just dance/gym)=1002
Saturdays(3 hours housework/playing with Abbie)=2520
Total Calorie Burn for week=10562
Now remember that just sitting and watching TV, breathing, sleeping we are still burning calories....check out http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php to see exactly what you are burning in just a nights sleep.
So up top I figured I needed to eat 2794 calories a day to function. So we take 2794*7=19558 calories to consume in a week. Burning 10562 in all the "fitness stuff". 19558 (calories consumed)-10562 (extra calories burned)=8996 calories left for week for body to burn by just being...sleeping, watching TV, breathing. Which is around 1265 a day and at my current weight I burn 811 in just 7 and 1/2 hours of sleep.
Tomorrow I will break down figure your cycling and making it work with your differential in better detail.
Happy Dieting
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