33 calories a day

so, "inspired" by someone in another thread who suggested that i must have eaten a lot of donuts (doughtnuts) to gain 35 pounds in a decade, i did the math:

35 x 3500 = 122,500 extra calories
122,500calories/10years = 12,500 calories/year
12,500 cal/365 days = 33.561 calories/day

that's all it took: an extra 33 calories a day.  about a doughnut a week (i don't eat doughnuts, but for the sake of continuity).

what's your math?

That's about it for me...only now I've lost that 30 lbs and it took me 6 months.  Here's to the next 10-20!

I have 20 ponds to lose. That translates to 70,000 calories I must somehow burn, cut back on...or stuff in an envelope and send away. Kind of daunting if you think about it in that sense. Probably a good way to overwhelm yourself.....:(

To me, math is like Japanese. Since I don't speak Japanese, and I can't read Japanese....I have some trouble with math. So, how are you figuring out this complex mathamatical equation? (complex to me!)

I am 32, I have to lose 50 pounds. I don't like donuts much, but I have sure eaten a ton of brownies. Its a long road.

Interesting thread!

Discounting the pounds that I needed to gain to go from underweight to healthy weight, in college I gained a total of 45 lbs / 5 years... so

45 x 3500 = 157,500 extra calories

157,500 calories / 5 years = 31,500 calories / year

31,500 calories / 365 days = 86.3 calories / day  (604.1 calories / week)

Or approximately 6 extra cans of Dr. Pepper a week.  And that's probably how it happened LOL  To continue the doughnut analogy, that would be about 2 creme filled doughnut ovals a week according to CC.  I was bad LOL

Now I feel better about how it snuck up on me.  And more motivated to work it off.  After all, if it takes that slight of a surplus to add up to that many pounds in 5 years... then the reverse is true.  Even if I burn a slight deficit, it'll add up over time.

Let's see... let's say 100 lbs from when I was 18 to 31 (so 13 tears)

So... 7.7 lbs. a year..

If I'd taken in an extra banana a day (73 calories), I'd still be as overweight as I was when I first started losing weight two years ago.

yeah I did this in a journal entry a few months back: the problem with the math is that it doesn't account for the shift in your metabolism as you gain.

at 180 pounds (for instance) you need more calories to break even than you do at 140 . so theoretically, the 33 calories turns into 66...etc...as you get bigger.

The point is still valid however - it's a snowball effect, of which most people are unaware.

And the good news is, you do not have to cut too much of your intake to lose the weight. it's all about simple minor adjustments with a constancy of purpose. :)

okay, hk just confused me.

lulu, we have three different things going on: some (me included) are calculating how much extra they consumed in order to gain unwanted weight; some are calculating how much less they consumed in order to lose the weight; and some are calculating how much less they need to consume in order to lose the weight.

hk seems to be figuring out how much he could have eaten to stay at his highest weight?

if you want to tell me your story, i'll do your math ;)

I've always been overweight but I gained 30lbs in 2 years after I graduated college.

30lbs x 3500 cals/lb =105,000 extra calories

105,000 calories / 2 years = 52,500 cals/yr

52,500 cals/yr = 143.8 cals/day or 1006.6 cals/week

During that time I wasn't eating a lot, but boy was I drinking!  My drink of choice was a vodka redbull, and they have approximately 218 cals in them (I was drinking doubles with about half a can of red bull).  So that puts me at 4.6 vodka redbulls a week for 2 years... 

Looking at the math, I must've gotten off easy, since I KNOW I drank more than that! It makes me kinda wish I had that metabolism again! Lol!

Original Post by kathygator:

yeah I did this in a journal entry a few months back: the problem with the math is that it doesn't account for the shift in your metabolism as you gain.

at 180 pounds (for instance) you need more calories to break even than you do at 140 . so theoretically, the 33 calories turns into 66...etc...as you get bigger.

The point is still valid however - it's a snowball effect, of which most people are unaware.

And the good news is, you do not have to cut too much of your intake to lose the weight. it's all about simple minor adjustments with a constancy of purpose. :)

way to take confusing-enough 4th grade math and turn it into calculus.  or something.  sheesh!

Original Post by pgeorgian:

okay, hk just confused me.

What I do?

I was 100 lbs overweight when I was 31. I was at weight at 18. :) I just did the math from there. :)

Original Post by allydan:

Looking at the math, I must've gotten off easy, since I KNOW I drank more than that! It makes me kinda wish I had that metabolism again! Lol!

i know, hey?  but we can recover that metabolism.  anyone who tells you we can't is wrong!  i wasn't a jock when i was in my teens and 20s, but i moved a lot more than i did in my 30s!

hk, the banana threw me off.

umm... 1 banana is about 70 calories? At least according to CC

hee hee.

Here's something I find compelling:

You lose the last weight you put on first. With me that means when I really get down to where I should be, I'll be losing really old fat. I think this is why people plateau, the old fat (like some politicians who shall remain nameless for the sake of thread continuity) is much more stubborn. ;)

I wonder if it's like tree rings? If you can tell what a person's lifestyle was in '84 by the toxins present when you lose the '84 fat?

 Also I wonder if because the body supposedly replenishes all it's cells every 7 years, if you keep weight off for 7 years, does the body expel those empty fat cells, thus improving your chances of keeping it off?

I was always thin and healthy until about 1995 where I went from 130 to 145 (by 1997) and became pregnant.  Bed rest and pregnancy added on 65lbs. Gave birth at 210lbs.  Went down to 170lbs after and then slowly gained to where I am now...  So! I'm going to calculate 170lbs to 290 (my heaviest) which took about 8 yrs (as I've been losing on and off since 2006).

290lbs - 170lbs = 120lbs gained in 8 yrs

120 x 3500 = 420,000 extra calories

420,000cals/8 yrs = 52,500 cals per year

52,500cals/365 days = 143.8 calories per day extra

Original Post by kathygator:

I wonder if it's like tree rings? If you can tell what a person's lifestyle was in '84 by the toxins present when you lose the '84 fat?

so, the fat that i have now is the fat that i gained roughly six-seven years ago.  good - nothing incriminating in there ;)

Haha too funny....I JUST finished posting the exact same thing in the other thread in question...then I thought I'd see who else you were pissing off these days (call me a pg stalker lol) and found this one.

The math of it intrigued me because recently I have been freaking out a bit over it. I won't go into my past math - I can't even count that high - but my future math is what concerns me. Eating just 100 little calories over per day will translate into 1 lb per MONTH. That's 12 lbs per year. THat's 120 lbs in 10 years! I'm scared! Will I have to calorie count for the rest of my life?? Because I don't think I can ever be accurate enough to do it withiout counting. 100 calories is one banana, one cup of skim milk, one peice of bread....so easy to go over by that much. So yeah I've been a little concerned.

And uh just for fun....taking an average and not counting the yo-yoing....I gained 180 or so lbs over a 20 year period, which means about 87 cals per day over. I find this shocking. From all the binge eating and drinking I did in my early 20's, I should be a house. All this time I thought my metabolism was faulty, when actually it's been a freakin powerhouse to manage all that extra intake!!

Heh! Failed drug test? Just tell them you recently lost your 1984 fat :D

Original Post by victoriagirl:

Haha too funny....I JUST finished posting the exact same thing in the other thread in question...then I thought I'd see who else you were pissing off these days (call me a pg stalker lol) and found this one.

i saw that, vic.  thanks!

the only explanation i can come up with is that carleyrapp is CDII in disguise.  but i think carleyrapp was around before CDII.

Original Post by kathygator:

Here's something I find compelling:

You lose the last weight you put on first. With me that means when I really get down to where I should be, I'll be losing really old fat. I think this is why people plateau, the old fat (like some politicians who shall remain nameless for the sake of thread continuity) is much more stubborn. ;)

 

It makes sense!! The first 50 came off really easy, but now every pound is a struggle. I am creating a deficit that should result in 1.5 lbs per week, but often I lose nothing at all. Stubborn old fat, clearly!