Posts by bubbaluffaguss

Original Post by buubuu:

well...  im 48, 5'7", wasssssss 263 and i Upped my calories this past Saturday to 1800 to be closer to my BMR and i dont know why but today i weighed myself and im now 267.5...  SHOULD THIS HAPPEN???  might i Gain Weight before i start to lose?  can someone explain this to me?  thanks!

So you gave it a whole 4 days huh? Let me ask you this. How many calories in a pound of fat? That's right 3500. So, this being the case, do you really think that you gained 4 1/2 pounds of fat by eating 300 calories more than you were a day? Let's do the math. 3500 x 4.5 = 15,750 calories. You ate 1200 extra compared to what you were eating. Is it fat? No. It is water weight. My weight fluctuates by at least 5 pounds a day depending on when I weigh myself. If you can't take the daily fluctuations in water weight, then you shouldn't weigh yourself daily. If you really feel the need to weigh in daily, then use the weight log on this sight. Weigh yourself, log it in, and then immediately forget it. It is virtually useless. The trend is what matters. If you want an explanation of why you should track your trend and not rely on your daily weight, then go here http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/e4/  I think he explains it pretty well.

You should always eat your BMR, which automatically creates a deficit for you because your BMR is less than your RMR (daily burn) unless you are in a coma. If you want to increase your deficit, then increase your exercise.

According to the container I have in the fridge 1 cup=227 grams.

First of all, you really need to make up your mind what you want to accomplish first. Lose fat or gain muscle? You really can't do both at the same time. Losing fat requires a calorie deficit. Adding muscle requires a calorie surplus. You may see some initial muscle gains if you are new to weight training but the "newbie gains" won't last long. The idea is to maintain muscle mass while losing fat but unless you are a genetic freak, you won't be able to gain long term on a caloric deficit. Also, you are doing too much cardio for muscle gain. It is counter productive. See this post:

http://caloriecount.about.com/forums/post/112 368.html

As for the deficit, you really do need to go with a smaller one. You can safely lose 1% of your body weight per week. For you that is about a 750 calorie deficit max.

If by hand held monitors you mean the once that measure by bio impedance, then they have about the same margin of error as the scales that give you your body fat percentage, about +/- 8%. They are also limited in that the hand held ones only measure your upper body where the scales only measure your lower body.

Calipers on the other hand are only as good as the person that is using them. If they know what they are doing, calipers can be very accurate.

Your Estimated BMR (calculated at http://phord.com/cc):
BMR=1904 :: RMR=2285

Your customized recommendation:
EAT 1904 calories :: BURN 2285 calories :: LOSE 0.76 lb per week

Reasoning:

Deficits: Your deficit is the difference between how many calories you eat and how many calories you burn. Your recommended deficit is 381 calories. This is the least of your Activity Deficit (381 calories), your Safety Deficit (1225 calories), and your Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (which cannot be calculated without knowing your body fat percentage).

Activity Deficit (381 calories): This is the number of calories you burn in your daily activities (such as being awake, driving to work, exercising, doing homework, etc.). This is an estimate based on the amount of exercise you indicated you do each week in the form above, averaged out for daily deficit numbers. For sedentary individuals this is 20% of your BMR.

Safety Deficit (1225 calories): Nutritionists say that you can safely lose no more than 1% of your body weight per week. For the weight you gave (245 lb), you can safely lose about 2.45 lb per week. Because each pound of body fat contains 3500 calories of energy, your safe deficit is 2.45 lb * 3500 calories per pound per week = 8575 calories per week, which comes to 8575 / 7 = 1225 calories per day.

Maximum Fat Calorie Expenditure (unknown without body fat percentage): One study found that body fat in humans can be converted to energy at a maximum rate of 31 calories per pound of actual body fat per day. Any energy you expend beyond this rate comes from your intake of nutrients and the breakdown (catabolysis) of your muscles. Weight loss in most people consists of about 75% FAT and 25% MUSCLE. Since we can calculate the actual amount of body fat in your body using your Body Fat Percentage (if given), we can determine the optimal calorie deficit to focus on FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS. To optimize your FAT BURN instead of MUSCLE LOSS, you should choose a deficit that does not exceed this value. (Persons wishing to lose muscle as well as fat can ignore this deficit limit.)

Edited to add:

BMR and RMR are used pretty interchangably even though they are really not the same thing.

BMR is what your body needs for basic functions just to keep you alive. As someone already stated, this is what you would burn if you were in a coma.

RMR is your BMR times an activity multiplier. In the case of sedentary, it is 1.2. In other words, if you are sedentary you burn about 20% more calories than your BMR.

Do you use the weight log on this site? If you don't, since you are weighing yourself every day anyway, you should start using it. Log your weight every day. Once you log your daily weight, immediately forget about it. It is virtually meaningless. What you need to pay attention to is the trend (green line). This gives you a more accurate picture of what is happening with your weight. Your daily weight can and does fluctuate 5 pounds or more a day. The trend takes into account daily fluctuations in your weight by using the average for your last 10 weigh ins. If the trend line is going down, you are losing weight. If it is going up, you are gaining weight. It's that simple.

LW: 268

TW:269.5

Up 1.5lbs. but I predicted an increase last week. My weight loss is following a pretty predictable pattern. I don't really care about the daily weight as long as the trend line keeps going in the right direction. Let's see how predictable my pattern is. I say that my weight next week will be 266.5-267.5.

Since everyone is talking about their running experience I might as well add mine although I'm not sure if you can call what I do running. Finished W4D2 of C25K. I repeated week 3. I just wasn't ready to advance. It was more mental than physical but still. I just keep thinking that I have no business running. I weight 270 pounds. What the hell am I doing running? I guess I'm just surprised that my knees haven't shattered yet.

ledgehanger- If you are going to try the C25K program, I would second the suggestion on the running shoes. I started out doing the first week or 2 in my everyday sneakers. I went and got some good running shoes and I can tell you, they make a huge difference, at least to me. Also, C25K is a 9 week program but there is nothing that says you can't take more time than that if you want to. Like I said above, I wasn't mentally ready to move from week 3 to week 4 so I repeated. Looking ahead, I'm sure that it won't be the only week that I repeat. I just wish I could keep up with bobev. I think we started C25K the same week and he is just blowing me away.

Here is an interesting take on this subject called A Physicist's Weight Loss System: http://mb-soft.com/public2/diet007.html

It is a pretty interesting read.

330g is roughly 12 ounces so if you had 6 slices (1oz. per slice?), cut the 535 in half.

For what it's worth, I just checked this the other day when I was cooking pasta. I cooked 2 servings (4oz. dry) and out of curiosity weighed it after cooking. Four ounces dry came out to about 16 ounces cooked when cooked to tender. I was using Healthy Harvest whole wheat penne. I had added the sauce before I thought about weighing it after cooking so that probably added a little. I used 1 cup of sauce for 2 servings of pasta.

You may have been using a different type of pasta so I don't know if this will be relevant to you or not but it may at least give you a ballpark figure to work with.

The "Body Fortress Super Advanced Whey Protein (chocolate flavored)" is only about 100 calories per scoop. I don't think you have to worry about it making you fat. Just don't get anything that says "weight gainer" or anything like that on it and you shouldn't have to worry about it. Some of those weight gainer formulas have over 1000 calories per serving.

LW: 274

TW: 274.5

Up a half pound this week but I am actually OK with that. It could have been worse. I went on a bit of a food bender on Saturday. It was the first time that I really fell off the wagon since I started this so I'm not going to worry about it. I did a little extra cardio to make up for some of the extra calories and I am back on the right track.

Week 3 day 2 is in the books for the C25K. I think I have to work on my breathing. Something to work on for day 3 week 3.

I'm not sure about the post that you are looking for but I think I can answer your other question. The are a few different formulas for figuring BMR. Harris-Benedict is good if you don't know your lean body mass. If you do know your lean body mass, then Katch-McArdle is probably a little more accurate. These are just two examples. There are others.

The Harris-Benedict formula (BMR based on total body weight)

Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 X wt in kg) + (5 X ht in cm) - (6.8 X age in years)

Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 X wt in kg) + (1.8 X ht in cm) - (4.7 X age in years)

Note: 1 inch = 2.54 centimeters

1 kilogram = 2.2 lbs

Katch-McArdle formula (BMR based on lean body weight)

BMR (men and women) = 370 + (21.6 X lean mass in kg)

Once, you figure out your BMR using one of the formulas, then you multiply by the appropriate activity factor.

Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)

Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)

Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)

Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)

Extr. Active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or

2 X day training, etc.)

That would depend on your stats. From what I have read, you can safely lose no more than 1% of your weight per week.  So:

200lbs. = 2lbs./week = 1000 calorie deficit

150lbs. = 1.5lbs./week = 750 calorie deficit

125lbs. = 1.25lbs./week = 625 calorie deficit

You get the picture. Anyway a 1000 calorie deficit is not for everyone. You pretty much can't go wrong with 500. Then again, when you are my weight, you can safely have a much larger deficit (1405 - you can do the math if you want to, I'm not tellin).

wiliwigi - Average temperature right now is about 105 so my running is done indoors right now. There is a fine line between hard-core and stupidity. I am definitely going to be taking it slow. I don't think I'm going to have that much of an issue with the endurance aspect of it. I'm more worried about the higher impact. All of my cardio so far has been of the low/no impact variety (walking, stationary bike, elliptical). I was going to wait a little while before trying the running but I think I need to shake up my routine a little.

phord - I was thinking about going 2 weeks per level. I guess I will see how it goes first. If I can move up I will but I'm not going to push it.

Congrats on the 10k! It sounds like you're hooked. I have never been too keen on running. I used to be in the military and that was always my least favorite thing about PT. Another reason I'm not going to push it too hard.