How Much to Eat

Welcome back! Todays installment will be broken into 2 parts. Part 1 will provide you the tools you need to determine how much food you should eat daily, and to determine how much you actually are eating. Part 2 will be an opportunity for me to rant on a topic that's been irking me for a while, buckle up spin class, steppers & treadmillers.

So in the previous installment,  http://www.everydayhealth.com/blogs/burnfatfaster/welcome-newbs  I asked readers to take an honest look at themselves and ask if they know their maintenance caloric needs (the amount of food needed to neither gain nor lose weight) and their current caloric intake (the amount of food you're actually eating.

If you answered no, don't despair, we'll get there in a minute! If you answered yes, it might still be wise to polish up your targets. If you answered yes, but are still frustrated with your lack of results then definitely continue on.

HOW MUCH TO EAT: There are many different formulae for estimating maintenance caloric needs, however, they are all similar and will give you a good starting place. This is only an estimate, so fine tuning will likely be required for each individual.

A) Basic Calorie Needs = Body weight x 11
+
B) Metabolic Rate = A x Activity Level*
+
C Maintenance Caloric Needs

ACTIVITY LEVEL* Mostly Sedentary  30%
Active   40%
Very Active   50%


* 30-40 yrs old subtract 5%
* 40+ yrs old subtract 10%


So using myself as an example:
A) 205lbs bodyweight x 11 = 2255 (would keep me alive on bed rest)
B 2255 x 35% (31 yrs old, active) = 789 (how many calories I burn by moving)
C) A+B =  3044 (Maintenance Caloric Needs - how much to eat to neither gain nor lose weight)


Now knowing your Maintenance Caloric Needs is an important start, but its meaningless without knowing your Current Caloric Intake. If you're eating more than your own maintenance caloric needs you will gain weight; less and you will lose weight.


http://www.everydayhealth.com provides an awesome food & fitness journal for free! This is a great way to help you determine how much you're eating and how many calories you're burning. It even provides calculators for the above equations (or something similar as mentioned).


So now that you have determined your Estimated Maintenance Caloric Needs, spend a week or two measuring everything you eat with a scale or measuring cups, and tracking your Current Caloric Intake to see how close you are to actually maintaining your current weight.


Next post I'll talk about how to interpret your week of calorie tracking, and how to use this info to design your own personalized plan to either gain or lose weight. A plan that will use the foods YOU like, the exercises YOU enjoy (or at least will benefit from) and will get you the body YOU desire!


PART 2: THE RANT


I am a dedicated exerciser and have been since the day I decided I didn't want to be fat anymore. It just so happened that it was in the early winter so the weather conditions here in Southern Ontario were less than ideal for outdoor exercise. Having no treadmill or gym membership I began walking @ 6am EVERYDAY. Walking a few blocks turned into jogging a few blocks, which turned into jogging a few more blocks, and so on. I did this everyday for a year and lost about 100 lbs!


When I say EVERYDAY I mean it! I ran in the sleep, slush, rain, frozen rain, hail, blizzard and whatever awful thing Mother Nature could throw at me. With time I begain to thrive on it; "Bring it on! Nothing can stop me!"


The next year I bought a treadmill. I thought it would be nice now that I'm not so desparate to lose weight, to stay indoors and that I'd continue on. Well that treadmill got lots of use, but not only did I get bored, I found on the days I did go run outside I felt weaker than running inside.


Machines make things easy for humans, thats why we design them. Exercise machines are no different, or they're just a way to make money. A treadmill has a moving path, and I'm quite sure we don't have moving sidewalks a la Jetsons Future Vision. So your hamstrings don't have to work so hard, because the ground is moving FOR YOU. A bicycle (whether stationary or not) provides mechanical advantage and you sit down. Abs don't have to work much to hold you up, legs don't have to work hard, just switch gears.


Get outside and enjoy the world! Even on the "gloomy" days and through the winter. Its better for you and its more interesting. Nothing cracks me up more than arriving to work on my bike, and walking past the "spin class" whose members all drove to the gym to ride a bike for an hour.


That just ain't right.

Matty Smith