Science and math for weight loss

donyellemoniquex3

My head hurts

LWHershey

The smartest people I know who maintain weight and overall fitness do not have a history of huge ups and downs.
The rest of us do. Whatever "science" we want to apply, we have to get to another plateau of overall fitness (and some
call the "lifestyle" choice. It is always incremental to get to a "new internal dialogue" and a new set of "self-supporting"
routines including regular exercise and balanced, nutritious food. I just read The Engine No. 2 Diet Plan" which is a lot
of fun and moves one towards "vegan" -- which is not a necessary goal for me. It simply refreshed my thinking on the
virtues of "plant-based" foods (real foods) -- which I am old enough to remember as the usual good way of eating.

In short, too many numbers and too many numerical targets are no substitute for "new balances". And do not measure your
weight every day. Keep track of your belt notch -- or equivalent.

grimendale

It is extremely difficult to burn 1000 calories in an hour. Most people never do this. It is an achievable high water mark but unless you are an elite athlete, you probably are not doing this every time you go to the gym.

On a good day, I'll burn up a little over 1000 calories in an hour doing Month 2 of Insanity, and I have the fat loss to back it up. Of course, on runs or lift days, my burns are not nearly so large. I am not an "elite" anything, I'm just doing a very intense workout. That being said, I do think a lot of people tend to overestimate their burns, often due to a lack of real understanding as to what realistic numbers are.

55in13

It is extremely difficult to burn 1000 calories in an hour. Most people never do this. It is an achievable high water mark but unless you are an elite athlete, you probably are not doing this every time you go to the gym.

The only thing you're not taking into account with this point is the person's bodyweight. If you weight 300 pounds and are pushing hard doing something like jogging or high intensity aerobics, that number could be pretty easily attainable I think.

I don't know if the relationship is quite linear, but when you think about it, a 300 pound person is going to need around twice the energy to move around than a 150 pound person. Again, it's basic physics.

I said it is difficult and most people never do it. I still stand by that statement.
When I started running, I was 50 pounds heavier and I got substantially more burn per mile than I do now but I was slower and couldn't run anywhere close to an hour at a time. But some people do manage it. A kick boxing place just opened not far from me and they claim on their radio spot that they have one class that will burn 1000 calories in an hour.
Anyway, my point was and is that if someone is often recording burn numbers of 1000 or more per hour for exercise that isn't pretty extreme, there is a good chance they are wrong.

__Di__

It is extremely difficult to burn 1000 calories in an hour. Most people never do this. It is an achievable high water mark but unless you are an elite athlete, you probably are not doing this every time you go to the gym.

The only thing you're not taking into account with this point is the person's bodyweight. If you weight 300 pounds and are pushing hard doing something like jogging or high intensity aerobics, that number could be pretty easily attainable I think.

I don't know if the relationship is quite linear, but when you think about it, a 300 pound person is going to need around twice the energy to move around than a 150 pound person. Again, it's basic physics.

I said it is difficult and most people never do it. I still stand by that statement.
When I started running, I was 50 pounds heavier and I got substantially more burn per mile than I do now but I was slower and couldn't run anywhere close to an hour at a time. But some people do manage it. A kick boxing place just opened not far from me and they claim on their radio spot that they have one class that will burn 1000 calories in an hour.
Anyway, my point was and is that if someone is often recording burn numbers of 1000 or more per hour for exercise that isn't pretty extreme, there is a good chance they are wrong.

Couple that with them eating those calories back and they then wonder why they are not losing weight!

Bootjockey

LOVED your post!

GREAT work. Thanks for sharing!!!

-David / BootJockey
-257 pounds

morticia16

Personally, I don't know what I'd have to do to burn 1000 in an hour. My most intensive calorie burn is 30 minute swimming; I swim laps and do 1 km in 23 minutes. For 30 minutes I log some 230 calorie burn. I'm 43, 63 kg and 175 cm high. Wadda think?

hazelovesfood

With all due respects, that math applies in a perfect world. Unfortunately, that world doesn't exist for many of us and the science is still virtually unknown. Case in point: http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_attia_what_if_we_re_wrong_about_diabetes.html

Ive got to agree with this. Not everyones bodies uses there calories in the same way. Ive had periods where ive eaten perfectly and it does not come off me.Some people can eat 1500 of crap and lose weight, while others cant do the same. some people can eat 2500 or 3000 or foods and not gain. I dont think it as simple as eat 3500 and you gain a llb, or eat less than 3500 and you lose, not in my experience.

__Di__

With all due respects, that math applies in a perfect world. Unfortunately, that world doesn't exist for many of us and the science is still virtually unknown. Case in point: http://www.ted.com/talks/peter_attia_what_if_we_re_wrong_about_diabetes.html

Ive got to agree with this. Not everyones bodies uses there calories in the same way. Ive had periods where ive eaten perfectly and it does not come off me.Some people can eat 1500 of crap and lose weight, while others cant do the same. some people can eat 2500 or 3000 or foods and not gain. I dont think it as simple as eat 3500 and you gain a llb, or eat less than 3500 and you lose, not in my experience.

It all depends on what your own maintenance calories are. Some people's maintenance is, say 2000 per day, now if everyday they were to eat 2500, that amounts to 3500 extra calories over their maintenance level for the week, they will put on 1lb. However the person standing next to them may only have a maintenance level of 1700 and the person over the road may have a maintenance level of 2700.

This is why it is vitally important to know your own maintenance level, once you know that you are well on your way to know how many calories per day to lose weight, to increase weight or just remain the same.

On the whole the 3500 calorie bit is quite accurate.

55in13

I think far more people claim to have a low metabolic rate than actually do. When all the other numbers seem to make sense but the weight isn't coming off, it's really easy to blame BMR because there really are a few people who have a crazy low BMR. It's very rare and a substantial number of people with a low BMR have related physiological complications and are under a doctor's care. If you live a fairly normal life and are able to work and exercise the chances you have a really low BMR are incredibly minute. I think most of the issues are related to poor tracking or incorrectly calculating TDEE. I also think a lot of posters know exactly what the problem is and just want to feel some community support.

dta4ever

Don't get me wrong. I absolutely LOVE using myfitnesspal but it overestimates how many calories you burn for activities. Before I got my heart rate monitor, I thought "Wow, I'm burning a lot of calories." Once I got my HRM, I noticed that I was only burning about half the amount of calories that MFP was saying I burned. So, I think some people just automatically use the amount that MFP says they burned when in actuality they probably only burned half that amount.

55in13

Besides the estimates being a little wonky, it is easy to accidentally double them up filling out your info. People select something above sedentary even though their job is sedentary because they exercise and don't think of themselves as sedentary. That bumps TDEE up. Then they log each exercise with what are often inflated numbers and that bumps up the daily calorie allotment. Then all it takes is forgetting to log a food or going over the serving size used for the entry and you can end up eating surplus calories while the diary is showing a deficit.