Weight Loss by the Numbers

Dadof8

I’m a numbers guy; I work in the computer industry and have always liked math and numbers. Most people can tell you that PI is 3.14; off the top of my head I can tell you it’s more precisely 3.1415926535898. I know it goes on forever but I could only memorize that much cuz my calculator display only shows 14 digits. I grew up with my mother and 4 sisters now have a wife and 8 children (8 as in 2 cubed or 10 in octal or 1000 in binary). I remember my oldest daughter’s birthday is October 24th because 1024 is 2 to the 10th.

When family members went on diets I could never figure out why they counted calories. I understood that a calorie was a measure of energy, 1 calorie of energy is required to raise 1 gram of water 1 degree Celsius. I understood that we burn calories when we move our bodies eating sleeping breathing all burn calories. I had read that there are 3500 calories of energy in a pound. But i couldn't tell me what it was based on, it was a relative number with no basis point. What I was missing I found when a coworker showed me MFP. Calories burned from Normal Daily Activities (NDA) (found on the Goals page under My Home in MFP). From this number I could see that a 5’ 8” guy who had a sedentary life style and weighed say 220 pounds needed to consume 2250 calories in a day just to maintain that weight, anything below this number that I eat or anything above sedentary that I burned would allow me to calculate my gain or loss. I had to try this. Without boring you with too many details I calculated my daily weight loss based on the difference between by (NDA – net caloric input for the day)/3500 and I tried to match it to what I saw on my scale. I realize that on a daily basis our bodies don’t act like machines and in the short term the numbers would be off but I was looking to see what they looked like over the long haul.

Findings:
In the 9 weeks from Monday, October 31st through Sunday, January 1st my scales said I lost 13 pounds by the numbers I calculated that I should have lost 13.3 pounds, I was shocked to see these numbers so close.

In the first 2 weeks of January and my scales said I lost 5 pounds, the numbers said I only lost 3 pounds. I had a cold the 2nd week and was probably dehydrated. Although the numbers say I’m still burning more calories than I need the scales are not showing the change. I’m not discouraged though because I could see by the numbers that an adjustment was coming.

amisbest

You did a very interesting study. I think that calories are about as an exact measurement of how you body burns food for energy as is available. My understanding is that to measure the amount of heat a given food gives off is to actually burn it and measure the heat that results. The results are the calorie count (as you explained). How that translates as to how the human body burns food has always seemed to me to be a bit of a leap. But, it is all we have and it seems fairly accurate. I think what is true, is that if you burn less calories than you need to sustain your weight, you will lose weight. How much you will lose when doing all the math is, unfortunately, still a mystery.

dance_fit

Unless you go get your metabolic rate tested (by a dr or a specialist) you are using an estimate that MFP is giving you. You may burn more or less depending on a number of factors. Then there is the fact that even nutrition labels can be incorrect. So even if you are measuring your food accurately, the label telling you the number of calories could be off. Studies show that many nutrition labels (particularly restaurants) underestimate their calorie content. Also, I would bet your scale is not measuring accurately in ounces giving a very close estimate that may be off by about a quarter of a pound (or more) either direction. I own a scale from a doctors office and it's margin of error is .25 lb. All of those could be giving you that margin of error you're noticing in your numbers. Still you are proving the point - create a calorie deficit every week and you'll lose weight.

Flyer615

I'm not positive, and I have no data to back up my theory, but I'm pretty sure I just burned about 450 calories just thinking about all this.:laugh: I'm sure I burned something -- I smell smoke. Thanks for the lesson.

Dadof8

I know the labels can be off, I’ve scanned the barcodes and gotten different numbers than what’s printed on the box. I also know that a lot of my foods are made from scratch by my wife and when looking to record them I’ve taken a “close fit” in a lot of cases. Thais is why I was shocked to see my calculated weight loss so close the my measured loss.