Numbers - Part 1

For the past six weeks I’ve focused mostly on daily activities.  Today I want to get to the heart of why the program is so successful, which will involve numbers.  This may be the longest post yet, but probably one of the most important.

If you pay attention to the media there are constant reports every day about health or weight loss and most of the time they contradict each other.  I’ve noticed the same thing within the trainers at my gym back home.  One trainer will say it is about calories in vs. calories out.  Another trainer will say don’t pay attention to calories.

Over the past 10 years, we’ve had Atkins that was popular who said that all cars are bad.  Then there was another fad that played on Atkins but said that some carbs are good and others are bad.  I remember a couple of years ago the fad was trans fats.

Then there’s the Weight Watchers point system.  Jenny Craig has been around awhile but I don’t know what is different about her system.  Lately there’s been Nutrasystem meals, which started several spin offs of the same concept.

And, oh ya, how could I forget all of the infomercials about all kinds of products from Bowflex to hip hop abs. 

So how is one supposed to sort through this and figure out what’s going on and what really works?  Well, over the years I’ve noticed that at the end of a lot of the media reports, they end by saying there’s no substitute for proper eating and exercising.

I’ve noticed that a theme from the Biggest Loser television show appears to be calories in vs. calories out because they are always concerned about calories.  Then, I remember a news report last year about a college professor who went on the “junk food diet” for one month.  He would eat whatever he wanted up to a certain calorie limit and then stopped for that day.  At the end of the month, he lost weight.

The combination of these items tells me that we should start with calories in vs. calories out.   How do we know how many calories to eat and how do we know how many calories we are burning per day?

That is a fantastic question and now we are at the heart of the BLR program.  It is a lot easier to track the calories in part because of the nutrition labels on food.  The calories burned part is harder and I’m going to try to explain it.

Our bodies burn calories simply by being alive.  If you woke up one morning, and laid in bed all day, your body would be burning calories.   By the way, when I say “you”, I really mean “us” or “we”.  This baseline of daily calorie burning is called the Resting Metabolic Rate, or RMR.  Everyone’s RMR will be different and will be based on age, weight, gender, body composition, etc.   You can go to shapeup.org for a RMR calculator, which will be an ok measurement.  The best way is to have the RMR tested, which can be done at lots of places.

Side note:  If you’ve seen the first episode of any of the Biggest Loser show, you’ve seen the contestants go in for medical testing.  I spoke to Sam about what the testing that he went through and one of them was a complete body composition testing through something called a Bod Pod.  You can check out their website and make an appointment for this testing if you want.  I don’t have any idea of the cost of the testing.

At the end of the day, we’re going to burn calories from our RMR plus whatever movement and exercise we did that day.  If we consume more calories than that number, we’ll put on weight.  If we consume less calories, then we’ll lose weight.

An accurate way to track the number of calories burned throughout the day is to get a heart rate monitor that has a calorie burned feature.  Be sure to buy a heart rate monitor that has a strap that goes under your chest.  To get an accurate reading of calories burned, you’ll need to wear it all day.  If you don’t like the strap around your chest, then another option is the Body Bug, which goes around the left biceps.  The tradeoff here is price because the Body Bug is about three times the price of a good heart rate monitor.

So the main goal at this point is to get your RMR tested properly, write down the calories consumed through food, and have a good measurement of the calories burned at the end of the day.  Tomorrow I’ll continue this for part two.