[RC] Losing Weight: WARNING: has Mathematics (Long) - Gloria Adams
Hi,
I was hesitant in writing this, as it involves a fair amount
of math. So, I only wrote this as a mental exercise for people to understand
the math. The equations here pertain to adult females only.
Always ask your doctor for specifics for you (especially if
you are “Special Needs” like a child, pregnant, high blood
pressure, diabetes, thyroid problems, cholesterol problems, you are an elite
athlete, etc). I hope Ridecamp’s formatting does not jumble this up, or
cut it off…
But I am writing this to let people know why some say its
simply “You have to put out more calories than you take in”.
It is the amount of calories you take in. This is the
mathematical proof. Not how much you exercise etc, that gets you to lose wgt. There
are not enough hours in the day to exercise enough to use that alone (or even
to use it as your major method) to lose wgt.
Ie: if you eat a 2 OZ Snickers candybar it is 273 calories. If
you weigh 150# & you walked 60 min at 2 mph you would only lose 189
calories http://www.healthstatus.com/cbc.html
“a minute in your mouth, a lifetime on your hips”, so my mom used
to say. There are not enough minutes in the day to exercise to lose 2-3
instances of eating foods with those kinds of calories (above your maintenance
calories).
So, if your doctor
says you are overweight…
1). Resting Metabolic Rate (maintenance calories): to find
the amount of calories you burn in 24 hours just lying down & not eating, doing
nothing, the formula is:
Female = 655 + (9.5 x bodywgt in Kg) + (1.9 x height in
centimeters) – (4.7 x age in years).
for bodyweight, use the bodywgt
your doctor says you should be (not your current, or what you want to be).
For comparison, do it again for
the bodywgt you currently are, & compare.
2). Use http://www.healthstatus.com/cbc.html
& religiously calculate the amount of calories you lose doing exercise every
day (yes, its tedious, but to lose wgt you have to have an understanding of how
many calories you actually lose exercising vs how many calories you eat. Math is
the way to find this).
3). Keep a food diary & total the calories you ate in 24
hours.
4). Subtract “calories used exercising in 24 hours”
from the “calories you ate in 24 hours”. Call this result, “X”
5). Is X less than your current
Resting Metabolic Rate? If yes, you definitely will lose wgt. If “X”
is above your current Resting Metabolic Rate, you will not lose weight:
Ie: Your current Resting Metabolic Rate is 1500 calories in
24 hours. You ate 2000 calories in 24 hours. You burned 400 calories from
exercise in 24 hours. 2000 – 400 = 1600 calories. Result: You will not
lose weight because you are above your current Resting Metabolic Rate.
6). You must ask your doctor just how many calories should
you be eating every day if you were at your recommended wgt. Most doctors will
tell you to NOT go below 1000 calories per 24 hours to lose weight, however, because
that is too fast.
7). The Basic Building Blocks of Food are Protein,
carbohydrates, fat.
8). 1 gram = .03 ounces
9). Protein = 4 calories per gram, Carbohydrates = 4
calories per gram, Fats = 9 calories per gram.
10). There are 3500 calories in 1 pound.
So you see, you get A LOT more bang for the buck from Fats. So
that’s why people who want to lose wgt generally stay away from much of them.
To lose wgt, you must always read the label on food. Eventually, you will find
(in desperation from hunger), in order to eat more & not be hungry, you
will pick the foods with lower fat as you could eat more of them, get rid of
hunger pain & still stay within your calorie requirement.
Since everyone is different ages & heights, you need to
go to the govt webpage http://www.mypyramid.gov/
for the new Recommended Daily Allowances (ie: how much protein, carbohydrates
& fat you should have to stay within your caloric needs).
So now that you have a headache from the math, & do not
want to do this again, actually, the Weight Watchers program does this all for
you. I only wrote this as a mental exercise to understand the math.
I know some people who have diets/foods they love will flame
me. But the point here is to show the math, not to endorse any method in particular.
PS: I do not work for Weight Watchers, but have seen it work
very well for those who stay with it. Remember, it did not take me or you 1 day
to gain the excess wgt, so its going to take some time to lose it too.
