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November 17, 2003
CALCULATING CALORIES (OH BOY!)
My friend Melody, who I credit for introducing me to Lifestyle Strategies of Central Indiana's medically supervised weight management and counseling program, sent me the following explanation (when I first enrolled in the program) of how to figure out how much weight you can expect to lose while on this program Iíve been writing about:
- Your weight x 100 = the number of calories you can consume in a day to keep you at your current weight. Example: 230 lbs x 10 = 2,300 calories. That's your daily allowance [sic: to maintain your current weight if you weigh 230 lbs.]. Of course, it changes as you lose weight. 2,300 ñ actual calories consumed = calories banked. Example: 2,300 actual calories ñ 800 calories consumed = 1,500 banked.
- Exercise causes you to burn additional calories. These you add to your calories banked. Example: 800 calories burned + 1,500 calories banked = 2,300 calories banked.
- The total number of calories you must burn to lose 1 pound is 3,500, so if you divide your calories banked by 3,500, you'll come up with a rough estimate for how much weight you'll shed that day. Example: 2,300 calories banked / 3,500 calories in a pound = .64 lbs.
So, following this logic, when I weigh in tonight at my mandatory Monday evening class, the scale should yield that I lost 3.3 lbs. over last Monday evening's weigh in... and here's how I figured that out:
This past week I consumed 37 meal replacement packets, which at 160 calories apiece equals 5,920 calories consumed. In addition to the 37 meal replacements, I also consumed 250 outside calories from spaghetti sauce, cream cheese, and one alcoholic drink. So, the total calories I consumed between 11/10/03 and 11/16/03 was 6,170.
At the beginning of the week I weighed in at 203.3 lbs., and in order to maintain that weight I would have had to consume 2,033 calories per day, or 14,231 for entire the week. The difference between that which I consumed and that which I would have had to have consumed in order to maintain the 203.3 lbs. is 8,061 calories (banked). Add the 3,508 calories that I burned over the week thru exercise, and I banked a total of 11,569 calories, which if you divide by 3,500 (the number of calories in a pound), and I show that I should have lost 3.3 lbs. this last week.
Will the calculations hold true? Will the scale yield a 3.3 lb. drop in weight? Probably not! The week before last my calculations said that I should have dropped 2.97 lbs., but when I weighed in I had dropped five-and-a-half pounds. As Melody and my coach Alvin point out, the calculations are not exact science, but they do provide a sense for what to expect. Check in tomorrow for an update on tonight's weigh in. In the meantime, for something even less exciting than what I just wrote about, check out yesterday's post (below).
Update (11/18/03): Last night's weigh-in went better than expected. I'm down another 5.4 lbs (that's a loss of 32.7 lbs. since the middle of September).
Posted by Mikal at November 17, 2003 5:07 AM
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Surely you burned at least 1500 calories typing out that whole equation. I know trying to follow it, which amazingly enough I did, I burned around 350. You are doing great! Can't wait to hear your news.
Greag idea to share this on your blog. Learning how to perform these calculations took a lot of the mystery and anxiety out of weight loss for me. I hope they do for other people, too.
Not sure about this formula. I'm thrilled the program is working for you -- and like I said earlier, I'm thrilled its emphasis is on calories and not carbs or fat -- but I'm curious what it says about exercise. I'm about 160 pounds, and I've figured my daily calorie burn to be about 2,200 on days I'm not exercising, and then an extra 100 calories for each mile I run. Long-run days (20 miles) are great: 4,200 calories at my disposal!
Man, that's awesome. I guess here's the real question: When are you going to buy new clothes? Surely you've dropped quite a few inches around the waist. How are you making do with the pants you've got now? Holding them up with twine?
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