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Start!

Can you believe we are 1/2half into the first month of the New Year? How are those resolutions coming along? Don't give up yet, there are 50 weeks left in the year, lose "just a 1/2lb" a week will make you 25lbs slimmer this time next year. Lose 1lbs, 50lbs slimmer!

Here's something to get you motivated.

I caught a blurb for Start! one morning and checked out the website.

Start! is an American Heart Association movement calling on all Americans and their employers to live longer, more heart-healthy lives through walking and other healthy habits.

And check this out:

Why walking? Because we know that walking is the easiest, most convenient form of activity — and it’s free. You don’t need special skills, the training of a marathon runner, or a membership at an expensive gym to benefit from walking.

When you join up, you can find out the following:

- Learn why being fit and getting at least 30 minutes of physical activity on most days is important to your health. - Though becoming fit takes you in the right direction against heart disease, eating right creates the balance you need for an overall heart-healthy lifestyle. Use our tools to eat right. - Read inspiring stories from survivors of heart disease. Through these stories we hope you'll understand why it's so important to Start! supporting the movement - Join MyStart! Online and become part of the movement. It's free and you get access to our fitness tool, newsletters and more.

Good stuff fellow fat fighters. I mean if nothing else, I'd LOVE to get a celebrity wake up call. Hey, it gets me one degree closer to Kevin Bacon

BMR Calculator

Now that we defined BMR, let's see how we can use it to our advantage when it comes to losing weight.

Like figuring out your body fat, you can calculate your BMR in a variety of ways, use an online calculator to input your current weight, height and age or have it officially measured at a nutrition center. From what I've heard, the online calculator though it takes a generic approach, is fairly accurate, so that's what I used.

Plugging in my stats, I get the following figures:

My BMR is 1658

Now to determine my daily caloric needs I use the Harris Benedict Formula which multiplies my BMR by the appropriate activity factor:

• Sedentary (little or no exercise) = BMR x 1.2
• Lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) = BMR x 1.375
• Moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) = BMR x 1.55
• Very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) = BMR x 1.725
• Extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) = BMR x 1.9

Now here is something else I recently learned, though I exercise quite a bit, if your job is one where you sit in a chair for about 8 hours a day and you drive 1-2 hours and when you get home spend most of the evening in bed, at computer desk or watching TV, you are considered sedentary. When I worked retail, I could call myself moderately active, as I spent 8 hours on my feet, walking up and down the store and hauling clothes and an hour a day walking to and from work.

An hour or so of exercise a few days a week does not make you an active person. But that's my theory. You can figure yourself accordingly if you feel active based on what you do.

Back to me

Sedentary (little or no exercise) = BMR x 1.2

1658 x 1.2 ='s a daily caloric needs of 1990 to maintain my current weight.

There are approximately 3500 calories in a pound of stored body fat. So, by creating a 3500-calorie deficit through diet, exercise or a combination of both, I'll lose one pound of body weight. (On average 75% of this is fat, 25% lean tissue) If I create a 7000 calorie deficit I will lose two pounds. The calorie deficit can be achieved either by calorie-restriction alone, or by a combination of fewer calories in (diet) and more calories out (exercise). This combination of diet and exercise is best for lasting weight loss. Sustained weight loss is difficult or impossible without increased regular exercise.

If I want to lose fat, a useful guideline is to lower my calorie intake by at least 500, but not more than 1000 below maintenance level. For people with only a small amount of weight to lose, 1000 calories will be too much of a deficit. Minimum calorie intake should never drop below 1200 calories per day for women or 1800 calories per day for men. Even these calorie levels are low.

Without factoring in exercise 1990 - 500 = 1490 daily calories to net me a 1lb loss. Here's where the numbers get tricky, say your daily caloric deficit fluctuates between 250-500, again not factoring in exercise, your deficit for 7 days will look like this:

M -200, T -175, W -500, Th -500, F -250, S -400 S -350

For a grand total of 2375 calories a .7lb loss (2375 / 3500), which may not even show up on the scale. Let's go a few more days into the following week shall we?

M -350, T -280, W -500

Well what do we have here? A 3505 deficit and your 1lb loss will show up, not on the 7th day, as is widely touted, but on the 9th day. Unless you are regimented and know your stats to a tee, I suspect most of us lose weight over a period of 7-11 days.

Back to me

Let's fast forward a few weeks, your resident fat fighter has shed 10lbs, hey it's not impossible, last time I blurted my stats on this site I was 196, today I'm 192 thankyouverymuch…waitaminute…::rubs eyes::…I. Lost. Weight. Boo-Yah!

At 186, my BMR is now 1615. Granted it's not a huge drop from 1658, but just enough to see at a lesser weight, I need less calories, 1938, to maintain my weight. If I continue to consume the same calories as I did before that netted my loss, 1490, I'll either stall or gain a bit.

To remedy that, I can do a few things, cut my calories down even more to 1438 (1615x1.2 = 1938-500 = 1438), but I'll eventually stall out at 1200, besides who really wants to eat less food? Or I can *gasp* work out, harder.

Say during 194-184lbs I walked on the treadmill at 3mph, from 184-174lbs I will need to mix it up, either start running at that same speed, or increase the incline to 1-2%. The time can stay the same, even the speed can stay the same, but the intensity must change.

Keep in mind, this is all very bare bones. I didn't talk about carb bloating, or dehydration or lifting weights or muscle mass or fluctuations or a host of other things that can make it frustrating.

If you just look at it in a 1 + 1 = 2 approach:

1. Figure out your BMR
2. Multiply it by your current activity level (be honest)
3. Minus 250-500 calories
4. Eat the reduced amount of calories and however long you guesstimate you've burned 3500, you'll net your 1lb loss. Speed things up by doing some physical activity, but try to keep it realistic by losing no more than 2lbs per weigh in.
5. Every 10-15lbs, spot check your BMR again, especially if you feel a plateau kicking in, and revise your calories.

I know it's a lot of info to absorb, I tried to make it as simple as possible, but if you have any questions or even objections, definitely post them, it helps me see if my theories make sense.

BMR

Your Basal Metabolic Rate, or BMR, is the minimum caloric requirement needed to maintain life, even when you are completely ate rest.

Think of it this way, were you to remain asleep in bed all day, this is the amount of calories your body will burn. Makes it tempting to stay in bed for the duration of your weight loss efforts huh? But we all know that won't happen.

Well why do you need to know that number? How can you use it to your advantage? When you understand your body's energy requirements, it can help guide your nutritional choices.

To start losing weight, subtract calories from your BMR. First use the BMR (with your activity level) to determine how many calories you should eat each day to maintain your current weight. Then to lose weight safely (1-2 pounds per week), cut 500-1000 calories each day from your BMR. When you cut a total of 3,500 calories, you’ll lose one pound of body weight.

Since your body will require fewer calories as you get smaller, recalculate your BMR along with your activity level as you lose weight, about every 10-15lbs. This is a very important step I never factored in when I dropped about 10lbs last year. It also explains why people stall out or plateau for a while, one solution may be to just recalculate your BMR. So this year, I made a mental note that every new decade I reach, 180's, 170's etc, I'll crunch my numbers again.

How low should you go? Don’t reduce too many calories thinking you will lose more. Going lower than 1200 calories a day isn’t anymore effective for long-term weight loss than just lowering your calories to achieve the recommended 1-2 pounds a week rate.

You know the routine, tomorrow we'll learn how to calculate our BMR's...I'll post my BMR…yada yada yada...you guys will ignore me...blah blah blah...I'll softly sob onto my keyboard...

Body Fat Calculator

There are three main ways to calculate your body fat. Using a home body fat scale, skinfold calipers or hydrostatic weighing. Each method has it's pros and cons.

Body Fat Scales
How they works:
Body fat scales use bioelectrical impedance to measure your body fat percentage. A low-level electrical current is passed through your body and the "impedance", or opposition to the flow of the electrical current, is measured.

Pros:
- They measure body fat quickly and conveniently
- They are easy to use and have at home

Cons:
- Impedance levels can be altered by many factors besides body fat. Factors such as the amount of water in your body, your skin temperature and any recent physical activity can adversely affect the results
- Studies have shown variances as high as 8 percent when using the bioelectrical impedance

Callipers
How they works:
You take pinches of your skin at three points on your body and calculate the fat percentage from those readings.

Pros:
- Most studies have shown that they are very accurate
- They are affordable, simple to use and have at home

Cons:
- Difficult to do it on your own body. You may need professional assistance

Hydrostatic Weighing
How it works:
The examiner first calculates your body density by measuring the amount of water you displace when you immerse yourself in water. Then a formula is used to calculate body fat based on your body density.

Pros:
- The most accurate way to calculate body fat

Cons:
- Expensive
- Inconvenient
- Time consuming, cumbersome, complicated and difficult to find

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As I told Mel the other day, I use this bad boy, Omron HBF-306 Body Fat Analyzer:

The best part is that you get both BMI and body fat readings. It also stores your stats.

Last check, my body fat was 38.2, which puts me in the Obese category. Using the formula from yesterday, weighing in at 194 with 38% body fat, let's see what a reasonable weight loss goal for this fat fighter "should" be shall we?

I'm a 194lb woman with 38% body fat. My blanket goal is to lose 60lbs.

My initial body fat is: 73lbs (194lbs x 0.38) [holy shyte!]

My lean body mass is: 121lbs (194lbs total weight - 73lbs of fat)

My goal to lose 60lbs puts me at 134lbs, which may not be realistic.

At 134lbs, I'd have 121lbs of lean body mass and would only be carrying 9lbs or aprox 10-13% body fat. From yesterdays chart, unless I'm an Olympic athlete in training, this is a very low percentage.

A better goal might be to initially reduce my body fat from 38% to 30%:

194lbs x 0.30 = 58lbs of body fat

121lbs of lean body mass + 58lbs = 179lbs goal weight

To achieve this "acceptable" range of 30%, I'd need to lose only 15lbs of fat (73lbs body fat - 58lbs body fat = 15lbs), reducing my scale weight from a current 194lbs to 179lbs. Then, based on how I look and feel at that point, I can shoot for a lower body fat percentage, say going from 30% to 25% or losing 14lbs to weigh in at 165lbs.

3 months from this week, we shall check revisit our goals.

That shall be my first goal weight: 179lbs, 30% body fat. What's yours?

Body Fat Guidelines

As we found out yesterday, a certain amount of fat is essential to bodily functions. Fat regulates body temperature, cushions and insulates organs and tissues and is the main form of the body's energy storage.

From the American Council on Exercise, the following table describes body fat ranges and their associated categories:

Men
Essential Fat 2-4%
Athletes 6-13%
Fitness 14-17%
Acceptable 18-25%
Obese 25% plus

Women
Essential Fat 10-12%
Athletes 14-20%
Fitness 21-24%
Acceptable 25-31% (stop it with the washboard abs ladies, tummy fat helps us birth those babies)
Obese 32% plus

Knowing your body fat percentage can also help you determine if your weight loss goals are realistic. Remember, weight loss doesn't always mean fat loss. For example:

Let's say you're a 150lb woman with 32% body fat, and your goal is to lose 30 pounds.

Your initial body fat is: 48lbs (150lbs x 0.32)

Your lean body mass is: 102lbs (150lbs total weight - 48lbs of fat)

Your goal to lose 30lbs puts you at 120lbs.

But, the goal of losing 30lbs may not be realistic.

At 120lbs, you'd have 102lbs of lean body mass, but would only be carrying 18lbs or only 15% body fat. From the chart above, unless you're an Olympic athlete in training, this is a very low percentage for the average woman.

A better goal might be to reduce your body fat from 32% to 26%:

150lbs x 0.26 = 39lbs of body fat

102lbs of lean body mass + 39lbs = 141lbs goal weight

To achieve an "acceptable" range of 26%, you'd need to lose only 9 pounds of fat (48lbs body fat - 39lbs body fat = 9lbs), reducing your scale weight from a current 150 pounds to 141 pounds. Then, based on how you look and feel at that point, you can shoot for a lower body fat percentage, say going from 26% to 22% or losing 8lbs to weigh in at 133.

Keep in mind, the lower your body fat goes, you also reduce your overall lean body mass (usually metabolically-active muscle tissue), which isn't good for the long term. I can break this down section later, but here's a summary: use one part of the year to lose weight and use another part of the year to build muscle, you can't do both at the same time. By including weight lifting while your shed the fat, the most you can do is maintain your current lean mass as best you could. That's another topic for another post.

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Back to the body fat goals, does that all make sense?

For years, I had a hard goal of weighing 130lbs. Period. Why? I used to weigh that at some point in my life. But after I learned how body fat worked, I revised my goal and now my range is 135-145lb. Even if I end up in the 150's, by shedding enough excess fat, I can still shimmy into jeans I wore at 130

Before you decide that you need to "lose weight", consider that "weight" also consists of both lean body mass and body fat. Keep your weight loss goals realistic, and remember, keep the calorie-burning muscle (do your weights), and lose only the fat (do that cardio!)

Tomorrow we'll look at body fat calculators and feel free to share yours. Calculator that is

In the mean time, ponder your current "weight loss" goal and see if what you have in mind, matches up with guideline and if you really need to lose as much as you think.

General Disclaimer

I think we are so used to the lb/kg system that any other tool for health brings a host of debate. True indeed there are instances where BMI or Body Fat for a Olympian would put them in the Obese/Unhealthy range, but a bit of logic should make it obvious it's an anomaly, not the rule. However, take these forms of measurements with a grain of salt. It's not the be all to end all, how you feel and your lifestyle matters most. As long as all #'s trickle downward over time as you get healthier, you should be happy vs. aiming for a set range if it'll make you miserable you aren't in it.

You can stick with solely tracking lbs/kgs, but every once in a while, take note of how your other stats are doing. Days when the scale stays the same, you may be pleasantly surprised to find your BMI inches went down, or your Body Fat drop a percentage point, or two

Body Fat

Last week was all about the BMI, this week let's tackle 2 more B's. First up, Body Fat. What is body fat? Besides the obvious, your body fat percentage is simply the percentage of fat your body contains. If you are 150 pounds and 10% fat, it means that your body consists of 15 pounds fat and 135 pounds lean body mass (bone, muscle, organ tissue, blood and everything else).

Before you get all crazy and think you need to be completely fat-free, a certain amount of fat is essential to bodily functions. Fat regulates body temperature, cushions and insulates organs and tissues and is the main form of the body's energy storage.

Knowing your body fat percentage can also help you determine if your weight loss goals are realistic. Weight loss doesn't always mean fat loss. Tomorrow we'll look at acceptable ranges of body fat and how to set realistic weight loss goals based on those figures. Chin up peeps, we are in week 4 of the big f.a.t. challenge, you are 1/2 way home.

BMI Charts

Yesterday we defined what BMI is and why it's an important measurement of overall health. Today, let's calculate our BMI, look at what each numeric range means and gawk at Renee as she *gasp* shares her BMI with the world

You can calculate your BMI here.

If your BMI is below 18.5:
This indicates a lean BMI, indicating low body fat. In certain circumstances this can be desirable (e.g. an athlete). However, a low BMI can indicate that your weight may be too low which may lower your immunity to disease. If your BMI and body weight are low, you should consider gaining increased muscle mass through a healthy diet and exercise program.

If your BMI is between 18.5 and 24.9:
A BMI in this range indicates a healthy level of body fat. A BMI percentage in this range is associated with longevity, and a low incidence of serious illness. Studies have shown that this is the level that most people find aesthetically pleasing.

If your BMI is between 25 and 29.9:
A BMI in this range is considered to be overweight, and having an increased risk of associated disease. Ideally if you are in this range you should find ways to lower your weight. Start by changing to a healthy diet and undertake an exercise program.

If your BMI is between 30 and 39:
We have now reached the obesity range. It is essential that a lifestyle change is undertaken. A change to a healthy diet and regular exercise is essential. Why not check out Exercise At Home for a few exercises to try. If an individual is in this range and has a waist size greater than or equal to 40 in. (men) or 35 in. (women) then there is a very high associated risk of disease.

If your BMI is over 40:
This indicates an individual suffering from extreme obesity, and is in a very unhealthy condition. The excess body fat will put the individual at risk of heart disease, diabetes, high blood pressure, gall bladder disease and some cancers. It is definitely time to change to a healthy diet and undertake a fitness program.

My Results : Your BMI is 33.6, indicating your weight is in the obese category for adults of your height. (I'm 5' 5"/196lbs)

My waist size is: 34"

Based on those two stats, I am at a higher risk for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol.

At a minimum, anyone who is obese should try to avoid gaining additional weight. In addition, anyone who is obese should try to lose weight. Even a small weight loss (just 10% of your current weight) may help lower the risk of disease.

I will follow this up in 3 months, on 11/3, to see if it improved. Those doing the big F.A.T. challenge, follow along. If you are brave enough post your BMI/Waist size and check back in 12 weeks, I'll hound you offline to remind you

Next week, we'll continue to look at other tools and charts to pay attention vs. the oh so popluar pound/kilo & scale.

BMI

We shall kick off our mission to get fit and forget about the lbs, by looking at other measurements of health.

Having a lb related goal, such as the one that I have to lose 50lbs may seem daunting. But a teeny goal to drop your BMI by 2 points, while not impressive, can make a major difference in the quality of your life. What exactly is BMI is you ask?

Body Mass Index (BMI) is a number calculated from a person’s weight and height. While BMI is a reliable indicator of body fatness for people, it does not measure body fat directly. Research has shown that BMI correlates to direct measures of body fat. By using your height and weight it indicates whether you are underweight, of normal weight or overweight. You should use your BMI as a general guide.

For adults 20 years old and older, BMI is interpreted using standard weight status categories that are the same for all ages and for both men and women.

BMI Weight Status
Below 18.5 Underweight
18.5 – 24.9 Normal
25.0 – 29.9 Overweight
30.0 and Above Obese

The health consequences of overweight and obesity for adults can include:

• Hypertension


• Dyslipidemia (for example, high LDL cholesterol, low HDL cholesterol, or high levels of triglycerides)


• Type 2 diabetes


• Coronary heart disease


• Stroke


• Gallbladder disease


• Osteoarthritis


• Sleep apnea and respiratory problems


• Some cancers (endometrial, breast, and colon)

Just 2 points, going from 25 to 23 changes you from to overweight to normal.

Tomorrow a BMI calculator and charts.