Calories In / Calories Out Paradigm (Page 5)

 totally agree with you,,, I'm lucky that last years winner and her mom attend the same church as me,, I've talked with the mother a couple of times and heard what they do.

wake up, work out, breakfast, work out, snack work out, lunch, work out, snack work out etc

Okay, finally got some testing done today, had my Resting Metabolic Rate measured, a swim anaylis and video taping, a skifold caliper BF% test and a BF% hyrdostatic test as well.

My RMR is about 2100 calories per 24 hr period, so the lab told me I should eat at least 2100 calories a day just to keep my body functioning at optimum levels and that if I went below this that it would acutally cause my metabolism to slow down.

My BF% was 22% with calipers and 21% measured hydrostatically.

They set my goal at 15% and my personal goal was 10%.  At 10% I would weigh 218 lbs, so my listed goal weight of 215 lbs. was right on target.

They had a scale that listed BF% as Excellent, Good, Moderate, Overweight, and Severaly Overweight.  I fell into the Moderate range, which isn't too bad considering that I still weigh 251 lbs.  It was a lot better than what my BMI number says, which is Severly Obese.

I knew that wasn't the case because I knew I had more muscle mass then the average person ... but I still have a way to go.  This broke down to 196 lbs. of lean mass and 56 lbs. of fat.

So anyhow, the one Calorie website I had been using was extimating that my RMR was 2600 or 2900 calories ... so my actual is about 500-800 less ....

The lab told me I could safely add 300-500 calories for daily activity for things such as taking a shower, driving to work, walking about the office, etc ... and so if I keep my calories to 2400-2600 per day ... that any extra calories I burn with exercise should all work toward creating a deficit and to losing weight.

So, I'm going to create a diet plan that has aboug 2250 calories in it and not worry too much about being high protein or high carb, etc ... but just use the standard mix which I think is about 50-55% carbs, 20-25% protein and 20% fat (or something like that ...)

I've recently gone back to lifting weights more often and scaled back a little on the longer, slower cardio ... and went back to more of a low-carb and high-protein diet ... and I have lost about 8 or 9 lbs in the last couple of weeks ... but now that I know exactly what my RMR is and how many calories I should AT LEAST eat in order to keep it fired up .... and know just how many extra I can eat and still end up with a deficit by the end of the day ... hopefully my weight loss will really start to improve.

BTW, the 2 folks at Meredith College testing me were both Triathletes and one has been to Kona 4 times ... so I felt really fortunate to find these people.  The other is in the process of getting their Dietician certification and is a USAT Level 2 coach ... so soon I'l be hiring them again for some coaching and for a specific nutrition plan ... as I get deeper into my HIM training and it gets close to Sept.

Glad to see you are making progress and got some good information as to calories in that you need.

Thanks!  It definitely gives me a solid number to start working from ... and it is about 500-800 calories less than I thought ... plus the calories burned for just daily activity was a lot less ... I think that website calculator had estimated something like 900 more calories or so .... so I was thinking I had about 3500-3600 calories to burn each day to just live ...

I was also reassuring to find that my BF% was not as bad as what most charts put me at, lets me know that I have actually been making some decent progress.

double post for some reason..

Glad to see you got those test done,,,   This will make it much easier since you now know what your target is 

Yep,

My actual RMR is about 500-800 calories less than I thought, and the daily activity burns about 400-600 calories less than my initial calculations ... so that right there is around 900 to 1400 calories ... which is about the average amount of calories I was burning off with S/B/R training ... so it just came out even ... which is why I wasn't losing weight ...

Now I can create a diet plan that will keep my calories between 2100 and 2250 a day ... and then any activity and exercise should all go toward creating that deficit.