A Quick Question

A

ashleyjgreen

0
Hi all,
I just joined and wanted to find out your thoughts on this, I weigh 280lbs and am 5ft 11inchs tall, male, I have put myself on a 2200cal diet?
I exercise 5 times a week burning between 500 to 1500 cal a day, is this healthy for me ? (Ive been doing this for two months now, but heard I need 1800cal net daily difference) I am losing weight and feel great, but I want to do it the right and quickest way.

I am recording and calculating my calorie intake at livingstrong.com to monitor what I eat, I do eat healthily, no fast food, alcohol and only wholemeal pasta/brown rice etc.
 
1500 calories is quite a lot, what do you do to burn that?

If you exercise regularly, then 2000 on your exercise days and maybe 1800 on your recovery days is pretty good. I personally wouldn't burn over 700 calories through exercise unless you can constantly maintain that. You will need a very good diet to really maintain that kind of exercise, though.

Another thing is that how many calories you burn is hard to say for sure. People of different weights and physical fitness burn different amounts. What the treadmill says can be 25% higher than what you actually burned.
 
Thanks for the reply

Hey Prodigy88

I am using the calorie burn counter on Livingstrong.com to gauge how many calories I am burning for each exercise I do, I play alot of Squash(raquetball) and do alot of interval training on the treadmill and some circuit training.

I asked my question as I am concerned I am not going to lose as much weight as I can because my calorie intake is not enough ?

I eat really well (you can check out diet and exercise at livingstrong.com) my user id is ashleyjgreen I think I am doing ok but I did hear I should have a 1800 cal gap minimum between what I eat and what I burn, for me that seems excessive as I would have to be eating double what I am eating now some days.

Cheers

Ashley
 
I just bought a GoWear Fit (same thing as BodyBugg) - it's a very hand tool to help you figure out what you are burning throughout the day. You can Google either and do research to see if this is something you want to look into buying.

I can't wait to get mine and get my stats! :)
 
Hi, I use the livestrong calculator as well and notice that it has some strange ideas as to how many calories you burn through exercises. For example, I set my activity level to sedentary and input everything I do during the day. Then I compared some of the numbers from that site to the numbers on the machines at the gym. The livestrong numbers were A LOT higher than the machine numbers...and machines are reputed to over-estimate.

Not only that, but I haven't found a HIIT calculator on livestrong so I put those calories in manually judging by the machine...which is still off, but a much more reasonable number.

Since I'm not really getting accurate numbers anywhere yet, I'm looking into one of the calorie counting watches or armbands that Gemini mentioned. If you invest in one of those you should get a more accurate number. Which should help you gauge things a little better. Which should also help you lose more.

Also, read this post
http://weight-loss.fitness.com/nutrition/40273-how-many-calories-should-i-eat.html#post695602

In my case, there was a significant difference between the actual math and what livestrong was saying. You may find that you need more than just the 2200 you've been doing, especially if your activity level is fairly high.
 
I think you should go by what the scale says, more than the calorie calculations. If you are losing up to a couple or maybe three pounds per week, not much more, you're good. As you lose weight you should expect your calorie requirements to go down, and the rate of weight loss will decrease.

That's my opinion anyhow.
 
I agree with Harold - for now, if you're seeing good steady progress, then I wouldn't drive yourself crazy with the calorie tracking. Enjoy it while you can! ;)

As he says, as you progress you'll find your caloric needs will decrease and you'll have to make adjustments. When you start noticing the slowdown, or even a plateau (it happens to all of us) then start your tracking. It's an essential tool in the long run.

All depends really on your personality and your preference. If you prefer knowing your intake/output and tracking it, then go for it now. Knowledge is power and it's no different when it comes to losing weight. I know that for me, this is an absolute necessity. I love looking at my spreadsheet and planning my meals - doing the calculations and really controlling it all.

If you think that the tracking will become cumbersome and a deter you from doing this - then just take it easy and do what you're doing. You're making progress and that's awesome! Keep it up!! :party:
 
I think that what you're doing sounds fine and as others have said the amount it says you're burning is most likely wrong. As long as you're not losing more than 2lbs a week a then you should be going at a healthy steady rate... It's okay to occasionally lose over that much but otherwise you're going to fast. :3
 
I would suggest try aiming for a 1000 calorie deficit which would equate to losing 2 pounds a week. You don't want to go over a 1500 per day deficit because that's relatively unhealthy for anybody except a professional athlete.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top