Hey Guys!

I'm so excited to have you all here to start or continue on your fitness journey!  Here are a few pointers before we get going.  

  1. Losing weight is a MATH game of calories in and calories out.  I know, everyone's favorite subject, but really, its pretty simple.  
    • 3,500 = 1lb
    • EXAMPLE: if you weigh 200lbs, your goal of 4% loss is 8 lbs/ -8 (lbs) x 3,500 (cals) = -28,000 / so in order to keep pace over the 4 weeks, you want a calorie deficite of 28,000 calories.  That sounds like a lot, but that is a deficite of 1000 calories a day (28,000 cals / 28 days = 1,000 cals/day)
  2. QUESTION: How do I know how many calories a day I burn?  SIMPLE! Each person has whats called their Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) which is the rate of energy burned at rest (calories one burns in a day without activity).  I always reccomend going to a doctor to get the most accurate BMR reading, however, you can also use the following formula:
    • Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
    • Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in year)
    • EXAMPLE: Female at 200lbs, 30 years old, 5'5" (65 in) : 655 + (4.35 x 200) + (4.7 x 65) - (4.7 x 30) = 655 + 870 + 305.5 - 141 = 1,689.5 Calories
      • What does this mean? This means, to remain at your current weight, you can consume about 1,700 calories a day without adding any additional activity.
      • However, our goal here is to lose!  Remeber, at 200 lbs, our goal was a daily deficite of -1,000 calories.  Therefore, WITHOUT ANY ACTIVITY, if our example person consumed 1,200 calories a day, they would lose 4lbs in just 4 weeks!!
  3. Activity:  
    • The best way to see how many calories you burn during activity is with a heart rate monitor.  If you have one, just add that to your BMR to see how many more calories you can consume!
    • On average, now this is a big AVERAGE, we burn about 600 calories in a moderate workout.
    • EXAMPLE: So if our 200lb woman worked out for 50 min/day, she creates -500 calories for that day. Our goal is -1,000 calories/day so 50 min of working out a day gets us to our goal :) 
      • NOTE: DO NOT EVER consume less than 70% of your BMR as a diet guidleline.  We want to create a lifestyle thats manageable, not an unhealthy habbit of too low of calories)

This may seem overwhelming, but numbers do not lie.  When you understand the numbers, weightloss makes more sense.  Your first goal is to figure out your BMR and understand your daily calorie goals.

From Start 2 Fitness!

xo Danni