I have read that you must diet and exercise in order to lose weight. Ok. Recently I met someone at a Toastmasters club meeting that had lost over 100 pounds and did it completely through diet. She said only now, does she do any exercise and what she does is a little aerobic walking. She went on to say that basically she lost all her weight through diet and in seven months. Do the math, that is an average of 14 pounds a month! More than likely she lost maybe 20 pounds the first month with less and less each following month.
Still a remarkable loss. Even more remarkable is that she has kept it off for several years. I can tell you that regaining is my biggest fear! Between the last dietbet and this dietbet I regained 4 pounds (give or take a few ounces!) Of course at the moment, maintaining the lose isn’t the question. The question is how to lose 2-3 pounds in the next 10 days.
It’s calories in versus calories out. I wrote about this in an earlier blog post. This time I am going into specific details because I am seeing my scale inch up by ounces for the past 3 days! This is not good. And this is not the direction I want the scale to go in. So I am going to do the math!
A pound = 3500 calories. I need to have a deficit of 3500 calories x 3 over the next 10 days. That is 10,500 calores burned off or not consumed over a 10 day period or 1050 less calories a day for ten days.
How? Actually how many calories do I need to maintain my current weight? The following formula is copied from the website: http://weightloss.about.com/od/eatsmart/a/blcalintake.htm
Step ONE
Women: 655 + (4.3 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years) -
à Me [655+ 850 + 320 - 273] My BMR = 1552
Men: 66 + (6.3 x weight in pounds) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)
Step TWO
Calculate Activity
For me, I am selecting lightly active at BMR x 30% = 466
So my daily calorie needs are: 1552 + 466 or 2018
Now a healthy calorie number for a diet they say is never to go below 1200 calories and I say never go above 1500 calories while dieting. I like a little leeway.
My needs minus my diet intake 2018 – 1500 = 518 and I need to burn an additional 500 calories a day for 10 days straight.g HOW?
For me getting up at O’Dark’30 (4:30am to be more specific!) in order to eat a light breakfast and get dressed and get to the YMCA for a 5:35am cycle class is a start! They also opened the local YMCA swimming pool Monday and have adults only lap swim at 6:30am. I might try adding that in.
I walk a slow 2 mph that will burn 204 calories an hour.
I am – for 10 days – using my own tips, taking my own advice: make a plan, get up early, exercise and burn it off to succeed and I am enlisting my husband to help! We both want to win this bet! Let’s get this done!
For a list of activities and calories burned, check out this site: http://www.nutristrategy.com/caloriesburned.htm