I would be curious to get Penny's thoughts on training your body to burn fat. Using myself as an example, I gotta have some of that going on, as it's the only way I explain my ability to train long on what appears, to me at least, to be stoopid low calorie intake that is simply a product of pure laziness.
For example, when Matt and I rode together at the IMWI camp this month, we did 104mi in ~5:20. I was .83 IF, >350 TSS, and I burned 4000cals. My total nutrition for the day was about a 400cal PBnJ before the ride, water on the bike, and 2 x Snickers and 2 x Cokes (maybe 900cals?), total, at our stops. No salt, no fancypants nutrition and I felt awesome all day.
Penny, thanks again for your help. I have been talking about this with my co-workers and I think I have maybe overthought this and started to confuse myself. You say not to go under 1,900 calories consistently. Do you mean net calories?
For example, so far today I have consumed 1,735 calories and burned 500 for a net of 1,235. If I were to eat/drink another 200 calories is that where I should be or do I need to then cover the 500 I burned through exercise?
Tucker,
See if this makes sense. Your body needs about 1900 cals/day to live. Add to that the 500 cals you spent by working out. That puts you at 2400 cals for your body to be in balance. If you want to lose weight, you could eat 1900 and lose 1/2 pound/week. You DO NOT want to reach 0 net calories per day because then you wouldn't be leaving givinig your body anything to use to work - your heart to beat, your muscles to walk, etc. Another way to look at it is to use 1900 as you "0" point.
I would be curious to get Penny's thoughts on training your body to burn fat. Using myself as an example, I gotta have some of that going on, as it's the only way I explain my ability to train long on what appears, to me at least, to be stoopid low calorie intake that is simply a product of pure laziness.
For example, when Matt and I rode together at the IMWI camp this month, we did 104mi in ~5:20. I was .83 IF, >350 TSS, and I burned 4000cals. My total nutrition for the day was about a 400cal PBnJ before the ride, water on the bike, and 2 x Snickers and 2 x Cokes (maybe 900cals?), total, at our stops. No salt, no fancypants nutrition and I felt awesome all day.
Bob Seebohar is working on "Metabolic Effeciency" which trains your body to use more fat than carbs so you don't have to take in as much fuel during an event. In theory, I like the idea. In practice, I'm not sure. Of course, your body adapts to your daily life and how you train. It makes sense that you could train your body to burn more fat, and that is what Bob is seeing. I will look at getting his book next year and look further into the testing. To do it right, you have to use a metabolic cart, which I don't have access to right now. Next time you see Ellen Coleman, ask her thoughts about it. She and I had a long discussion about it over drinks last year.
You can adapt fluid needs - but the people who can do long distance runs without fluids are super-humans who have been doing it for a long time. Jeff Galloway falls into this category. He has a cup or two of coffee and can run 15 - 20 miles without fluids. I am NOT recommending this. Just pointing out another adaptation some people can make.
I also think it is important to keep in minid that each of us is different. So, your body may be better able to adapt to burning fat than someone else because of your genetics.
I recall reading that HR zones 1 and 2 (aerobic zones) are more fat burning. True?
I would say that is true. But, it also comes to total calories burned if you want to lose weight. Here is a good article from Science of Sport that addresses your question. I haven't read the full article in detail, but they usually do a great job explaining things.
Great thread. As a new member, this is just the type of discussion I was looking for. I agree with the general trend-nutritionally dense foods, not calorically dense, tracking your food, using exercise to get the extra treats, etc. My comments below are about some details based on what I have seen/read in the last few years as I try to get fit and fast.
I don't have references available right now, but will look if anyone is interested.
1. The various calorie counters-Livestrong's Daily plate, Beginner Triathlete, etc, are a decent starting point. For most of us, calories in vs. Calories out is where we need to be looking. Tracking your food is really the only way to be fully honest. Getting a true Base Metabolism number is hard, as there are lots of ways to calculate it. I would say, pick one, try it for a few weeks and adjust the caloric intake as needed based on feel/hunger after you stabilize.
2. The calories expended thing-I think Power meters are the most accurate for measuring how many calories you burn. The estimates on Liverstrong are way high in most cases. I think Runner's world did an article on garmin and polar HRMs and showed that they list too much as well. As coach R stated, err on the low side when calculating.
3. Protien/carbs/fat and timing-There has bee a lot of recent interest and articles about nutrition timing. I think it is pretty well established that you should save pure starch with a high glycemic index for just before and just after, and include some protien to help absorption. However, adding protien or fat to any meal will also slow the absorption of carbs for most meals. Don't be a potato hater!
4. As to fat burning by working out early without eating...I think this is a person by person thing, as far as how far can you go without food in the morning. If you think about it, when you wake up, you are starved-haven't eaten in a while. However, your body must have stored glycogen, as it has been processing and resting all night. Not sure how it affects fat metabolism after you have eaten though.
5.I know I recently saw an article that said if your breakfast is higher in fat it helps your body metabolise fats during the day. I have also read, and personally believe, that a bigger breakfast is generally better and that eating smaller meals (less than 400 cals for me) more times throughout the day helps keep you on an even energy level and blood sugar level.
6. Is a calorie a calorie??? For the most part, I think so. Your body can adjust to lots of different balance of carb, fat and protien. However, I also believe that the less processed a food is, the better for you. I agree with coach R that you should mostly aim for nutritionally dense, not calorically dense. Salads are KEY!!!!
7. Those last 10 lbs....I think your body WANTs fat. I have gotten down to 17% BF, which is great for me compared to the last 10 years. I am hoping to lose another 10-15 lbs so I can be sub 200 lbs for IM cozumel. I think this take extra care in watching the calories and the quality of the calories. It has been a struggle to get below 210, but I haven't been as careful as when I went from 225 to 210.
so, I added the free lose it app over lunch and waiting for a print job to copy I started playing with it... to get to my goal race weight by mid-Aug (my ON date for IM prep), I'm limited to 890 cal per day... this totally shocked me... but as I started adding foods (a lot of them I had to create my own, i.e., for the smoothie, etc) I see that I think I'll be okay - especially after factoring in exercise. But, I admit I added walking (my trip to/from metro is 20 minutes and I'm not a casual stroller)... I happened to notice there's a "sexual activity" icon in the exercises... I'm sure the BF will be happy to know that he's, ahem, taking one for the team to get me to my goal weight.
@Kitima - I'm sorry I didn't try this sooner... I know you've mentioned this before in the women's thread!
Becky, I'm sure Penny will chime in here, but 890 cals sounds super-duper low to me. Even adding in calories burned in exercise (or, ahem, other activities), I still think you are going to need more. I don't want you to starve!
@Rich - had a think about your breakfast of all that fruit - if fat-loss is a goal then personally I would scale back on the fruit & up-scale on the veggies.
Sure, fruit is healthy but it also gains tons of stored sugars, like fructose - if we get all-paleo in our views, then fruits were seasonal for the hunter-gatherer and provided a good opportunity for our ancestors to lay down body fat for the winter ahead.
Looking at your plate, I can almost taste the 'sharpness' of some of the fruits - hence my initial 'where's the yogurt' comment - my concern of eating all that fruit pre-ride would also be getting a sugar/insulin spike - as well as it not helping in fat loss.
For me, I'm enjoying my 2 egg omelette, egg whites, mushrooms, cup of chopped peppers, heap of spinach and goats cheese .
Again, just my take after researching this for the last few years - coming from an MTB XC race background where power/weight is king (even more than road) kinda made me focus on this all the time.
@Becky, here are the calculations from Penny's newsletter or your RMR: Weight is in kilos and height in centimeters so you will need to divide your weight by 2.2 and your height in inches needs to be multiplied by 2.54.
So Becky, using the information you provided earlier, weight, and my estimate of your height at eagleman, say 5'5", and my estimate of your age, 29, , this is what I came up with for you RMR. And this doesn't include any multiplier for activity.
632 + 1,031 - 145 -161 = 1,357 calories
So what did you set LoseIt at, losing 1 pound per week?
To each their own, but I personally find it hard to train for an IM and try to have a big calorie deficit, probably because I have vey little to lose. I personally set mine to the lowest option .5 lbs per week during IM training. In fact, during the last 4 weeks before my race last year, I set it to maintain and they tried to come in just 100-200 calories under as if I ate any less I really strugled to recover and get my workouts done.
I've been using loseit for over a year and a half now and have had great success. An one that wants to is welcome to friend me: matthew.ancona@comcast.net . I know it helps me knowing that coach Rich and others can see how I am doing with my eating.
@Penny, Tucker, Kristen -- I have never officially had my RMR done... but based on the formula Tucker laid out (thanks for your estimates... I hate to admit I'm a smidge shorter and a hair, just a hair, older...) it is: 1272. I set LoseIt to get me to my goal/race weight, 125, by (I think) Timberman, which is 8/22 (after which point I'll be in IM OM time so I want to be at race weight and maintain through that period)... which told me that I had to lose 2 lbs per week and to do that I can net 844 calories. For what it's worth, I didn't hit that yesterday. My total calories were 2037 and, after factoring in exercise, I netted 1312 -- and my weight stayed the same from yesterday to today (131.4). Which, based on the RMR calculation above, seems to be right on the money. I'm not sure if I can do ~845... but netting it out after exercise, I think dropping below the 1200 is definitely feasible (cutting back on some of the trail mix and adding more lower calorie nutritious snacks with protein). I'm hopeful that once I hit the target I will adjust the app and I will be able to net more calories... at least I would hope... thanks for your concern. Your thoughts? This has been really interesting. oh, and I like Matt's idea re: friending. I'm at rah.2774@gmail.com
@Penny - on an unrelated note, hope your proposal was really well received yesterday!
Thanks for the input. Today I'll go through this, clean up my post, extract the good stuff from yours, and archive this as a wiki post.
@David, I dunno about meal timing, don't think too much about what I eat and when, etc, other than I do focus on getting in a good mix of carbs and protein immediately after a ride. Instead, I focus on counting the cals in and the cals out. Yesterday, due to a 5:30-8pm, 45mi, 3800ft gain climbing ride with Sawiris, I came in 800cals under budget. Got off the bike and litteraly stuffed myself with a turkey sandwich, baked potato, smoothie and a ton of water. I was kinda uncomfortable when I went to bed, I was so full.
I've dialed LoseIt down to 1.5lb/wk and, if I were doing this before a race I actually cared about, like an IM, I would have an aggressive body comp goal, set it to .5-1lb/wk to get there, and then backplan so that I hit my race weight about 2-3wks out. Then, intuitively, I would be able to back up to a maintainence level of food intake at the same time that my volume was dropping off for taper.
Knowing myself and how my body acts, I think I could race at 2nd teir pro kinda skinny, like 5-6% BF vs 4-5%. And I never lose upper body mass. I know things are going the right direction when I get two comments from Joanne:
"Baby, where did the booty go!" I gain most of my weight in my ass and legs. Lots of junk in my trunk when I'm fat.
"You look like you lift but I never see you pick anything up, especially your shoes. WTF?"
This may not be very relevant to the conversation but this all very interesting as I have been on a weight loss tear sinc e I started my IMLV training plan 10 weeks ago. I am 6ft tall and was 190 lbs so I wanted to drop a few pounds for my race but I didnt expect where I am today. Two months ago just before I started my plan I also started dating a vegetarian, she is a very health conscience athlete and uses a lot of different foods to suppliment the loss of "flesh" as she calls it. To this day I have lost15 lbs going from around 190 to the low 170's. This summer has been brutally hot as last night I weighed myself before my long run of 15 miles, I was 176, I started my run at 6pm when the heat index was still 101. It took me 2hrs 10 min to finish the run with water stops and I had lost 8 punds in water weight. Eating right (dating a vegan) and excerise are the key to any weight loss of course. Training for an Ironman doesnt hurt either. Also I still eat meat from time to time as I was afraid that I was losing too much weight.
1) As someone said previously, for most people the calories in/calories out works. However, if it isn't working or you suspect something else is up, see your doctor and have a checkup and full blood pannel done. Funky things can happen with your endocrine system that throws things out of whack and make your body not lose weight.
2) Eating less than 1200 - 1500 cals/day does not allow you to get all the micronutriends (vitamins/minerals) your body needs.
3) You can't look at your weight, when you are trying to lose/change body composition, on a day-by-day basis. It is a trend over time. Your body doesn't have a reset button that it hits a midnight, then does a calcuation that results in what you see on the scale the next day. You should be concerned with tracking the trend over time.
@Penny, Tucker, Kristen -- I have never officially had my RMR done... but based on the formula Tucker laid out (thanks for your estimates... I hate to admit I'm a smidge shorter and a hair, just a hair, older...) it is: 1272. I set LoseIt to get me to my goal/race weight, 125, by (I think) Timberman, which is 8/22 (after which point I'll be in IM OM time so I want to be at race weight and maintain through that period)... which told me that I had to lose 2 lbs per week and to do that I can net 844 calories. For what it's worth, I didn't hit that yesterday. My total calories were 2037 and, after factoring in exercise, I netted 1312 -- and my weight stayed the same from yesterday to today (131.4). Which, based on the RMR calculation above, seems to be right on the money. I'm not sure if I can do ~845... but netting it out after exercise, I think dropping below the 1200 is definitely feasible (cutting back on some of the trail mix and adding more lower calorie nutritious snacks with protein). I'm hopeful that once I hit the target I will adjust the app and I will be able to net more calories... at least I would hope... thanks for your concern. Your thoughts? This has been really interesting. oh, and I like Matt's idea re: friending. I'm at rah.2774@gmail.com
@Penny - on an unrelated note, hope your proposal was really well received yesterday!
Becky,
I have a lot of concerns with you trying to drop that amount of weight coming up to your race. If you were a client of mine, I would strongly counsel you against it. I would go with something much more modest and then get more agressive after you recover from your race. You want to go into the race well fueled with full glycogen stores (which means more water storage). Think about it this way - what's more important - your race performance or being at your goal weight?
I'd use your calculated RMR as 0 because that is what your body needs to run. So, rathern than looking at the total net calories, you may want to look at how much you burn working out, then eat 500 or so calories less than you burned that day+1300. If that isn't realistic, I'd go to 1200 but no lower than that.
@Penny - thanks, makes sense! 1272 + (exercise cal - 500). Had I used this app a month ago I think achieving my race weight by the HIM would have been a bit less severe... but you're right IMFL is a long way off and I have lots of time to do this a better way and ensure I'm not running myself into the ground.
If I can try to hit my race weight at least by the 1st RR (9/25 - 2 mos from now), I should be okay... 2 months to lose 6 lbs is probably a lot healthier! I just edited my LoseIt app goal... by selecting the "lose 1lb/week" option, it will get me to the goal weight by 9/13, and gives me the ability to net 1346 calories (which is RMR +72).
Depending on the workout length/intensity I think that will be close to exercise -500 on many week days and I can adjust on the long workout weekend days... disregarding the net calorie target per your suggestion. Thanks again...
Good stuff in here. As a quantitative tool to track calorie expenditure I use the BodyBugg and their online food tracking tool. I tested against LoseIt a bunch of months back and the BB was more accurate. Probably because it was attached to my arm. :-) But the delta wasn't huge. The cool thing about the BB is that you download the data and see exactly how much you burn on a specific run or ride.
Thanks for putting this together, Rich! I am down 14 pounds since February and it is tracking my food that has been one of the keys.
Ok so I just got back from a ride. Looked at the Garmin and it says I burned 3000 calories. Looked at the PT and the E gives me 1300 KJ. Now at one point someone actually threw the total conversion formula in another thread, I think it was Mike Graffeo but I cannot find it now. But using what Rich had earlier and there is like a 10% difference or so, let's say I only burned 1500kcal. That is a huge difference. What could Garmin possibly be using to calculate this stuff?
Ok so I just got back from a ride. Looked at the Garmin and it says I burned 3000 calories. Looked at the PT and the E gives me 1300 KJ. Now at one point someone actually threw the total conversion formula in another thread, I think it was Mike Graffeo but I cannot find it now. But using what Rich had earlier and there is like a 10% difference or so, let's say I only burned 1500kcal. That is a huge difference. What could Garmin possibly be using to calculate this stuff?
I recommend you ignore the Garmin. The Powertap is calculating kj (work) performed as a function of the no shit watts you held for the ride. The Garmin is probably doing something like "doode weighs x, rode his bike y miles with z gain at 20mph = he burned 3000cals." GPS altitude/gain is notoriously off so that can really affect the numbers.
I totally agree Rich, I just looked at it to see how they matched up. Was shocked to see such a big discrepancy. I would have thought 10-20% off but this was ridiculous. Can you imagine a guy does same ride as me and his watch tells him he just burned 3000 calories. Well he goes out there and eats those 3000 back and wonders why he gains weight!
Tucker, that would be me. The short answer is exactly what Rich said. The PT is about as close as you can get to an accurate calorie estimate.
The only variable in the way it estimates calories burned is the athlete's individual cycling efficiency (how many of your calories burned go towards watts vs. Heat). In most people, this number lives within a very small range.
Re: the Garmin, hard to say, but if it was a 305 and thought you were running, that would be one possible explanation. Or, the elevation readings could be waaaaay off. Otherwise, not sure.
@John: did you buy or rent your BodyBug? I may offer those to my clients in the future. After January. . . .
Hi Penny - I bought one a couple of years ago. Guess they use it on The Biggest Loser? Not sure cuz I don't watch the show. Not cheap but it works great.
To Becky, about eating 890 calories a day, please don't. Eat more.
I have read, and I think it is reasonable, that losing more than 1 lbs a week on average is not healthy. I also think that trying to have a major calorie deficit when doing higher volume and intensity is a recipe for disaster. You NEED EXTRA nutrition when working out for an IM. Make sure you are giving your body the best, so it can give you its best.
First post as I am poking around the website sucking up all the knowledge. I track cal income and outgo too. I have learned that you can go a little nuts trying to get the numbers to make sense. There is a lot of variation on different sites for the nutrition info for foods, as well as for calorie output for exercise, and of course the HRs have some variation too. I have also learned that in addition to tracking all this stuff, listening to what your body is telling you is HUGE. Are you pretty hungry and feel you "shouldn't be?" something is probably off somewhere. Consider having a little healthy snack and see if it helps. No use going nuts trying to refrain and then binging or something. Are you full but still have calories left? Then I would say hold off until you your body actually gets hungry, something may be amiss in the other direction. It does take a little while to really kind of get in tune with your body if you aren't already, but once you have a good sense of need (vs want!) I think it's pretty reasonable to stay on it.
In the interest of full disclosure: hopefully y'all won't blow me off when I say this, but I track because I have other dietary restrictions (celiac sprue) and the default comfort state of my tummy is to be empty when things get out of balance. Combine that with ironman training and whoa nelly do I have a problem. So I can't say that I am a pro on the on-purpose weight loss front, but I can definitely identify with watching what you eat like a *hawk*.
And if there are any people out there like me who have an ice cream weakness - take a banana, slice it up, freeze it. Then stick it in a blender (nothing else) and blend the beejezus out of it. It will take a few minutes, and you can add a little bit of milk (me - soy milk) to hurry it along. It comes out holy-god yummy. It's like the homemade kind of "ice cream." nom nom nom...
Ok so I just got back from a ride. Looked at the Garmin and it says I burned 3000 calories. Looked at the PT and the E gives me 1300 KJ. Now at one point someone actually threw the total conversion formula in another thread, I think it was Mike Graffeo but I cannot find it now. But using what Rich had earlier and there is like a 10% difference or so, let's say I only burned 1500kcal. That is a huge difference. What could Garmin possibly be using to calculate this stuff?
I don't think you can or should use KJ as the amount of calories expended. KJ is the work your body did, not calories you burned. I've compared the Garmin calculations to those done using METs and they come out really close. So, I'd say to use your Garmin for calories.
Comments
I would be curious to get Penny's thoughts on training your body to burn fat. Using myself as an example, I gotta have some of that going on, as it's the only way I explain my ability to train long on what appears, to me at least, to be stoopid low calorie intake that is simply a product of pure laziness.
For example, when Matt and I rode together at the IMWI camp this month, we did 104mi in ~5:20. I was .83 IF, >350 TSS, and I burned 4000cals. My total nutrition for the day was about a 400cal PBnJ before the ride, water on the bike, and 2 x Snickers and 2 x Cokes (maybe 900cals?), total, at our stops. No salt, no fancypants nutrition and I felt awesome all day.
Tucker,
See if this makes sense. Your body needs about 1900 cals/day to live. Add to that the 500 cals you spent by working out. That puts you at 2400 cals for your body to be in balance. If you want to lose weight, you could eat 1900 and lose 1/2 pound/week. You DO NOT want to reach 0 net calories per day because then you wouldn't be leaving givinig your body anything to use to work - your heart to beat, your muscles to walk, etc. Another way to look at it is to use 1900 as you "0" point.
Does that help?
I agree. Yogurt or greek yogurt. YUM! Gotta get some protein in there, too. Maybe add some nuts.
Bob Seebohar is working on "Metabolic Effeciency" which trains your body to use more fat than carbs so you don't have to take in as much fuel during an event. In theory, I like the idea. In practice, I'm not sure. Of course, your body adapts to your daily life and how you train. It makes sense that you could train your body to burn more fat, and that is what Bob is seeing. I will look at getting his book next year and look further into the testing. To do it right, you have to use a metabolic cart, which I don't have access to right now. Next time you see Ellen Coleman, ask her thoughts about it. She and I had a long discussion about it over drinks last year.
You can adapt fluid needs - but the people who can do long distance runs without fluids are super-humans who have been doing it for a long time. Jeff Galloway falls into this category. He has a cup or two of coffee and can run 15 - 20 miles without fluids. I am NOT recommending this. Just pointing out another adaptation some people can make.
I also think it is important to keep in minid that each of us is different. So, your body may be better able to adapt to burning fat than someone else because of your genetics.
I recall reading that HR zones 1 and 2 (aerobic zones) are more fat burning. True?
I would say that is true. But, it also comes to total calories burned if you want to lose weight. Here is a good article from Science of Sport that addresses your question. I haven't read the full article in detail, but they usually do a great job explaining things.
Hey All,
Great thread. As a new member, this is just the type of discussion I was looking for. I agree with the general trend-nutritionally dense foods, not calorically dense, tracking your food, using exercise to get the extra treats, etc. My comments below are about some details based on what I have seen/read in the last few years as I try to get fit and fast.
I don't have references available right now, but will look if anyone is interested.
1. The various calorie counters-Livestrong's Daily plate, Beginner Triathlete, etc, are a decent starting point. For most of us, calories in vs. Calories out is where we need to be looking. Tracking your food is really the only way to be fully honest. Getting a true Base Metabolism number is hard, as there are lots of ways to calculate it. I would say, pick one, try it for a few weeks and adjust the caloric intake as needed based on feel/hunger after you stabilize.
2. The calories expended thing-I think Power meters are the most accurate for measuring how many calories you burn. The estimates on Liverstrong are way high in most cases. I think Runner's world did an article on garmin and polar HRMs and showed that they list too much as well. As coach R stated, err on the low side when calculating.
3. Protien/carbs/fat and timing-There has bee a lot of recent interest and articles about nutrition timing. I think it is pretty well established that you should save pure starch with a high glycemic index for just before and just after, and include some protien to help absorption. However, adding protien or fat to any meal will also slow the absorption of carbs for most meals. Don't be a potato hater!
4. As to fat burning by working out early without eating...I think this is a person by person thing, as far as how far can you go without food in the morning. If you think about it, when you wake up, you are starved-haven't eaten in a while. However, your body must have stored glycogen, as it has been processing and resting all night. Not sure how it affects fat metabolism after you have eaten though.
5.I know I recently saw an article that said if your breakfast is higher in fat it helps your body metabolise fats during the day. I have also read, and personally believe, that a bigger breakfast is generally better and that eating smaller meals (less than 400 cals for me) more times throughout the day helps keep you on an even energy level and blood sugar level.
6. Is a calorie a calorie??? For the most part, I think so. Your body can adjust to lots of different balance of carb, fat and protien. However, I also believe that the less processed a food is, the better for you. I agree with coach R that you should mostly aim for nutritionally dense, not calorically dense. Salads are KEY!!!!
7. Those last 10 lbs....I think your body WANTs fat. I have gotten down to 17% BF, which is great for me compared to the last 10 years. I am hoping to lose another 10-15 lbs so I can be sub 200 lbs for IM cozumel. I think this take extra care in watching the calories and the quality of the calories. It has been a struggle to get below 210, but I haven't been as careful as when I went from 225 to 210.
OK, brain dump over. Thanks for the discussion.
so, I added the free lose it app over lunch and waiting for a print job to copy I started playing with it... to get to my goal race weight by mid-Aug (my ON date for IM prep), I'm limited to 890 cal per day... this totally shocked me... but as I started adding foods (a lot of them I had to create my own, i.e., for the smoothie, etc) I see that I think I'll be okay - especially after factoring in exercise. But, I admit I added walking (my trip to/from metro is 20 minutes and I'm not a casual stroller)... I happened to notice there's a "sexual activity" icon in the exercises... I'm sure the BF will be happy to know that he's, ahem, taking one for the team to get me to my goal weight.
@Kitima - I'm sorry I didn't try this sooner... I know you've mentioned this before in the women's thread!
@Rich - had a think about your breakfast of all that fruit - if fat-loss is a goal then personally I would scale back on the fruit & up-scale on the veggies.
Sure, fruit is healthy but it also gains tons of stored sugars, like fructose - if we get all-paleo in our views, then fruits were seasonal for the hunter-gatherer and provided a good opportunity for our ancestors to lay down body fat for the winter ahead.
Looking at your plate, I can almost taste the 'sharpness' of some of the fruits - hence my initial 'where's the yogurt' comment - my concern of eating all that fruit pre-ride would also be getting a sugar/insulin spike - as well as it not helping in fat loss.
For me, I'm enjoying my 2 egg omelette, egg whites, mushrooms, cup of chopped peppers, heap of spinach and goats cheese
.
Again, just my take after researching this for the last few years - coming from an MTB XC race background where power/weight is king (even more than road) kinda made me focus on this all the time.
Weight is in kilos and height in centimeters so you will need to divide your weight by 2.2 and your height in inches needs to be multiplied by 2.54.
* Male: BMR = 10×weight + 6.25×height - 5×age + 5
* Female: BMR = 10×weight + 6.25×height - 5×age - 161
So Becky, using the information you provided earlier, weight, and my estimate of your height at eagleman, say 5'5", and my estimate of your age, 29,
632 + 1,031 - 145 -161 = 1,357 calories
So what did you set LoseIt at, losing 1 pound per week?
I've been using loseit for over a year and a half now and have had great success. An one that wants to is welcome to friend me: matthew.ancona@comcast.net . I know it helps me knowing that coach Rich and others can see how I am doing with my eating.
@Penny, Tucker, Kristen -- I have never officially had my RMR done... but based on the formula Tucker laid out (thanks for your estimates... I hate to admit I'm a smidge shorter and a hair, just a hair, older...
) it is: 1272. I set LoseIt to get me to my goal/race weight, 125, by (I think) Timberman, which is 8/22 (after which point I'll be in IM OM time so I want to be at race weight and maintain through that period)... which told me that I had to lose 2 lbs per week and to do that I can net 844 calories. For what it's worth, I didn't hit that yesterday. My total calories were 2037 and, after factoring in exercise, I netted 1312 -- and my weight stayed the same from yesterday to today (131.4). Which, based on the RMR calculation above, seems to be right on the money. I'm not sure if I can do ~845... but netting it out after exercise, I think dropping below the 1200 is definitely feasible (cutting back on some of the trail mix and adding more lower calorie nutritious snacks with protein). I'm hopeful that once I hit the target I will adjust the app and I will be able to net more calories... at least I would hope... thanks for your concern. Your thoughts? This has been really interesting. oh, and I like Matt's idea re: friending. I'm at rah.2774@gmail.com
@Penny - on an unrelated note, hope your proposal was really well received yesterday!
All,
Thanks for the input. Today I'll go through this, clean up my post, extract the good stuff from yours, and archive this as a wiki post.
@David, I dunno about meal timing, don't think too much about what I eat and when, etc, other than I do focus on getting in a good mix of carbs and protein immediately after a ride. Instead, I focus on counting the cals in and the cals out. Yesterday, due to a 5:30-8pm, 45mi, 3800ft gain climbing ride with Sawiris, I came in 800cals under budget. Got off the bike and litteraly stuffed myself with a turkey sandwich, baked potato, smoothie and a ton of water. I was kinda uncomfortable when I went to bed, I was so full.
I've dialed LoseIt down to 1.5lb/wk and, if I were doing this before a race I actually cared about, like an IM, I would have an aggressive body comp goal, set it to .5-1lb/wk to get there, and then backplan so that I hit my race weight about 2-3wks out. Then, intuitively, I would be able to back up to a maintainence level of food intake at the same time that my volume was dropping off for taper.
Knowing myself and how my body acts, I think I could race at 2nd teir pro kinda skinny, like 5-6% BF vs 4-5%. And I never lose upper body mass. I know things are going the right direction when I get two comments from Joanne:
A few more thoughts to add:
1) As someone said previously, for most people the calories in/calories out works. However, if it isn't working or you suspect something else is up, see your doctor and have a checkup and full blood pannel done. Funky things can happen with your endocrine system that throws things out of whack and make your body not lose weight.
2) Eating less than 1200 - 1500 cals/day does not allow you to get all the micronutriends (vitamins/minerals) your body needs.
3) You can't look at your weight, when you are trying to lose/change body composition, on a day-by-day basis. It is a trend over time. Your body doesn't have a reset button that it hits a midnight, then does a calcuation that results in what you see on the scale the next day. You should be concerned with tracking the trend over time.
Becky,
I have a lot of concerns with you trying to drop that amount of weight coming up to your race. If you were a client of mine, I would strongly counsel you against it. I would go with something much more modest and then get more agressive after you recover from your race. You want to go into the race well fueled with full glycogen stores (which means more water storage). Think about it this way - what's more important - your race performance or being at your goal weight?
I'd use your calculated RMR as 0 because that is what your body needs to run. So, rathern than looking at the total net calories, you may want to look at how much you burn working out, then eat 500 or so calories less than you burned that day+1300. If that isn't realistic, I'd go to 1200 but no lower than that.
@Penny - thanks, makes sense! 1272 + (exercise cal - 500). Had I used this app a month ago I think achieving my race weight by the HIM would have been a bit less severe... but you're right IMFL is a long way off and I have lots of time to do this a better way and ensure I'm not running myself into the ground.
If I can try to hit my race weight at least by the 1st RR (9/25 - 2 mos from now), I should be okay... 2 months to lose 6 lbs is probably a lot healthier! I just edited my LoseIt app goal... by selecting the "lose 1lb/week" option, it will get me to the goal weight by 9/13, and gives me the ability to net 1346 calories (which is RMR +72).
Depending on the workout length/intensity I think that will be close to exercise -500 on many week days and I can adjust on the long workout weekend days... disregarding the net calorie target per your suggestion. Thanks again...
Good stuff in here. As a quantitative tool to track calorie expenditure I use the BodyBugg and their online food tracking tool. I tested against LoseIt a bunch of months back and the BB was more accurate. Probably because it was attached to my arm. :-) But the delta wasn't huge. The cool thing about the BB is that you download the data and see exactly how much you burn on a specific run or ride.
Thanks for putting this together, Rich! I am down 14 pounds since February and it is tracking my food that has been one of the keys.
John
@John: did you buy or rent your BodyBug? I may offer those to my clients in the future. After January. . . .
I recommend you ignore the Garmin. The Powertap is calculating kj (work) performed as a function of the no shit watts you held for the ride. The Garmin is probably doing something like "doode weighs x, rode his bike y miles with z gain at 20mph = he burned 3000cals." GPS altitude/gain is notoriously off so that can really affect the numbers.
The only variable in the way it estimates calories burned is the athlete's individual cycling efficiency (how many of your calories burned go towards watts vs. Heat). In most people, this number lives within a very small range.
Re: the Garmin, hard to say, but if it was a 305 and thought you were running, that would be one possible explanation. Or, the elevation readings could be waaaaay off. Otherwise, not sure.
Mike
Tucker, about Garmin vs. PT. Go with the PT.
To Becky, about eating 890 calories a day, please don't. Eat more.
I have read, and I think it is reasonable, that losing more than 1 lbs a week on average is not healthy. I also think that trying to have a major calorie deficit when doing higher volume and intensity is a recipe for disaster. You NEED EXTRA nutrition when working out for an IM. Make sure you are giving your body the best, so it can give you its best.
First post as I am poking around the website sucking up all the knowledge. I track cal income and outgo too. I have learned that you can go a little nuts trying to get the numbers to make sense. There is a lot of variation on different sites for the nutrition info for foods, as well as for calorie output for exercise, and of course the HRs have some variation too. I have also learned that in addition to tracking all this stuff, listening to what your body is telling you is HUGE. Are you pretty hungry and feel you "shouldn't be?" something is probably off somewhere. Consider having a little healthy snack and see if it helps. No use going nuts trying to refrain and then binging or something. Are you full but still have calories left? Then I would say hold off until you your body actually gets hungry, something may be amiss in the other direction. It does take a little while to really kind of get in tune with your body if you aren't already, but once you have a good sense of need (vs want!) I think it's pretty reasonable to stay on it.
In the interest of full disclosure: hopefully y'all won't blow me off when I say this, but I track because I have other dietary restrictions (celiac sprue) and the default comfort state of my tummy is to be empty when things get out of balance. Combine that with ironman training and whoa nelly do I have a problem. So I can't say that I am a pro on the on-purpose weight loss front, but I can definitely identify with watching what you eat like a *hawk*.
And if there are any people out there like me who have an ice cream weakness - take a banana, slice it up, freeze it. Then stick it in a blender (nothing else) and blend the beejezus out of it. It will take a few minutes, and you can add a little bit of milk (me - soy milk) to hurry it along. It comes out holy-god yummy. It's like the homemade kind of "ice cream." nom nom nom...
I don't think you can or should use KJ as the amount of calories expended. KJ is the work your body did, not calories you burned. I've compared the Garmin calculations to those done using METs and they come out really close. So, I'd say to use your Garmin for calories.