Reader Q&A: How To Calculate A Calorie Deficit

As a follow up to my recent post on designing a healthy eating plan a reader sent in a question:

In your post on Jan 9 about a good diet plan, you mention that in order to lose one pound you need to create a 3000 caloried deficit.  Do you have any idea when it stops being a deficit and becomes your rountine?   In other words, when do you need to create another 3000 calorie deficit to continue losing weight?

The first thing you need to do is to figure out how many calories you need right now to maintain your current weight.  For this you will need a calorie calculator.  The one I use can be found HERE. Just select the BMR & RMR calculator.

When I enter in my parameters:

• Weight - 215
• Height - 5′11″
• Age - 35
• Gender - Male

I get the following:

Factor	Category	Definition	BMR	RMR
1.2	Sedentary	Little or no exercise and desk	2,486	2,318
		job
1.375	Lightly Active	Light exercise or sports 1-3	2,849	2,657
		days a week
1.55	Moderately Active	Moderate exercise or sports	3,212	2,995
		3-5 days a week
1.725	Very Active	Hard exercise or sports 6-7	3,574	3,333
		days a week
1.9	Extremely Active	Hard daily exercise or sports	3,937	3,671
		and physical job

So if I want to maintain my current weight, I would need to 3574 calories a day (based on the fact that I fall into the very active category).  If I eat less than that, I have a calorie deficit and I will lose weight.  If I eat more than, I have a surplus and I’ll gain weight.

Now let’s say that I have a calorie deficit and I slowly lose weight.  I get to my target weight of 190lbs and I wonder, do I still have a calorie deficit?  Am I going to keep losing weight?  If I enter in the same parameters but change the weight to 190, I get the following results:

Factor	Category	Definition	BMR	RMR
1.2	Sedentary	Little or no exercise and desk	2,299	2,183
		job
1.375	Lightly Active	Light exercise or sports 1-3	2,635	2,501
		days a week
1.55	Moderately Active	Moderate exercise or sports	2,970	2,819
		3-5 days a week
1.725	Very Active	Hard exercise or sports 6-7	3,305	3,138
		days a week
1.9	Extremely Active	Hard daily exercise or sports	3,640	3,456
		and physical job

So at 190lbs I need 3305 to maintain my weight at my current activity level.  If I’m eating less than that, I’ll continue to lose weight.  By the way, you can reverse engineer your way to a good eating plan by putting in your target weight.  It will tell you how many calories per day you need in order to maintain that weight.  Now you simply adjust your diet to provide you with that number on average and you will eventually hit your target weight.

Remember, this isn’t an exact science.  Your metabolism might be slightly faster or slower plus you’re not going to hit this calorie goal exactly every day.  Just aim for the general vicinity and make adjustments as you go along and see what the results are.

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My apologies for the delayed post by the way, my computer was hit by a virus and had to be wiped clean.  Ooooh, I hate malware!

A Quick Guide To A Good Diet Plan

After the 10 tips for better eating I posted last time, I thought I would follow up with an outline of a diet plan.  Why an outline instead of details?  Because I don’t believe in these “one size fits all” diet plans that seem to be popular.  The following is intended as a starting point for people trying to fix up their eating habits.  It is not intended as a step by step guide.  I don’t know you, I don’t know your situation and pretending that I do and that I know the perfect solution for you would be a lie.  So take this outline and fill in the gaps yourself according to what you think works best for you.

Next week I’ll do the same for exercise, the other vital part of a healthy lifestyle.

Step 1 - Research

Yes, you need to do your research.  I’m sorry, I know you want to jump right into the mix of things and start making the big changes but do you even know what you need to change?  Do you know what your worst eating habit is?  Spend a month keeping a food journal.  Write down everything you eat, what you felt when you ate it and why you were eating in the first place.  This is your map, it’s your database of information that you will mine for a lot of valuable facts.

Step 2 - Identify the Problems

You have a lot of good information from your eating journal, now we start to analyze it.

• How many meals a day are you eating?
• How many calories a day are you eating?
• Are you getting most of your calories from meals or from snacks?
• Are you eating breakfast?
• Are you eating because you’re stressed?
• Are you eating too much at buffets?
• Are you getting a lot of calories (more than 10% of your daily requirements) from drinks?
• What’s the difference between the amount of calories you’re eating now and the amount you should be eating at your target weight?

Step 3 - Identify Your Goal

What are you trying to accomplish?  Yes, I know, you want to lose weight.  That’s great as an overall goal, but you have detailed facts now so let’s make that goal more realistic.  Do you want to lose 10lbs in 3 months?  do you want to be 190lbs by July?  What’s your goal and is it realistic?  Remember, each lb you lose means 3000 less calories.  If you want to lose 2lbs a week, you better find a way to create a 6000 calorie deficit every week from now until you get to your goal weight.  That’s not easy folks so make sure you keep it in mind.

Step 4 - Plan of Action

Now that you know what specific goal you want to accomplish, how are you going to accomplish it? Your plan needs to be realistic and you need to make sure you can hit your goals with this plan.  Otherwise, you’re setting yourself up for failure before you even start.

Let’s take a look at an example.  In step 1 I tracked all my calorie consumption.  In step 2 I identified the fact that I consume 500 calories a day through sodas.  In step 3 I said that I want to lose 10lbs in the next 3 months.  Now in step 4 I’m going to state that I’m going to achieve this goal by cutting out sodas and only drinking water.

Is the plan realistic?  Sure, soda is not a necessary part of life and, with enough will power, you can cut soda out and drink only water.  However, don’t underestimate the caffeine addiction.  It’s going to be a miserable few days when you first start doing this.  Perhaps the first part of your plan should be switching to diet sodas?  Maybe you should cut down gradually instead of going cold turkey.  I’m not sure of the answer, it depends on you, but make sure your plan is realistic.

Also, make sure this plan is something you can maintain for the rest of your life.  Remember, temporary changes produce temporary results.  If you revert back after 3 months, you’ll just gain the weight back.

Finally, does your plan make sense in light of your goal?  Well, let’s see.  You want to lose 10lbs over 3 months.  That’s a 30,000 calorie deficit over 13 weeks or 91 days.  My research from steps 1 and 2 tells me that I consume 500 calories a day from sodas.  So if I cut that 500 calories out for 91 days, I will have a calorie deficit of 45,500.  Sounds like your plan is realistic.  By the way, this assumes that you were not gaining weight before this plan but were instead at a steady weight level.  If you were gaining weight, you had a calorie surplus which we would need to account for.

What if you only consumed 200 calories per day in sodas?  Cutting that out for 90 days would mean a calorie deficit of 18,200 calories.  That’s well short of your 30,000 goal.  Guess what, your plan is unrealistic and is set up for failure before you even start.  This is why it’s important to do the research and set realistic goals.

Step 5 - Implement

This is the easy one.  Put your plan in action.  In this particular case, stop drinking sodas.

Step 6 - Assess and revise

It’s been 3 months, have you lost the weight?  By the way, body weight can fluctuate by 2 or 3 lbs per day.  That’s natural, so keep it in mind when you weight yourself.  If you met your goal, that’s great.  Just remember to maintain your new habit for the rest of your life.  If you want to, go back to step 1 and set up a new goal.

What about if you failed?  What if you didn’t lose the weight?  In that case, try to analyze what happened.  Did you compensate for the missing sodas by eating more chips?  Did you miscalculate your amount of calories required?  I can’t give you a detailed answer because the answer depends on your specific situation, but trust me when I say this, for most people losing weight is simple math.  Somewhere in your plan, you calculated something wrong.  Go back to step 1, keep a food journal and then start over.

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Note, this plan is for people like me who want to know and understand how and why things work.  We LOVE details.  We LOVE tracking numbers.  If that’s not you, no problem.  Just follow the tips for healthier eating that you see in this post.  They work even if you don’t know the exact math behind them.

5 Ways To Keep Your New Year’s Fitness Resolutions

First of all, I’m not a big fan of new year’s resolutions.  I mean, if it’s important enough for you to resolve to change it, why wait until New Year’s?  Is there something special about January 1st that makes it more important than other days?  However, since I know a lot of people make resolutions this time of year, I figured I would try to help by giving a few tips on what to do and what not to do.

Have A Plan - Can’t empahsize this enough.  If you don’t have a plan, you’re going to fail.  You overall resolution may be “lose 30lbs”, which is fine, but you need to have a detailed plan on how to do this.  Figure out how you’re going to change your eating habits, your exercise and your life and put it all in writing.

Have A REALISTIC Goal - Listen, if you’re 100lbs overweight, can’t move faster than a walk, haven’t been near a gym in 20 years and are short of breath after taking the groceries in from the car, you are NOT going to be running that triathlon in March.  I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but you need to be realistic about what you can and cannot accomplish.  Remember, healthy weight loss is no more than 2lbs per week and probably closer to 1lb per week.  If you’re completely out of shape, it’s going to take you months to change that.  Pick a goal that’s realistic so you don’t end up disappointing yourself and quitting.

Get Help - There are A LOT of people out there right now trying to get in shape.  Why not find one or even two of them and work on this together?  I’m sure you can find a friend, family member or coworker with the same resolution.  Get together and help each other out.  Working on this kind of resolution together is great for motivation and will help you get over the hump.

Make It Public - The only reason to hide your resolution is because you’re afraid you might fail.  How about making a public resolution instead?  Knowing that the world is watching is great motivation for getting up and going to the gym.  Post something on your facebook, MySpace or personal blog.  Send out an email or just announce it next family dinner.

Don’t Be Discouraged - I know how it feels.  You go to the gym and you try to lift something and fail.  All the people around you are lifting 1000lbs with their finger and you can’t even lift the bar.  Guess what, that’s all in your head.  Most of the people in the gym around this time of year are just like you.  They’re new and clueless.  Also, the more experienced people are not laughing at you, nor do they look down on you.  They’re just hoping you don’t hurt yourself or them doing something stupid.  So use their experience and don’t be afraid to ask questions.

There you go, five quick tips to get your year off to a good start.

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No, I did not make any new years resolutions this year.  When I see something in my life that I want to change, I start changing it then instead of waiting until January 1st.  And yes, I realize that sounds a bit pompous and arrogant, but hey, that’s me!

The HCG Diet, Yet Another Fad Diet

A reader sent me a note over the weekend asking me what I thought of the HCG diet. To be honest, I never even heard of it, but hey, I’m always open to learning about new things. So I turned to my trust search engine (hi Google!) and started researching. Here’s what I came up with.

What Is It?

HCG is a diet regimen in which you limit your daily calorie intake to less than 500 calories a day.  At the same time, you inject yourself with HCG, Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a hormone found in the placenta of pregnant women.

Does It Work?

Assuming you’re still curious after hearing that you’ll have to inject yourself daily with hormones from the a human placenta, then yes, this diet works.  Dah! OF COURSE it works.  YOU’RE EATING 500 CALORIES A DAY! Heck, at 500 calories a day anyone would lose weight and the injections have nothing to do with it.  You can inject me every hour with hormones from the testicles of a rabid hyena and I’m still relatively sure I would lose weight on a diet of 500 calories a day.  It’s not magic folks, it’s simply starving yourself, and the hormone injections are just pseudo science intended to fool you.

Do I Recommend It?

In case that last sentence didn’t get the point across.  NO.  NO WAY.  NOT A CHANCE.  NO CHANCE IN HELL.  This diet is crap.  You’re starving yourself plus you’re injecting yourself with something that has no basis in science.  If you want to starve yourself, be my guest, but don’t fool yourself into thinking it’s healthy just because some one put scientific sounding words in the description.

Seriously

1. The diet claims you will lose .5 to 3lbs A DAY.  Even if you starve yourself you won’t lose this much.  3lbs lost a day means you burned 9000 more calories than you took in.  Unless you’re Michael Phelps, your metabolism just doesn’t work that way.  Anyone promising you more than 1 to 2 lbs lost in a week is either a quack or a liar, or both.
2. Speaking of liars and quacks, let’s do some research.  The guy who’s selling this diet, Kevin Trudeau, was busted multiple times already.  Once by the FTC for claiming his calcium supplement cured cancer and another time by the FTC because Trudeau “has misled thousands of consumers” about his weight loss plans.  This is the guy you want to buy hormone shots from?  I’d rather take stock tips from my 6 month old nephew.
3. While we’re on the subject of nutrition, the American Journal of clinical nutrition already looked into HCG and guess what they found?  It’s useless.  That was back in the 70’s, but hey, I guess everything old is new again at some point.

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Repeat after me, there are NO quick fixes.  There are no easy cures for extra weight.  There are no magic weight loss plans, no magic pills, no wonder drugs.  You want to be fit and healthy?  Eat healthy, be active and exercise.  It’s that simple.

Debunking The Diet Myths

Today’s post was guest written by Heather Johnson, from Nursing Degree.

Debunking the Diet Myths

You’ve heard everyone from your mother to next-door neighbor tell you how to keep the weight off after you’ve successfully reached your weight-loss goal. Some of these tips certainly have their credence but many are devoid of any value. It boils down to you knowing your body and what your body can handle as you try to keep the body you worked so hard to attain. Take any advice with a grain of salt. Just know that some of what you hear is complete nonsense. Here are a few of the myths that are just not true and ones you should avoid:

1. Cut your meals down. The idea that you have to starve yourself to keep the weight off is not only ludicrous but dangerous. Low-calorie diets are completely unhealthy and should only be adhered to when ordered by a physician. The only acceptable reason for such a diet is if losing weight is mandated by a serious medical condition.
2. The fad diet is just that – a fad. All fads pass. Remember bell-bottoms, afros and the pet rock? Yeah, they’re all gone and this is what will happen to the fad diet. Lose 30 pounds in a month? If it sounds too good to be true it probably is. If you go on a crash diet and see immediate results it’s probably due to water loss. This won’t last as the true way to lose weight is to lose the fat.
3. Eat everything and still lose weight. Once again, common sense needs to be applied here. If you intake more calories than you burn you’re not going to lose weight. Putting anything in your body besides water is going to add calories to your mass. You lose the calories by performing cardiovascular activities. It’s simple math, just make sure you pay attention to it.
4. Try a bunch of different diets. Jumping around from one diet to another is not the answer. If you keep fluctuating what your diet is then you’re setting yourself up for failure. Sticking to one dietary program is much healthier in the long run than trying all the different diets you hear and read about.
5. Just because it worked him doesn’t mean it will work for you. Hey, you get lots of great ideas from your friends. Just remember that because a diet worked for one person doesn’t equate into success for you. We’re all built differently and we have different needs when it comes to dieting. Stick to what works for you and applaud your friends and family when they achieve success.

By-line:

This post was contributed by Heather Johnson, who writes on the subject of nursing schools in Georgia. She invites your feedback at heatherjohnson2323 at gmail dot com.

How To Lose Love Handles In Two Weeks

That’s the question I got over email last night from someone who happened to stumble upon 60 in 3. I responded back with most of the same information I’m about to post here and exchanged a few more emails with this person. They proved to be quite intelligent and I would like to thank them for allowing me to use this conversation as a post topic; it’s not easy sometimes to admit that you don’t know something other people consider to be basic truth.

Can You Lose Weight In A Specific Area?

Despite every infomercial that tells you it has the machine that melts belly fat or the exercise regime that shapes your thighs, it’s actually very difficult to do spot fixes on your body, especially when it comes to losing fat. Where your body stores fat is determined mostly by genetics and gender. Most men tend to store fat in the belly area while most women tend to store fat in the thighs and rear end. This isn’t always true but it’s generally accurate. Once you put on enough fat, the body will start storing it everywhere it can which is why very obese people don’t just have thick thighs or large bellies.

No Spot Losses

This is bad news because it means that we can’t diet in a way that specifically targets certain areas of the body. There’s just no way to lose the love handles. Also, making radical changes to your body in two weeks is almost impossible and usually unhealthy. To lose weight the healthy way, you’re going to want to lose between 1 to 2 lbs per week. Anything more than that and you’re probably doing damage to your body by starving yourself and cannibalizing muscles.

Exercise is slightly different. You can actually target different muscles in exercise. However, building stronger belly muscles is not going to specifically target belly fat, it will just mean that you have good muscle tone under that belly fat.

So What’s The Answer?

Well, the answer is the same as always. Eat a healthy diet, lead an active life and exercise at regular intervals. Eventually, your body will become fit and those love handles will go away. The down side is that it takes more time than two weeks. The upside is that you end up feeling good and looking good all over rather than just losing weight around your belly.

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There are no miracle solutions in health. Anyone who promises you major changes in two weeks is more than likely trying to sell you something.

NOTE - Right after I posted this ad I noticed an advertisement on 60 in 3 called “learn the secret to losing belly fat”.  Needless to say, I went ahead and blocked it.  If you see other such ads for junk health sites like this one, please let me know.

Measure the Meaningful, Not the Measurable

The title of this post is a paraphrasing of a famous quote by Warren Buffet, the famous investor who’s one of the wealthiest people in the world today.  His point is that lots of things can be measured, but unless those measurements have meaning, then they’re useless.

How Do You Measure Your Health and Fitness?

What are you using as a measurable metric of your health and fitness?  That is, what number do you keep track off to see how well you’re doing fitness wise?  For almost everyone I talk to, the answer is probably weight.  Everyone keeps track of weight, including me.  Unfortunately, for most people, the ONLY number being tracked is weight.

We use weight to measure our success in controlling eating.  We use it to measure our success at exercise.  We even use it to measure our overall health, with people who weigh more being considered less healthy.  Well you know what, weight in and of itself is totally useless and if you’re using weight as the sole measure of your fitness, you’re making a big mistake.

What’s Wrong With Using Weight?

• No account for height - Do you really know how much you should weigh?  My wife is 6′ tall, how much should she weigh compared to my friend who is 5′2″?  How much more weight should your body carry per extra inch of height?  Do you know the ideal weight range for your height?
• No account for gender - On average, women have a higher percentage of body fat while men have a higher percentage of muscle mass.  So should a man and a woman, both 5′10″ weight the same?  Should I at 5′11″ weigh less than my wife at 6′?
• No account for muscle mass - Here’s the worst part about weight.  It can actually tell you you’re doing well when you’re getting worse and vice versa.  That’s because muscle is dense and fat is only a small percentage of your body.  So losing weight could mean losing muscle and that’s a bad thing.  If I stopped working out I could lose weight.  Sounds odd but it’s true.  As my muscle mass shrank, my body would weigh less assuming I controlled my eating.  So my weight could go down but my overall health and fitness would decrease.  If you started exercising, you might actually gain a bit of weight or at least stay at your current weight because the muscle you’re adding weighs more than the fat you’re losing.  However, you’d be far healthier, fitter and slimmer with the added muscle and reduced fat.

So Weight Is A Bad Measurement?

Not completely.  In general, weight loss does correspond with increased fitness and health.  However, if the only measurement you use is weight, then it’s meaningless since there could be a whole lot of other things going on.

What Other Measurement Should I Use?

• BMI - I’m not a big fan of BMI since it doesn’t take muscle mass into account, but at least it’s more accurate than weight alone.  There are numerous websites that can help you measure this.
• Body Fat % - A much more accurate measurement of how good the composition of your body is.
• Resting heart rate - Measure your heart rate when you wake up after a good night’s sleep to see how well your cardiovascular system is doing.
• Active heart rate - Measure your heart rate after 3 to 5 minutes of cardio exercise.
• Strength - There are a variety of these.  For example, see how many barbell presses you can do at a rate of one every two seconds.  For men, do these with an 80lb weight.  For women, a 35lb weight.  There are numerous other strength and flexibility tests.  A personal trainer can help you with these tests.
• Cholesterol and blood pressure - Have you had your physical this year?  If not, why not?  I’m a big fan of staying away from the doctor’s office and I try to avoid the “there’s a prescription drug for every minor issue” mentality that a lot of people have, but I do strongly believe in a yearly physical.  During this physical your doctor can help you check on a variety of health measurements.

So Which One of These Should I Use?

Ideally?  All of them.  Now before you panic, keep in mind that you don’t need to track them every day.  In fact, that would be a little crazy.  Realistically, you should track these monthly or even yearly.  For example, I track my BMI and weight once a month.  I track my heart rate measurement and do my strength tests every 6 months and I have a physical during which I find out my blood pressure and cholesterol once a year.  That’s a pretty minimal amount of time required to get a very detailed picture of how well I’m doing health and fitness wise.  I know people who spend far more time than this every month balancing their checkbooks, tracking their friends on Facebook and catching up on the latest episodes of Lost.  Are those things really more important than your health?

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Our nation is obsessed with weight.  We see it as the holy grail of health when it’s really nothing more than a paper cup filled with misleading data.  Combine it with a few other measurements and it might be helpful but on it’s own it’s pretty much useless.  So stop treating your health as a one dimensional subject that can be measured with a single number.

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