Eating Enough
Ok, here's the deal. I've had my RMR tested and it is 2160. If you multiply by the sedentary lifestyle factor (1.3), I burn 2880 calories a day, before any training. Because I'm heavy and slow, I tend to burn a fair amount of calories when I train. Yesterday I ran for 1:45', and burned 2500 cals-based on my HRM, tuned to my own max HR and my current weight (actually, its set lighter than I really am right now). So how the heck do I eat *that much* while making healthy choices? I ate ALL DAY yesterday, and still had a 1600 calorie deficit. My weekly deficit was 4200, and I'm down about 2 pounds. It will be interesting to see how this works, over the long term. I see lots of (whole wheat) pasta in my future!
posted by KLN @ 9:20 AM
3 Comments:
I use the calories on my HRM X 0.85. The research I found on the Polar OwnCal showed that it overestimated the calories burned by women by 5-20%.
As for making healthy choices, pasta always adds calories. Plus, if you add a tablespoon of olive oil, that's another 120 calories.
Good luck. Switching over to my HRM calories made a huge difference in my weightloss.
Woo hoo, way to go on the run distance PR and the weight loss. That's the way. I would focus on eating only when you are hungry. That has helped me a lot. :)
Weight and Max HR get you close to actual calorie burn, but what will get you almost spot on is if you get your VO2 Max measured. I've had mine done, and then when you put age, weight, VO2 Max and Max HR into a Polar S210, for example, it's pretty much right on, and I know this because I compare to my SRM which measures watts and kilojoules, which are absolute, and they are almost identical to the Polar.
Keep in mind that as you lose weight and become fitter that you will burn less and less calories during exercise, and your RMR will drop, too.
If you had your RMR measured, the technician should have been able to give you burn rates for your sports. Maybe revisit that, too.
Another comparison you can make is to http://cph.phenominet.com. It will give you various calorie readouts for sports based on the speed you are moving. I have found those estimates to also be pretty good when compared to my Polar S210.
It's all an interesting game. The sad truth is that the smaller and fitter you get, the more efficiently your body burns calories. On the positive side, though, the smaller you get the easier it becomes to improve your lactate threshold and VO2 max heart rates, which makes it easier (combined with the lower weight) to exercise at higher intensities, thus relatively increasing your calories burned.
When I was trying to lean out a few years back, I set the weight on my Polar to the weight I wanted to be at and acted "as if" I weighed less, and ate based on that. Worked like a charm! I wouldn't go more than 5-10 lbs. less than you currently weigh, though.
Finally, when running, for every pound you lose it's 3x that amount less stress you are putting on your knees (running puts a load of 5x body weight on your joints when you hit the ground; most running shoes absorb 2x body weight, leaving 3x still there). Something to keep in mind when you're feeling tempted.
2 lbs. a week is perfect for sustaining long-term weight loss. At that rate as long as you are doing some strength training, you will pretty much lose pure fat, which is great.
P.S. One of the things that helps me maintain my weight is that I mostly eat brown rice when I eat starch with dinner. I don't go near pasta until I'm training about 15 hours a week or it's the day of a long run > 90 minutes. Pasta is more calorically dense, and we tend to want to put sauce on it that "sticks," i.e., high fat content. At least I do! The stuff I eat over rice is loaded with veggies and lean meat like chicken and turkey.
Keep up the good work!
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