Counting Calories
Original Poster: Ironjim
Forum: Weight Loss
Posted On: 01-04-2004, 17:31
Orginal Post: Ironjim: From www.jamesfit.com
When people think of counting calories, they generally think of not being able to eat what they want and when they want it. They picture boring health diets and hard work at the gym. This is not necessarily true, and in this article, I'll show you why.
There's a general rule that you should follower as a dieter. That rule is that if you eat more calories than you burn, you are going to gain weight. If you eat less calories than you burn, you are going to lose weight. If you eat your "maintenance calories," you will stay the same weight. You can find out your maintenance calories by multiplying your current body weight by 10. For example, if a person weighs 180 pounds, he/she would have to multiply 180 by 10 to find out his/her maintenance calories. It turns out to be 1,800. This is the amount of calories that person needs to eat every day to maintain his/her current weight of 180lbs, hence the term "maintenance calories."
Now, from my own personal experience, when I complete 30 minutes of moderate to intense exercise on the exercise bike at my local gym, I usually burn around 200 calories. However, there is an easier way to burn 200 calories without all of that hard work. Simply eat 200 calories less then your maintenance! For example, if a person's maintenance calories is 1,800, he/she can burn 200 calories a day by working hard on the exercise bike for about 30 minutes every day of the week. Or, he/she can simply not eat those 200 calories and instead eat 1,600 calories per day.
Now, I'm a big fan of exercising (especially lifting weights). However, for the person who lives a sedentary lifestyle, this is fantastic.
So, just to go over it all: 1. Find out your maintenance calories by multiplying your body weight by 10.
2. Check the nutrition facts labels on the back of the foods you eat to count the calories of the food.
3. At the end of the day, your total calories should add up to 200 calories less than your maintenance calories.
Remember, counting calories might seem like a bit of a pain at first. However, after a while, you will get used to it. It'll become a habit like anything else in life does. It'll become part of your everyday routine. Just give it a shot. After a while, when you start to notice some results, you'll never look back! And please remember, eat slower so that you give yourself a chance to get full. Wait 10-15 minutes after you are finished eating and see if you REALLY are hungry. Listen to your body, give it a chance. Please note that you should only multiply your bodyweight by 10 if you live a sedentary lifestyle. If you are a bodybuilder (like myself) or some other type of hardcore athlete, multiply your bodyweight by 15, then subtract 500 from that number. If you eat up to that amount of calories per day, you will lose one pound of fat per week without sacrificing muscle loss.
Thank you very much and good luck on your journey,
James Hallmark
www.jamesfit.com
Post: UnscarredbyTrial:
What happens if you cut your calories in half and still live sedentary?>
Post: Stg:
you get fat. and your body starves which makes it break your muscles down while maintaning as much bodyfat as it possibly can.>
Post: Mayonnaise:
hmm i can do that and i do very well i run for like half an hour on a treadmill with 5lb weights on each leg then i go to my room do 40 pushups straight then 50 crunches and some stretching...and i count my calories very good but dont see very much change at all..then on like sunday every week my body just goes crazy and i have to eat im starving really bad and its basically all my body tells me so ill eat like a whole pizza or somthing and not work out that day..but then i wake up the next mourning and boom all my hardwork that ive done that week seems to show up and i notice some significant changes.....what the hell is with my body>
Post: Ironjim:
Hi Mayo,
What happens to you is that on Sunday you obviously eat alot more than the other 6 days of the week. Your body adapts to those six days, and so significant changes are not visible. However, when you consume alot more calories than usual once per week (basically a cheat day), your body speeds up it's metabolism to burn off all of that food. So, the next morning you see some significant changes.
Take care,
Ironjim 8)
________________
www.jamesfit.com>
Post: UnscarredbyTrial:
I guess what I am trying to figure out is the amount of calories I should be taking in compared to my maintance,(half? 1/3?)while working with my exercise routine.>
Post: Ironjim:
Hi Unscarrabdy Trial,
That depends on how intensely you train. If you train really hard, you definitely don't want to cut your calories in half, because you will be burning calories on top of an extremely reduced calorie diet. Do not cut your calories in half. I'd recommend (from personal experience) cutting your calories down by 200. If you train hard, you can burn up to 300 more calories. So, for examples sake, lets say that you do that and altogether you burn 500 calories per day. Do this for a week, and you will have lost a pound of fat (3,500 calories).
________________
www.jamesfit.com>
Post: Ironjim:
Also, I'd like to stress what Stg posted. Your body goes into starvation mode, so you can actually get fat. Also, if you cut your calories down too much, you might have a higher temptation to binge on junk
________________
www.jamesfit.com>
Post: kranker66:
-I have never really thought much about dieting because I view it as a 'punishment' to the body. I like food like we all do, just have to watch what you eat and get some excersize.
- It's funny but what good ol' Mom said to me years ago when I was a wee tot was that "you eat right, eat what you want, and move your body"...that's very simple, but very, very true.
...just adding my 2 cents. See ya.>
Post: The BadBoy:
Been away from training for a month or so now, due to being away on work. Now this in addition to th fact that i've been eating at restaurants and take ways for the whole time i've been away has led me to put on about 20 pounds :shock:
The advice on this thread is pretty much hitting the nail right on the thread. Keep up the good posts people.
Now my two pence worth. But ya'll get it for free. Losing weight isn't a quick fix. The old saying is correct you are what you eat. Personally I eat what I want but in moderation. I think depriving yourself of anyfood you enjoy will just make you binge out sooner or later.
Try to train as this will help change the composition of your body. As we all probbaly know muscle requires more energy than fat so you basal metabolic rate will increase if you train regularly. Also your posture, shape of your body will improve.
Bottom line to lose fat you need to be in a calorie defecit. But unless your active as has been said before, your body will just shut down adn go into starvation mode. This will also happen in the calorie defecit is too large.
To lose one pound of fat a week you have to drop you calorific intake 3500 Cals below maintenence in that week. Drop anymore than two pounds in aweek and your more likely to be losing water and muscle as well as fat. So stick to slow and steady rather than the quick fix.>
Post: Kinjo:
Does this really work the same for all people? I have perfect BMI I'm right in the middle of the scale for perfect health BMI. I'm 170cm and weigh 64kgs (I dont know what that is in lbs, I think it's about 120-130). I've had different periods of my life like all people but I almost torture my body and I'll come to that.
When I was 14 I started training you lifting some weights at home and I got muscle defenition pretty fats, after maybe 6 months I had muscles and I felt very good about it. But my life has been back and forth, sometime I dont train for 8 months and sometimes I do the oposite but I never se results, even if I dont train for a year I still have my arms looking just like the did when I peaked at 15. Sometimes I train everyday eating 5 times a day. Sometimes I eat nothing more than a cracker, then after 24 hours I eat a slize of bread and I dont even feel hunger, becouse my body is so used to changes. I mean I can be awake for 3 days and work 12 hours everyday. Then I can change right away and get used to sleep 14 hours a day without waking up. Sometimes I can eat like a guy twice my size, but if I dont feel like it I can adjust in a day and eat an extremly small meal every 24 hours for 5 days. Why doesn't this change my weight or showe in the mirror, I dont get it. I want to loose fat aswell as getting stronger and bigger muscles (still martial arts adapted though). How can I do that? What should I eat with a metabolism like this?
/Kinjo>
Post: Ironjim:
Well, I hate to break the bad news to you, but unless you are a beginner then it is almost impossible to gain muscle and burn fat at the same time. You have to pick one or the other. You can bulk up, where you try to gain as much muscle as possible. Then cut down, where you try to burn any fat gained from the bulk while keeping the muscle gained from it. However, you can't build muscle and burn fat at the same time, regardless of what people say. It's just not the way the human body works. Please visit www.jamesfit.com and read the articles in the "Article Archives." There is a great article on building muscle there. As far as burning fat goes, eat 6 times per day, exercise hard, and supplement (properly, that means read the directions) if at all possible. And the meals don't have to be extremely small. Just eat a portion (a portion is about the size of your closed fist or what you can fit in your hand) of good carbs and good protein. Get 2 servings of good fat per day, and at 2-4 servings of green vegetables per day. Drink at the very least, a half-gallon of water per day, and take a good multivitamin every morning after your first meal. Hope this helps 8)
________________
www.jamesfit.com>
Post: Kinjo:
Ok, then I'll choose the fat burning to begin with. So could you recomend any exercises? Should I use weights or my own bodyweight? How many days a week should I train and for how long tima each session? I'm sorry if I'm asking stupid questions but I just realized that this is a whole new science for me, I thought I new stuff but now I might aswell start of from square one>
Post: Kinjo:
And another thing, could you give me a chart based on that minus 200 calories thing, I weigh 141lbs so my maintenance calories is 1410, minus 200 becomes 1210 so whats that in fat, protein and carbohydrates (or whatever it's called), becouse there's allways a certain percentage of each nutrition that you should eat. I'm trying to say that of course I cant eat 605 grams of protein everyday (=1210 kalories right?) and nothing else, that would never work right?>
Post: Blade:
Wow kinjo from your description your almost identical to me ! :lol:>
Post: UnscarredbyTrial:
Quote:
Well, I hate to break the bad news to you, but unless you are a beginner then it is almost impossible to gain muscle and burn fat at the same time
There are a lot of people who simplistically believe that you can't build muscle and burn fat at the same time, since building muscle is anabolic and burning fat is catabolic. This is wrong, but it's wrong in an interesting way. Clearly, you can't be anabolic and catabolic at full-throttle in the same instant, but you can certainly affect your body's ability to accomplish both during the day.>
Post: Kinjo:
[quote=Blade Wow kinjo from your description your almost identical to me ! :lol:[/quote
We small people gotta stick together :)>
Post: Rjayp:
im not sure if i agree with the "maintainance calories" part, its too bad i dont have a body of evidence to disprove it, but some of my sources say i burn about 3000 calories a day ( i weigh 180 pounds) and some diets say the amount of calories you should eat to lose weight is " your body weight X 10" so im pretty much unsure about the whole thing right now.
Hey try fitday.com it has calorie intake calculators and cool stuff like how many calories you are burning. Also, look at any calorie-intake calculator on the internet they all say that i need to eat about 2000 calories a day to lose weight (again im 180 pounds)
anyway, great post i need more clarification to whether that is truly the way to find your maintanance calorie intake.
regards,
Rj
EDIT: oh my god, i just read your story on your site... while i was reading it i saw myself. i wanna talk more about weight loss.
aim me sometime at: str8 up bfia>
Post: AlexFitNut:
Kinjo are you the same guy that had a temper tantrum and left the site a while back?>
Post: Indomitable:
Quote: Kinjo are you the same guy that had a temper tantrum and left the site a while back?
Wasn't that guy's name Krellik??>
Post: AlexFitNut:
I'm not sure, I just know he was from Sweden as well. I could be wrong.>
Post: Kinjo:
Well I know for sure that I'm not that guy, I've never met a fellow Swede in here actually, I've been a member here for a long time but I kinda left to forums for a long time but now I'm back :), Anyway, I'm not that guy>
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