Prep Tool #5 for October Challenge
Today’s prep tool for the Strictly Fit October Challenge is a bit of some fitness education. We have challengers from all over the United Kingdom, Ireland, Europe, the United States and beyond. However, for the purpose of this challenge, I will be using pounds and inches (and it’s what I know best). If you need help with the conversions, here is a good place http://www.lenntech.com/calculators/mass-weight/mass-weight.htm.
Ok, so the fact for today is that you have to burn 3500 calories in order to burn 1 pound of fat. If your goal is to lose weight, you will have to burn 3500 calories more than your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) in order to lose 1 pound. Your BMR is the number of calories you’d burn if you stayed in bed all day. What does this mean exactly? If your BMR is 2000 calories (kcal), you burn 2000 kcal just doing nothing. So if you ate 2000 kcal and your BMR is 2000 and you did nothing all day, your weight would stay the same. If your BMR is 2000 kcal and you consume 2500 kcal and do nothing all day, you would slowly gain weight. If you did this everyday for 1 week, you would gain 1 pound. That’s 500 kcal over your BMR for 7 days. 500 x 7 =3500. So far so good? Great! If your goal is to lose weight, you want to make sure you burn more calories than your BMR. You can do this by lowering your daily caloric intake, exercise, and cardio. If your goal is to gain weight and/or muscle, then you have to burn less than your BMR.
How do you find out what your BMR is? There are a couple things that have to be factored into the equation. Your height, age, weight, activity level, and gender are the major factors. You can go this website and it will compute it for you automatically. http://www.caloriesperhour.com/index_burn.php. Just click the BMR and RMR calculator button. It’s not a perfect science, but it’s pretty accurate. Once it’s calculated, write it down. I also want you to email it to me so I can send you specific instructions throughout the challenge based on your BMR. Now that you have it, you have a great starting point towards your goal.
Now is the time to go to your food journal that you have been keeping. Remember Prep Tool #1. Have you counted the calories that you take in every day? Compare your daily caloric intake with your BMR. How do they compare? I will go over with you what to do with this information just before the challenge starts.
Once you have calculated your BMI, compared it to how many calories you have been taking in, and emailed it to me, put a check in the box for Sept. 23rd. GREAT JOB!!!!
Tags: Abs, Cardiovascular training, celebrity trainer, exercise, fitness, fitness trainer, hermosa beach personal trainer, los angeles personal trainer, manhattan beach personal trainer, personal trainer, redondo beach personal trainer, Weight Loss Posted in
September 23rd, 2009 at 10:04 am
Great post…very helpful!