When you are tracking calories, it’s not only important to know how many you are taking in, but to also have an idea of how many you are burning each day. For myself, I have always just used my FitDay software to kind of guesstimate my daily calorie burn. With FitDay, and other software like it, you enter your weight, and your daily activities and it calculates how many calories you burn. It requires some guesswork. You have to estimate how many hours per day you spend sitting at a desk, walking, preparing meals, exercising, etc. You really only have to do this once to get a decent guess at how much you are burning.

I have always believed that it’s not really crucial to be perfectly accurate, but more important to be consistent. If you think you are burning 2500 calories per day, and your weight loss is stalled, you can increase your activity until you think you are burning 3000 calories per day. Whether those numbers are perfectly accurate or not isn’t really too relevant (as long as they are reasonable). However, if you want to be more accurate, then there are ways you can do so.

I have been looking into various armbands that are supposed to track your daily calorie burn for you. One that many of us have seen on the Biggest Loser is the BodyBugg. One of the biggest drawbacks of this particular system is the cost. As of right now, you pay $250 upfront, and $9.95 per month for a subscription to access and analyze your data. I don’t think there’s any way to use it without paying that monthly fee. Correct me if I’m wrong.

Another one I have looked at is the dotFit exerspy. Again, you pay upfront and also have to pay a monthly fee, although in the long run it looks to be a better deal than BodyBugg. I do like a lot of the features of this one though.

I want to hear from you! If anyone has had any experience with these or any other calorie counting arm bands, please post in the comments. Let us know what you like or dislike about them.

Image via Wikipedia

I have always struggled with staying motivated, and now I finally know why – my fingers aren’t long enough!  It turns out that researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered a link between finger length and motivation.

…

Interesting article, but really? Finger length? I wonder how they even thought to check the correlation!

For all of you out there with shorter than average fingers, don’t despair. You can still do it! You just might have to work a little harder at staying motivated.

Well…. not a very impressive week. It figures that as soon as I start blogging I hit a plateau. I am going to continue with my exercise plan, but up the intensity and adjust my calories for the next 2 weeks to try and break through the plateau. I am also going to go without a free-day this coming weekend and just stick with the healthy eating with no cheats.

Here are the lackluster numbers from Saturday Morning:

• Weight: 240.2 lbs (up .4 pounds from the previous week)
• Skinfold (suprailiac): 21mm (no change)
• Body Fat (caliper method): 23.2% (no change)
• Body Fat (scale method): 27.0% (down .3%)
• Stomach: 42″ (no change)
• Chest: 43.5″ (up .25″ from previous week)

Hoping for some results next time!

I have been going to the gym for the past couple of weeks to do some exercises that I just can’t do properly at home. I have dumbbells, a bench, and a weight machine at home, but there are certain exercises I have been wanting to do. One of them is assisted pullups (I normally just do pulldowns with my home gym). After a set of wide grip assisted pull ups my lats were just burning. The next day my forearms were very sore and I was sore in other places that I didn’t even know existed. It was great, but it made me realize that my forearms and grip need to be strengthened in order for me to be able to do some of these other exercises more effectively. Namely, pullups and deadlifts.

Yesterday I tried the farmer’s walk for the first time. Basically you grab the heaviest set of dumbbells you can carry and start walking. Some people use trap bars (which are a longer bar) but that’s even more challenging so if you have never done the farmer’s walk before I’d suggest starting with dumbbells. I started with 2 70 lb dumbbells. I got half way around the track and had to stop of a rest. By the time I got back to the weight area I nearly dropped the dumbbells. I rested for a while, grabbed some 65 lb dumbbells and did it again.

It is a great way to strengthen your forearms and your grip and it will pay dividends with other exercises that you do. It also gets your heart pumping pretty good and is great for your shoulders. If you have a weak back be very careful with this one.

Here’s a video that shows the farmer’s walk in action. I can’t understand a word he’s saying for the first minute or so because the volume is so low, but at least you can see what the exercise looks like.

Farmers Walk, 3 Sets with 50 LBS Each Hand With Towels By Tuan Tran

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• Building a Stronger Grip (fitnesstipsforlife.com)
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Image by digiyesica via Flickr

About a year ago, I wanted to see if I could quickly drop 20 pounds. I had been slacking for a few months and wanted to kick start my weight loss again. I decided to try the Velocity Diet.

In a nutshell, the Velocity diet consists of drinking protein shakes and taking various other supplements. You don’t really eat any solid food except once per week, you can have oatmeal. Every night you can have a small amount of natural peanut butter. Some of the supplements I took included CLA, Omega 3-6-9, and other healthy fats. I also added ground flaxseed to some of my shakes. It was a while ago so I don’t remember the exact details of it, but if you’re interested you can just Google Velocity Diet and you’ll find information about it.

There were 2 different caloric intakes on this program: a higher one for weight training days, and a lower one for non weight training days. All of the calculations to determine how many calories you should be taking in were provided on the website where I found the diet. The creator of the diet did not recommend doing cardio as it can cause muscle loss when you are restricting calories. He recommended doing 1 hour walks on non weight training days.

Again, a disclaimer. I’m going strictly by memory here. To get the exact details of the diet, you’d want to search for it. I do know that I followed his plan exactly, with the exception of the brand of protein he recommended. I used the brands of casein and whey which I already use and like.

Before I continue, I just want to say that this is definitely not something you would want to do long term. In fact, I personally will never do anything like this again. If I remember correctly, you are supposed to do it for 28 days. I only lasted 21 days. I am also not posting to discourage anyone from trying it, I’m merely describing my experience.

I guess if there is any benefit to doing something like this, it is that it’s extremely simple to plan your daily calories. It takes all of the guesswork out of that.

Now, for my experience.

The first few days were fine, I didn’t really notice too much in the way of hunger, even though my caloric intake was a lot lower than what I was used to. After a few days, though, I was really looking forward to that tablespoon of natural peanut butter every night. I was getting really sick of nothing but shakes. I started having trouble sleeping. Toward the end it was getting really bad. I couldn’t fall asleep easily, and when I did, my sleeps were restless and I was constantly waking up. I have no idea what was causing that.

I lost a bunch of weight the first week – 11 pounds! I now know that it was probably mostly water weight (because of a lack of carbs). The second and third weeks were not nearly so spectacular. Maybe a couple of pounds each.

Even though I tried to slowly re-introduce carbs to my diet, I gained a lot of that weight back right away, as soon as I started eating solid food again (probably the water weight I lost in the beginning). I continued exercising and eating a healthy diet, but I just couldn’t lose any more weight. It took over a month of this before I started seeing results again.

Now, I don’t claim to have all the answers, but here’s what I believe happened. I think that restricting calories so much caused my metabolism to slow way, way down. It took a month of eating normal amounts of food and exercising to get it back up to normal.

This was a lesson to me that there are no quick fixes when it comes to weight loss. The only healthy way to lose weight long term is through healthy eating and regular exercise. When you restrict calories too much, your body will fight back and not only will you be constantly hungry and more likely to binge, but you will stop seeing results. You do need a caloric deficit to lose weight, but not such a large deficit that it causes your metabolism to slow down. I also recommend having a higher calorie day every few days to help keep your metabolism humming.

Here’s my numbers from this past Saturday Morning:

• Weight: 239.8 lbs (down 1.2 pounds from the previous week)
• Skinfold (suprailiac): 21mm (down 1mm)
• Body Fat (caliper method): 23.2% (down 1.2%)
• Body Fat (scale method): 27.3% (up .2%)
• Stomach: 42″ (down .25″)
• Chest: 43.25″ (up .25″ from previous week)

Interesting how the scale body fat has gone up the last 2 weigh-ins. Perhaps my hydration levels were out to lunch 2 weeks ago. It can’t keep going up indefinitely, especially if all my other measurements are going down.  Chest measurement has been going up I assume due to the bench presses, dumbbell flyes, and pull ups I’ve been doing.

Is anyone interested in me posting my exercise logs? I keep track of my running, biking, swimming (when I do it), as well as weights. Let me know by leaving a comment if you are.

When you are trying to lose weight, it is very important to have a caloric deficit each day, but not such a huge deficit that your metabolism slows down. Many people will say they know how much they are eating and don’t have to track calories. For some people that may be true but for the majority of people, it isn’t.

How do you really know how many calories you are putting into your body unless you are keeping track? It is important to have a good idea so that you know whether you need to decrease, or even increase your caloric intake. It also helps you to keep track of your macros and make sure you are getting the right ratio of protein, carbs, and healthy fats.

When I first started counting my calories I was shocked at how many I was actually taking in. I was able to adjust and the weight started coming off again. Some people might find it necessary to start eating more in order to lose weight. If you starve yourself your body fights back and slows your metabolism way down, making it really difficult to lose weight.

It’s not important to be 100% accurate. What is important is to have a good idea, and to be consistent with how you track. Then, you can make adjustments if necessary.

I’ll be the first to admit that tracking calories can be a pain in the butt. I usually do it for a few weeks to make sure I’m on the right track, then stop for a while. You’ll find that after you’ve tracked for a period of time, you’ll have a good idea of how much you’re taking in. Every so often you should track again for a week to make sure you are still in the right range.

Stay tuned for another post on how I track calories and how to make it as easy and painless as possible.

When it comes to weight loss, the rules are really simple. Eat right and exercise. It sounds so easy, doesn’t it? I think the thing that the majority of people struggle with is motivation.

I too have had, and continue to have, occasional struggles with motivation. Sometimes it’s just for a day or two, other times it could last months. I’d like to share some of the things that I have found to help when I am finding it hard to stay focused on exercising and eating properly.

If you find that you are having trouble staying consistent with exercising:

Find someone to work out with. Whether you are going to the gym with them, or going for runs or walks together, it really helps to have someone to go with. When you make a plan to meet them every other day at a certain time, you are much less likely to skip out on your workout. It really helps to be accountable to someone. I started working out with a friend at the gym and the first couple of days, I REALLY didn’t feel like exercising. I had so many other things to do, but I didn’t want to let them down. Now I really look forward to working out with them.

If you are struggling with eating healthy:

Exercise regularly! I know for myself, if I work out in the morning I am much less likely to cheat during the day. I can’t stand the thought of undoing that hard work that I did by eating junk.

Plan a cheat day once per week. “Once per week” is not written in stone, but I certainly wouldn’t do it more frequently than that. Sometimes I will go 2 weeks without a cheat day. Sometimes I’ll just have a cheat meal instead of a whole day. When I get a craving during the week for pizza or a donut or something, just knowing that I can have a treat on Saturday helps me to stay on the right track. As long as you keep it reasonable, it doesn’t hurt to treat yourself once per week, but it’s important not to go overboard and just pig out all day.

The last two tips apply to both eating right and exercising. Sign up for an event. Whether it’s a 5k, half marathon, or a triathlon, sign up for something that is within your capability, but that you will still have to work to achieve. Last summer, I signed up for and completed my first olympic distance triathlon. I have never been so consistent with exercising and eating right as I was for the 6 months leading up to that event. I also got down to my lowest weight in 10 years, and I was feeling great. This summer I have signed up for a couple of 10K’s, a half marathon, and I’m looking to do another triathlon. I find that these things really help me to stay focused.  They give me a reason to be consistent. When you have a goal to work toward, it is much easier to stick to your weight loss plan.

Track your progress. Nothing is more motivating than seeing results. Measure your progress often enough that it keeps you motivated, but not so often that you get discouraged. For example, I find that weekly measurements work well for me. Daily, on the other hand, would be counter productive because you are very unlikely to see any progress from one day to the next.

Whoops, I have had a crazy couple of weeks. I found out that I will be moving my family across the country this summer so I have been finding it difficult to get anything done on this site.

I did weigh in on Feb 27th. Here are the results:

• Weight: 241 lbs (down 1 pound from the previous week)
• Skinfold (suprailiac): 22mm (no change)
• Body Fat (caliper method): 24.4% (no change)
• Body Fat (scale method): 27.1% (up .7% from previous week)
• Stomach: 42.25″ (no change)
• Chest: 43″ (up .25″ from previous week)

I did not weigh in on March 6th. Between my son’s birthday and the (exciting) news of our move I really wasn’t focused too much on weight loss. This week, however I have been back at it. Eating healthy and working hard. I have a couple of posts almost ready to go on diet, exercise, and motivation which are all going to be posted over the next few days.

I promise to do better with more regular posts and updates now that things are settling down again.

Checking in with Becca, who I linked to in one of my earlier weigh ins:

On Saturday I completed 5 weeks of my weight loss journey.  I am happy to report that I lost another 2.8 pounds.  That made a total loss of 20.2 pounds in 5 weeks.  I am so excited about my continued success.  Weight is something I have struggled with my ENTIRE life.  It is something I have never been able to let go of.askbecca.com, Ask Becca, Feb 2010

You should read the whole article.

Here are the numbers for the past week. I was pretty surprised to see my weight go back up so much but the scale is a strange beast sometimes. I’m not going to panic as long as the overall trend is downward, especially since my stomach measurement didn’t go up, so I can be pretty certain I didn’t gain any fat.

• Weight: 242 lbs
• Skinfold (suprailiac): 22mm
• Body Fat (caliper method): 24.4%
• Body Fat (scale method): 26.4%
• Stomach: 42.25″
• Chest: 42.75″

I’m trying to figure out how I can post a graph here so that it will be easier to see progress instead of having to read through all of the weigh-ins.