bmr and calorie counting

jas wrote:

What Ingnaramus said plus I'd get a good way of tracking your
calories in and calories out (exercise). What I use is a program
called DietPower. There are others, such as FitDay that work well.
You can download a 2- week trial at http://www.dietpower.com. Also,
get yourself a decent food scale, here's a good one:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3654134

I've been tracking everying I eat for over a year now. I've gone from
245 lbs last July to 165 lbs this April. I've been maintaining
between 160 and 165 since then.

Phil M.

ive signed up to fitday and will see how that goes.

Good for you! It will work if you stick to it. It's all about motivation. I
find that logging everything I eat to be a highly motivating factor. At
first, it may sound like a lot of work to weigh and measure everything that
goes in your mouth. I don't know about FitDay, but DietPower has the
ability to know your favorite foods so that I can quickly log a meal in a
matter of 1 minute. It can get a little tricky if you frequently eat out. I
found a book that lists several restaurants that give caloric content of
some of their meals. I only go to those restaurants if I can help it. Also,
when my wife makes a recipe she knows to save all the ingredient lists so
that I can figure out what I'm actually eating.

Phil M.

--
If you can empty your own boat
Crossing the river of the world,
No one will oppose you,
No one will seek to harm you. -Chuang Tzu

jas wrote:

What Ingnaramus said plus I'd get a good way of tracking your
calories in and calories out (exercise). What I use is a program
called DietPower. There are others, such as FitDay that work well.
You can download a 2- week trial at http://www.dietpower.com. Also,
get yourself a decent food scale, here's a good one:
http://www.jr.com/JRProductPage.process?Product=3654134

I've been tracking everying I eat for over a year now. I've gone from
245 lbs last July to 165 lbs this April. I've been maintaining
between 160 and 165 since then.

Phil M.

ive signed up to fitday and will see how that goes.

Good for you! It will work if you stick to it. It's all about motivation. I
find that logging everything I eat to be a highly motivating factor. At
first, it may sound like a lot of work to weigh and measure everything that
goes in your mouth. I don't know about FitDay, but DietPower has the
ability to know your favorite foods so that I can quickly log a meal in a
matter of 1 minute. It can get a little tricky if you frequently eat out. I
found a book that lists several restaurants that give caloric content of
some of their meals. I only go to those restaurants if I can help it. Also,
when my wife makes a recipe she knows to save all the ingredient lists so
that I can figure out what I'm actually eating.

Phil M.

--
If you can empty your own boat
Crossing the river of the world,
No one will oppose you,
No one will seek to harm you. -Chuang Tzu

"jas" wrote in message
. ..
I want to lose approx 2 pound per week

As long as you're aware that some weeks you won't be losing that much, and
others, you will lose slightly more. And that you might experience slow
downs or even stalls (especially as you go near your normal weight and/or
when you have lost a lot rather quickly) and that it is indeed perfectly
normal.

I am approximately 350 pounds and have a target of end of 2005 to reach
what I term as my ideal weight of 210 pounds.

The problem with setting a precise goal is that sometimes you don't make it,
and then you get a feeling of utter failure that can ruin all your efforts
and cause you to binge/drop the diet. Even though you did lose weight and
that any weight lost *is* an achievement. Having goals is ok, because it can
be motivating, but you have to be flexible about that and keep a positive
attitude (I lost x% of my goal, rather than I have y% left to lose).

Initially for calorie counting I need to know how many calories a day my
body uses when at rest (which is most of the day!) It seems to be BMR
that gives me this figure of 2972 calories per day for a man of my age,
height and weight.

I would be extra extra careful with whatever BMR a site comes with.
Understand that it is an average, it's not *your* BMR. It's like saying the
average American of your race, sex and ethnicity earns $x a year. It's a
useful statistical information and it's also useful if you want to compare
yourself to the average. But if you were to plan your budget according to
these $x instead of what you actually earn, bad things would happen...
That's the same with your calculated BMR, and I suspect it varies from
people to people as much as average income. I wouldn't say your BMR is 2972,
it's rather 3k +- 1000 or something like that.
The best way to get a good value is to track how much you *currently* eat,
over several days/weeks and take an average. If you have kept a constant
weight during that time, then you have a good value of the amount of
calories *you* need to keep a constant weight. It's a good value to work on
from...

"jas" wrote in message
. ..
I want to lose approx 2 pound per week

As long as you're aware that some weeks you won't be losing that much, and
others, you will lose slightly more. And that you might experience slow
downs or even stalls (especially as you go near your normal weight and/or
when you have lost a lot rather quickly) and that it is indeed perfectly
normal.

I am approximately 350 pounds and have a target of end of 2005 to reach
what I term as my ideal weight of 210 pounds.

The problem with setting a precise goal is that sometimes you don't make it,
and then you get a feeling of utter failure that can ruin all your efforts
and cause you to binge/drop the diet. Even though you did lose weight and
that any weight lost *is* an achievement. Having goals is ok, because it can
be motivating, but you have to be flexible about that and keep a positive
attitude (I lost x% of my goal, rather than I have y% left to lose).

Initially for calorie counting I need to know how many calories a day my
body uses when at rest (which is most of the day!) It seems to be BMR
that gives me this figure of 2972 calories per day for a man of my age,
height and weight.

I would be extra extra careful with whatever BMR a site comes with.
Understand that it is an average, it's not *your* BMR. It's like saying the
average American of your race, sex and ethnicity earns $x a year. It's a
useful statistical information and it's also useful if you want to compare
yourself to the average. But if you were to plan your budget according to
these $x instead of what you actually earn, bad things would happen...
That's the same with your calculated BMR, and I suspect it varies from
people to people as much as average income. I wouldn't say your BMR is 2972,
it's rather 3k +- 1000 or something like that.
The best way to get a good value is to track how much you *currently* eat,
over several days/weeks and take an average. If you have kept a constant
weight during that time, then you have a good value of the amount of
calories *you* need to keep a constant weight. It's a good value to work on
from...