simplified fitness - part 2 - energy in energy out
It's a proven fact that no matter if you want to lose weight or gain weight you need to know how much energy you put in your body and how much energy you use.
Knowing your BMR is a good starting point when losing or gaining weight. Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is basically the amount of energy your body needs to keep you alive when you're doing nothing. If you're interested read more about BMR at wikipedia. Once you know your BMR you add what ever energy you use throughout the day. For example: I have a BMR of about 1300 cals, lets say that through different activites during the day I burn about 600 cals. This means that I need 1900 cals to keep my current weight, if i consume more than that I will gain weight and if I consume less I will lose weight.
To know what your numbers are, you first of all need to find what BMR you're at. There are different ways to do this. At my gym for example there is a scale (with bioimpedance) which checks your body composition and also gives you an approximation of your BMR based on your age, gender, weight, height and muscle mass.
There are BMR calculators on the web, they might be a less accurate but still gives you a number to start with. Here is a free BMR calculator which you can try out.
To track your energy intake all you need is a paper and a pen.
Write down the energy content of everything you eat throughout the day. These days products usually have labels telling you the energy content given in joules or calories. If there is no label search the web or make an estimation.
After doing this for a while you will get a gut feeling for it and then you can just occasionally write down what you eat to see if you're sticking to your path.
Tracking your energy consumption is a bit harder, the amount of energy used for the same activity varies depending on who is doing the activity. You might wonder why...there are many variables such as your age, gender, weight and fitness level etc which all affects the calculation.
There are many calculators for energy consumption out there, here is one activity calculator you can try which is free.
There are also a number of software and online tools out there which can make things easier and quicker. They usually offer free trials which you can use to see if this is what works for you. Here is a list of popular fitness software and what features they have.
I'm sure there are other bunch of other ones out there which might even be better and cheaper for your needs.
With what you've just read you have the knowledge to manage your energy intake and consumption. Here you can calculate how many calories you need to cut per day to reach your goal weight in a certain amount of time. Remember that it isn't recommended to lose more than 0.5 - 1 kg per week. You need to be mentally prepared for what is happening to your body and with losing fat too quickly you might lose your motivation. This might sound weird but the mind is very complex and sometimes plain weird.
One last thing, as you change your body composition you also change your BMR, more muscles requires more energy when you rest and less weight requires less energy in everything you do. So after a period of your weight loss or weight gain plan you should check your BMR again and if it has changed, adjust the rest based on the new results.
