Gym and calorie counting?

[zebredy]

I am hopefully (money pending) going to be joining a local gym this week and was wondering if anyone else on here is doing the gym and calorie counting?

I was wondering if 1400-1500 calories is a sensible amount to be eating per day while going to the gym and or swimming at least 3-4 times a week?

Also can anyone give any advice on my OH as I think maybe 1400-1500 calories a day might be too low for him as I don't want him to run into any problems what with being diabetic as well and well I do cook most the meals here so its something I have to keep an eye on as well..

 

[Fattack]

Hello!

Firstly, welcome to our little subforum

Secondly, it's hard for me to advise you with your calorie intake without knowing what *you* want for yourself! How much do you have left to lose, and how quickly do you want to lose it? A healthy loss weekly is usually around 2lbs, give or take a little depending on how much you have to lose. I say *healthy* because if you're losing much more it's probably not fat that you're losing - things like muscle and water will be in there too and you do NOT want to lose precious muscle (as it speeds you the rate your body burns fat and the heart is also a muscle!).
You need to work out your BMR (basic metabolic rate) here BMR Calculator - this is how many calories your body burns by doing NOTHING. NADA! ZIP!
Then you can work out how many calories you burn daily by putting this BMR number into the Harris -Benedict Equation (Harris Benedict Equation). This will work out how many calories you burn daily, at your activity level.
The number you get from the BMR is how many calories your body burns, living your lifestyle. If you eat this number in calories, you will in theory maintain your weight. In order to lose weight, you need to create a deficit. The deficit depends on how much you want to lose. If you don't know your BMI you can calculate it here: Calculate Your BMI - Standard BMI Calculator

Generally someone with a BMI over 32 can do a 1000 calorie a day (2 lbs a week) deficit
With a BMI of 30 to 32 a deficit of 750 calories is generally correct (about 1.5 lbs a week)
With a BMI of 28 to 30 a deficit of 500 calories is about right (about 1 lb a week)
With a BMI of 26 to 28 a deficit of about 300 calories is perfect (about 1/2 lb a week).

So, say you have a BMR of 2000 and want to lose 1lb a week, you would need to consume 1500 calories a day.

Hope this helps!

Alternatively, if you're still a bit confused, have a look at the website Myfitnesspal.com - it will calculate how much you need to eat a day, and will calculate your exercise calories too, and add them on (so instead of eating 1500 a day using my above example - equating to 10500 a week, you might eat 1200 on days you don't exercise, and then 1900 on the 3 days you do or something, which still equates to 10500 a week).

((Goes off to make a post about calories))

If you're still confused, feel free to PM me

 

[Fattack]

And as for your husband, yes that is VERY low. Get him to do the above too

 

[zebredy]

Thanks for the reply, off to the dentist in a mo, so will be checking out those links as soon as I get back and will start working it all out.

Doing WW I lost over 2 stone, but the new plan doesn't work all that well for my hubby and after gaining weight for some weeks in a row, we gave up, that was back in December / January time, now we really want to step this hole thing up a gear and shift as much weight as possible before he is 40 in Novewmber, and I'm 30 in December, and well we were recommended to try calorie counting by friends and family.

One thing I did want to ask, is, is it better to eat a different amount of celeries per day to help aid the weight loss?.

I'm only 5"1 and currently 10st 11 but want too loose about 2 more st before November without doing it too quickly (if I'm being realistic before 20th September would be nice, but I don't want to push it). My hubby on the other hand is 5"8 and 15st 10 and wants to be under 14st for now (he doesn't want to set to big a goal at the mo and demotivate himself if he doesn't reach it in time)

Anyway off now but will look into this more when I get back, PS how do I find out the celeries of foods we eat i.e. large or medium bananas and mince and quorn for me, and other such stuff like pasta and rice and bread (other then looking on the packets)

Thanks again for all the help so far...

 

[Fattack]

Ok you're about the same height and weight as me

It's entirely upto you! Some people swear by eating a larger amount some days to "shake the body up" a bit, and less on others. I myself eat a little more some days than others, but the days I eat more are the days I exercise more - so my total calories is always around the same.

You should definitely look into joining Free Calorie Counter, Diet & Exercise Journal | MyFitnessPal.com - it will tell you the calories of foods that don't have it on the packet (e.g your banana), and will enable you to track your exercise and calories on there in a diary.

As an aside, I was a huge fan (literally, when I started!) of Weight Watchers until ProPoints in, believe we have a couple of ProPoints migrants on this forum too! I wasn't losing anything on ProPoints after the first week- and I personally think it was too many "base" calories for us shorter ladies! And if I touched my weeklies, I'd gain. I'm much happier doing it this way - plus because I get much less to work with, I make much healthier choices (and am MUCH fuller than I was on PP!).

 

[zebredy]

Back and thanks again.

Yeah Discovery worked for us both but Pro Points only worked for me, and even though I more want then need to loose the weight my OH needs to loose it, he was close to insulin before before he lost the first 2+ stone (literaly 1 doctors appointment away from being put on it) and well we did WW and it really helped but now I'm gona give calorie counting a go for him, I mena I only work part time at the moment so I have the time to do the research for him, and I'm gona be writing a list of the main things we eat to put on the fridge as a point of reference which should help...

2016.575 is that number right? I checked my BMR and did the Harris Benedict Equation (that without taking into account a couple days hard work in the gym). Hmm I'm sure I'll get there soon enough.

Just done my hubbies for him and got 2442, so I have to take some calories off these two numbers depending on how fast we want to loose the weight?

 

[Fattack]

I worked it for you using your age as 39, weight as 10st 11 (151lbs), and height as 5'1" and got a bit of a different number (I did account for your two days at the gym)

BMI of 28.5
BMR of 1415.25
Harris Benedict: 1415.25 x 1.375 (which is the number for people who are lightly active i.e. go to the gym or play sports 1-3 days a week) = 1946 (rounded up to the next decimal place) to maintain your weight.
If you have a week when you can't make the gym, your maintenance number would be 1698 (rounded down).

So! If you want to lose 2 stone by November, you can focus on half a pound a week, which is a daily deficit of 250calories a day - so if you're exercising 1-3 times a week, that would be 1696 calories a day (or 11872 a week), and if not exercising, 1448 (10136 a week).

If you want to lose a bit more, say 1lb a week, it would be a deficit of 500 cals a day so 1446 if exercising ( 10122 a week ) and 1200 if not / 8400 a week (you're not supposed to go under 1200 a day).

Of course, you could have more calories on certain days, just make sure it averages out / adds up to your weekly total and don't go below 1200 on any day ^^

Hope this helps, best of luck! Remember to try out myfitnesspal to keep track of everything As an aside, I also have issues with insulin resistance (not quite diabetes, but it's a similar principle), so if your hubby hasn't already, he may want to investigate a diet that releases sugars slowly into the bloodstream - it's called the Low GI (or low GL) diet - where you cut things like white bread, white pasta, white rice, refined sugars, and replace them with wholegrains, leans meats, certain fruits and lots of veg! There's a subforum about GI diet on minimins if you want to take a look, and I can really recommend Patrick Holford's Low GL bible. I feel so much better in myself since I started calorie counting AND eating low GI.

 

[zebredy]

Know it seems weird to some but I'm actually 29 and my hubby is 39 but thanks for the figures above I'm going to use them and go with 250-300 as a base of how much to cut back on each day...

At the moment I work for Maplin and am pretty much on my feet all day (though that doesn't necessarily mean walking around all day it depends what they have me doing) I only do that three days a week, and even with going to the gym I know I'll have at least one day at home being lazy/doing house work

We have been replacing quite a lot of our foods with brown alternatives, (we don't eat much white bread anymore) its just hard when my hubby refuses to eat them, (well unless I do a 60/40 mix with brown and white pasta and mix it into the sauce before he notices. In our house cause I do most the cooking, its kind of the rule that if I add it and he doesn't know, I can often get away with it, like quorn. Cause its healthier I like eating it but my OH doesn't so I do a 60/40 or 50/50 with that as well, and I think he only nearly noticed once so far. As for rice I love rice to bits, but I've got to say I'll never be eating brown rice again lol.

My hubby gets paid tomorrow (me next week ) anyway this is the start of a new us, so when I go shopping on Saturday its all going to be healthy lower calorie options this time and I'm always going to be either putting veg in the food (which I already do, though chopping it up for Matthew (my OH) who isn't a big veg fan, can be a pain sometimes) or having it as a side option which I don't do as often as I should.

I think I'm going too pop to the library on Saturday as well and see what GI books I can get out and have a read of, I have noticed when shopping in Sainsburys that some of there foods have LOW GI written on them which is nice but even though I've seen it on packets and heard of it before, I never thought of combining calorie counting with a LOW GI diet and that it might be that much of a benefit for him and maybe me as well, thanks ..

Sorry for rambling off to sort out my shopping list for next week, and workout some more calories of the things I love to eat (wish I didn't love bread so much) I'll give that Free Calorie Counter, Diet & Exercise Journal | MyFitnessPal.com site another go, think I have nosed on there before, but its certainly not as easy to navigate as this site..

 

[Fattack]

Ooo sorry about that, I misread that *you* were going to be 40 soon!

As for GI resources, there are some great websites so you don't have to buy any books if you don't want to (and it may save you a trip to your library!).

http://www.the-gi-diet.org/

Also, if you ever shop at tesco, here's a list of a lot of the low GI foods they sell (and a lot of the foods can be applied to other shops that sell similar things!)

http://www.tesco.com/homepages/GIList.htm