From my post on metabolism testing I know my resting metabolic rate is 1127 calories. My lifestyle calories burned (based on a light lifestyle) is 451 calories. So the number of calories I can eat each day and maintain my weight at my current lifestyle is 1578 (1127+451). So the next step is to figure out how I can use my metabolic rates to lose weight. To do that we have to know a few more things.

First, one body pound is equal to 3500 calories. So to lose one pound of weight I have to eat 3500 fewer calories or do enough exercise to burn off 3500 calories or some combination of eating and exercise. Since it doesn’t make sense to try to lose weight on a daily basis, we will do calculations based on a weekly rate.

A good rule is to weigh yourself every day when you are trying to maintain your weight, and weigh only once a week when you are trying to lose weight. I weigh every Monday after I pee and before I eat breakfast. Monday weigh-ins keep me from pigging out on the weekend since I know I have to weigh first thing Monday.

Most nutritionist agree a health weight loss goal is 1 pound a week. That means you need to lose calories each day or 3500 calories divided by 7 days = 500 calories. So you can subtract 500 calories from the number of calories needed to maintain your weight. In my case, I need 1578 to maintain. By subtracting 500 I can only eat 1078 calories each day in order to lose 1 pound a week. But I also know my resting metabolic weight is 1127. So if I only eat 1078, I won’t lose weight because my body will think it is in trouble and will store the calories I eat as fat. Therefore, I can only cut my food calories to 1200. By subtracting 1078 from 1200 = 122 means I have to do enough exercise to burn 122 calories. So my daily weight loss equation looks like this:

Calories Out: 1127 (resting metabolic rate) – 451 Lifestyle – 122 exercise = 1700
Calories In: 1200 (food)

Calories Out – Calories In = 1700 – 1200 = -500

So I have lost 500 calories or 1/7th of a pound. By keeping up this formula I will lose 1 pound a week, that is 7 x 500 calories = 3500 calories which = 1 pound.

If I want to lose more than 1 pound a week it is clear that I can’t eat any less food, so I will have to exercise more.

How Much Exercise Do I Need to Lose Weight?

Figuring how much you have to exercise to lose weight is easy once you know how many calories you need to burn each day to lose the amount of weight you want to lose. In the example above, I need to do enough exercise to burn 122 calories every day in addition to keeping my calorie intake at 1200 calories in order to lose 1 pound a week. So I need to find an exercise that I like to do and will keep doing that will burn 122 calories.

One way to know when you have burned 122 calories is use a piece of exercise equipment that will tell you how many calories you have burned based on how long you use it and how hard you are exercising. For example, many treadmills will show you how many calories you have burned as you walk or run. It takes approximately 100 calories to move 150 pounds 1 mile. So most machines are based on a person weighing 150 pounds. To find your actual calories burned your would have to adjust the machines calorie count according to your weight. Suppose the machine shows you have burned 200 calories. That means, if you weighed 150 pounds you have burned 200 calories. But you actually weigh 175 pounds. To adjust for your actual weight you divide 200 cal/150 pounds then multiple by your weight of 175 pounds and find that you have burned 233 calories. If you weigh less than 150 it’s the same drill, you divide 200/150 x your weight to find how many calories you burned.

The next post will show you how to set a weight loss goal.

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After weeks of frustration trying to lose weight I decided to get a metabolic assessment at my club. The goal of the test is to find two points in my metabolism. One point is my base rate, which is the rate at which my body is the most efficient at burning fat. The second point is my threshold which is point where my body is most inefficient at burning fat. By knowing these two points, I can see how my body responds to exercise and I can loose fat more efficiently by making my workouts more efficient.

Metabolism Testing

To find my resting metabolic rate all I had to do was sit in a chair and breathe normally through my mouth while wearing a mask. The expelled air is a mixture of oxygen and carbon dioxide which when analyzed tells your resting metabolic rate. The resting metabolic rate is how many calories you body needs to support your vital organs. So if all you did is sit and breathe all day, the number of calories your body burned in a day would be your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Once you know your resting metabolic rate you can add the number of calories you burn everyday based on your lifestyle. A “very light” lifestyle means you site all day, “light” lifestyle is equivalent to standing all day. Moderate lifestyle would be standing with some physical labor. A heavy lifestyle means heavy physical labor.

Why Do You Need to Know Your Metabolic Rate

Weight management (maintaining a healthy weight) is a very simple formula — Calories in must equal Calories out. Calories out is measured as your metabolic rate which is how many calories you burn in a day or for a given activity. Your daily calorie burn rate is equal to the calories you burn at rest (such as while you are sleeping or sitting) + calories you burn doing your daily activities (this includes what your do around the house as well as at work or school) + any calories you burn with exercise (this would be exercise that is not part of your normal day). Add these up and you can find out how many calories you burn that day. Once you know calories out then you can maintain your weight by counting the calories in — that is, the calories in the food you eat that day. Knowing your BMI is also important.

Knowing your resting metabolic weight is important, too. Remember, your resting metabolic rate is how much energy (calories) your body needs to support your vital organs. If you eat fewer calories than your body needs to support your vital organs your body may sense that it is in trouble and respond by getting rid of lean muscle instead of burning fat. In other words, your body will try to get rid of weight so it won’t have to work so hard. By going on a diet that is few calories than your resting metabolic rate can cause you not to lose weight because your body will store the food thinking it is in trouble.

The Results of My Metabolism Testing

After the resting test, I got on a treadmill to find out my exercise metabolic rate. By knowing these metabolic rates, I can figure out how many calories I can eat each day and lose weight. I also found out at what level of exercise my body quits burning fat efficiently.

My resting metabolic rate is 1127 calories. My lifestyle calories based on a light lifestyle is 451 calories. So the number of calories I can eat each day and maintain my weight at my current lifestyle is 1578. So the next trick is to figure out how I can use my metabolic rates to lose weight, how to lose fat instead of muscle and how to burn fat more efficiently.

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It’s been 3 weeks since I started my diet and exercise program. I thought surely I would loose 2 pounds a week and by now would be down 6 pounds. My goal is to loose 20 pounds by reducing my body fat percentage by 13%. By now I expected to be almost a third of the way there. Not even close! I’ve lost 1 pound and my body fat percentage has gone up 1%, which means I’m losing muscle instead of fat.

When I joined the fitness club I was paired with a personal trainer to help me reach my goals. He did a physical assessment which told me my body fat percentage (measured by using calipers at the waist, thigh and tricep), weight, flexibility and “real age” of my body. My real age was very depressing because I look 15-20 years younger than I am, but my body is 6 years older than my actual age; the majority of the 6 years is based on my weight. So if I lose weight I can lose years—much cheaper than plastic surgery!

I also joined myfitnesspal.com, a free online calorie counter, diet and exercise journal so I could track my calories in and calories out. According to a nutritionist I went to a few years ago, I should never let my daily calories fall below 1200 or my body would store fat, thinking I was starving. So I set my goal at 1200 calories per day for food. I didn’t set a goal for exercise, just determined to make an effort to exercise and go to the club at least 5 days a week. My husband and I started going to the club and exercising on the machines. We also joined fitness classes that meet M-W-F each week and we play squash for an hour (burns 850 calories per hour) every time we go. I’ve also been on the treadmill a couple of times on my own. All that for 1 pound of weight loss and a 1% increase in body fat. Depressing.

So this week I whined to my trainer that I was ready to toss it all. It was just too hard for me to lose weight because I’m only 5’1″. I could stay home and eat ice cream and do this good! So he suggested that maybe I’m working too hard when I exercise. Maybe instead of burning fat—which is what I want to do— I’m burning muscle. I’ve been using my heart rate monitor and I’m rarely in the fat burning zone shown on the machines, I’m always way above. So he said those zones are only estimates and that everyone is different. He suggested that I get tested to find out my true maximum heart rate, the level of exercise at which I’m actually burning fat, and my actual resting metabolism (how many calories I burn at rest). By taking the test I won’t be guessing any more on how much I can eat and how hard I can exercise to lose fat. So I agreed to have the test done. I don’t want to keep spinning my wheels.

Tomorrow I have the metabolism and cardio test. I have to fast 12 hours before. I’m really looking forward to seeing how close the tables on the machines are to my actual max heart rate using the 220-your age formula. Check back tomorrow and I’ll tell you all about the test and how I did.

In order to track my progress I weighed myself when I got home from the initial assessment to see if my home scales matched the weight and body fat percentage he calculated—which they did. (My scale measures both weight and body fat.) I was surprised, I always assumed the calibrations were voodoo!

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As 2012 got closer and closer, my husband and I decided to start looking for a fitness club to join. We had both been members of a local gym and had a personal trainer 3 days a week for the past 2 years. But in March of 2011, I thought I was 12 years old again and tore my achilles running 40 yard dashes with the high school kids. It took the whole year for my calf to heal. We’ve had a personal trainer for almost 10 years now and love having one. But we’ve decided to join a club where we can do more than lift weights and aerobic boot camp. So the last 2 weeks of December we started visiting local clubs looking for the right one for us.

What we were looking for was a club:

• that had group classes
• with a pool or lap pool
• that offered personal training
• that was clean and the equipment wasn’t worn out or old
• that was open 24/7 so guests weren’t all forced into the same block of time
• that wasn’t too expensive
• that we could get out of contract if it didn’t work out
• that was close enough that we would go
• that had an energetic atmosphere (we’re mood catchers and we need energy from others to keep us going)

We checked out LA Fitness, Anytime Fitness, Planet Fitness, Gold’s Gym and Lifetime Fitness.

LA Fitness had the pool, classes and trainers—but was old and dirty looking. Anytime Fitness had the equipment and trainers, but no classes, pool or energy. Planet fitness was basically a weight lifters gym, and totally dead. Gold’s Gym was OK, but just didn’t pull us in. Lifetime Fitness seemed to have everything we were looking for. So we got a one week free trial membership and a free personal trainer session to help us make our decision.

The facility is HUGE. It looks like an exercise mall more than a gym. There are 4 squash courts, 4 basketball courts, hundreds of treadmills, bikes, elipticals, and stair climbers, an olympic size pool indoors and out, a 6 lane lap pool, showers, spa, yoga, pilates, and on and on. We took total advantage of the trial membership and went 5 of the 7 days the week of Christmas. The trainer took us through our paces and I discovered I was really out of shape for endurance. We played squash every visit (we used to play racquetball, but they have squash because it burns more calories). We used some of the hundreds of weight machines and checked out the classes. We shot baskets on the basketball court. There were always lots of people there and we felt the energy level would be a real plus and keep us going—so we joined on Dec. 27. I decided we would come back on Jan 1 with renewed interest and efforts at getting/staying in shape and enjoying our new lifestyle.

HA! We we’re the only ones that made that decision. When we came back on Jan 1, we couldn’t find a parking spot. The place was packed wall to wall with people and trainers. And worst of all were the kids! Kids everywhere!!!! I felt like I had joined a nursery. Kids running in the halls. Two of the basketball courts dedicated to kids play. Squash courts taken by kids. By kids I mean 6-10 year olds. The kids under 6 were in a special area, but you had to watch out for them until they got to that area. Kids in the pool— the water looked like a choppy wake. How much pee in that pool?

On Friday the first week in January, we learned that once is a month is parents’ night out and parents are dropping kids off like flies. There were hundreds of them. Taking up all the courts and the pools. The second week starts the kids programs and courts and pools are shut down for kids classes. One night we saw a half of a basketball court dedicated to one fat kid and his trainer! How can one kid get a whole half a basketball court when guys are literally standing in line 10 deep for pick-up games?

I’ve also discovered that just about everything there cost extra. If you can’t do it alone, it cost extra. Classes are extra, lessons are extra. Pilates is not included. Cafeteria cost an arm and a leg. Personal trainers are $100/hour. Everything in the club is geared toward selling something once you get in the door. Heart rate monitors, fitness evaluations out the wazoo, lessons, training, even group exercise classes. But babysitting is free. Also, a lot of what you can do alone is off limits if there is a class. Certain areas of the gym are blocked off for classes which greatly cuts down on the available machines.

The website is terrible and hard to figure out how to use. There are so few classes each day it’s hard to find one at a time you can attend, unless you want to go at 9 pm when the kids are at home asleep.

We are going to give it a couple of months and see if the crowd falls off. If not, we’ll be looking again and know a lot better what not to get into.

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When we talk about fitness we’re generally talking about our overall state of health, usually a result of good eating habits and exercise. But there is more to it than that. Fitness is different for each individual based on their own ability. Fitness for a teen is a lot different than fitness for someone in their 60s. And the focus of being fit is also different. Teens want to be able to compete in sports for fun or for school. Seniors focus more on being able to do activities of daily living with ease and without injury.

You’ll find information on weight training, personal training, and cardio for all ages. We have exercises you can do at home on your own for general health or rehab of an injury or illness.

Whatever the level of fitness you’re seeking, we have something for you! You can find information by category or by using the search box at the top of each page. We have tags to help you find related articles. When we find good resources to help you learn more, we provide links to their site to help you in your quest for good health.

For more information about fitness

For more information on nutrition contact the following organizations:

Steps to a HealthierUS, HHS
Internet address: http://www.healthierus.gov

Weight Control Information Network, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, NIH, HHS
Internet address: http://win.niddk.nih.gov

Food and Nutrition Information Center, USDA
Internet address: http://www.nutrition.gov

MyPyramid.gov, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Internet address: http://www.mypyramid.gov

The President’s Council on Physical Fitness and Sports
Internet address: http://www.fitness.gov

National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Information Center (NHLBI), National Institutes of Health, HHS
Internet address: http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov

Food and Drug Administration (FDA), HHS
Internet address: http://www.fda.gov

American Society of Bariatric Physicians
Internet address: http://www.asbp.org/siterun_data/

International Food Information Council
Internet address: http://www.ific.org

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