Saturday, April 27, 2013

Food Log & Nutrition Apps

I have become a food scanning nut!  My daughter would not go to the grocery store with me last Saturday  because my plan was to scan food labels and compare nutrition/calorie values! 

One of the sites/apps that my personal trainer recommends is "Lose It".  We can enter or scan the foods we eat and then print out our weekly logs to go over with her when we meet weekly.  I like it this one.  It's very simple and the app lets me use my smart phone to scan the bar codes for nutrition info.

Here are some other ones: (you can access them on your computer too)

Food Log Apps:
    SparkPeople (this one was a little to "busy" for me, but they have some good articles, etc)
    Daily Plate
    My Fitness Pal
    Calorie King
    Lose It

Nutrition Apps:
    Fooducate ( I love this one - now that I'm learning about the nutritional value of my food, not just calorie value, this has wonderful information on it)

What Apps or web sites do you use to help you with your weight loss journey?

Make one good choice today, it can lead to another!
Blessings to you today - Kara Lea

Calculating Basic Metabolic Rate

Happy Saturday!

I wanted to share the following calculation formula for someone who may not know it.  It determines your daily calorie intake in order to maintain your current wait.  You can also calculate in your exercise to correctly gauge this too.  I've been trying to lose weight for years.  Read books, magazine articles, met with a nutritionist, joined a gym, joined a weight loss center, purchased a work out DVD, talked with family and friends, but I've never quite had my calorie needs explained to me like this before.  So far, personal trainer for nutrition purposes is really helping me.

Women:  Basic Metabolic Rate/BMR = 655 + (4.3 X wt in lbs) + (4.7 x ht in inches) - (4.7 x age in yrs)
(it's different for men)

For example:  655 + (4.3 X 254) or 1092.20 + (4.7 x 66) or 310.20 - (4.7 x 42) or 197.4 = 1860.
To calculate your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) use the chart below:

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1 - 3 days/wk)
Mod active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3 - 5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6 - 7 days/wk)
Extra active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e. marathon, etc.)

For example: 1860. X 1.2 = 2232.   This is the daily calorie intake in order for me to maintain 254 lbs.

In order to lose weight you need to create a calorie deficit.  (Yes I know this!)

Reducing your calorie intake by 3500 calories PER WEEK (500 calories a day) will allow you to lose one pound of body weight per week. 

For example:  Daily calorie intake:                  2232.00   Maintaining current weight
                      Daily 500 calorie reduction:     1732.00   To lose 1 pounds this week
                 Or Daily 1000 calorie reduction:   1232.00   To lose 2 pounds this week

** NEVER GO BELOW 1000 CALORIES A DAY!!

I'll be sharing some really helpful apps in my next post.

Make one good choice today, it can lead to another!
Blessings to you today - Kara Lea

Friday, April 26, 2013

Personal Trainer

My workplace has given me an opportunity to work with a personal trainer for nutrition purposes as part of their healthcare initiative.  I admit I was a little hesitant.  I don't know why.  I think it's all the years of negative self talk, fear of failure-because I always end up failing this part of my life.  My personal issues with weight and exercise have been more emotional/psychological than physical.  I don't know why that is, but I'm just tired of spending of so much energy thinking about.  I want to get to a place where I don't think about and I just do it without having to think!  (Sorry about the blah, blah, blah there!)

It's only been a few days.  We initially met as a group on Tuesday and yesterday we were assessed!  After years of reading, talking and working on weight loss, I'm hoping this experience will give me new insight!  I must say just being "assessed" helped me.  Here's what happened:

* weighed in
* blood pressure taken
* measurements of body taken (arms, thighs, waist, hips)
* measured flexibility and strength (various stretches to check reach length/flexibility with arms and legs, push up-upper body strength)
* used one of those machines that gauges your body fat-forget what they called it
* calculated how many calories I can eat to maintain my current weight
* based on how much I need to lose, discussed what my new daily calories need to be in order to  meet my goal
* calculated maximum heart rate, resting heart rate

Next post I'll share the formulas to figuring out the numbers and also some websites and apps.

My everyday homework: log what I eat
My extra homework:     Exercise 3 days for 30 minutes each time (10 min intervals are OK)

Make one good choice today, it can lead to another!
Have a blessed day - Kara Lea