I have tried eating no activity points, and tried eating all my activity points and flex points - nothing seems to work.
Did you try to it for 3-4 consecutive weeks before changing? Your body needs time to adjust.
Quote:
Originally Posted by lilwolfe006
As for workouts - I get the calories burned from the machine readouts, as well as checking their validity on websites that formulate approx. calories burned.
Also the machines and websites are usually way off on what is really burned and what isn't. Besides there are other factors that you need to know about like how many calories your body needs just to maintain your weight (basal metablic rate) and it just isnt' calories in vs calories out
QUOTE=lilwolfe006]i had thought that going below a certain amount of calories was considered a bad idea? That when you give your body too few it goes into starvation mode. Just for kicks I tried one of those sites for your metabolic rate, and mine came up to something like 2700 calories for what I do daily - and WW tells me only to eat 1100??[/QUOTE] Where did you get this figure? Even at 20 points it is 1150 calories plus 200-250 calories a day for free veggies before your FPs and APs.
It's important to know your metabolic rate so you can balance enger in (the food you eat) with the energy out (how active you are). Because of different activity levels, each person's metabolic rate is different. Follow these steps to calculate the the amount of caloires you burn in a day. Remmeber, if you eat more than the calculated amount of calories, those extra calories eventually get stored as fat.
1. Convert your weight from pounds to kilograms by dividing by 2.2 (2.2 pounds = 1 kilogram). So, a 130-pound woman would weight 59 kilograms.
2. Women: Multiply the results of Step 1 by .9 (59 x .9 = 53). Men: Skip this stpe and go directly to Step 3.
3. Multiply the results of STep 2 (or Step 1 if you are a man) by 24. This gives you the minimal number of calories you need to survive, or your RMR (resting metabolic rate) (53 x 24 - 1272 calories).
4. To calculate the extra calories you need in order to perform your normal activites, you must calcualte a certain percentage of the RMR. Then add it to the RMR for that day's calorie needs. For example, a relatively sedentary day--say, a lazy Sunday spent watching TV or laying around--would require only a 20 percent increase in caloire expenditure (1272 x .20 = 254 extra calories). So, 254 added to 1272 equales 1526 calories.
Activity levels vary depending on how vigorous an activity it is and how long you're active. Here is a general rule of thumb based on nutritionists recommendations for energy.
Additionally, low calorie diets (under 1200 for women and 1400 for men) are not the way to go because you don't get enough folic acid, magnesium and zinc along with putting your body in a perpetual state of starvation.
Burning calories is not an exact science
By Miriam Nelson, Ph.D.
(WebMD) -- You're not alone if you've been wondering about the accuracy of calorie counters that are built into treadmills, stationary bikes and other cardiovascular machines.
Many people who sweat and agonize through the cardiovascular, or "cardio," component of a workout understandably want to pin a magic number to their accomplishment -- often in the form of "calories burned." Of course, the designers and manufacturers of cardiovascular exercise equipment make this very easy, providing you with more details about your workout than you ever dreamed: calories burned, distance traveled, number of flights climbed, just to name a few. But are all of those details reliable?
A not-so-straightforward answer
For fitness-center personnel who regularly confront this question, the answer is somewhere between "Yes" and "No." Within each piece of equipment is a computer that uses standard formulas to calculate the number of calories you're expending. The accuracy of the formulas depends on the type and brand of equipment, but all are far from perfect. Weight-bearing equipment, such as a treadmill or elliptical trainer, for example, is probably a little more accurate than non-weight-bearing equipment, such as a stationary bike.
That's because weight-bearing equipment takes your body weight into account when estimating the calories you've burned. The more you weigh, the more calories you burn during a given activity. Regardless, the number of calories the machine indicates that you have burned is not exact, indicating a range of calories you've actually burned. More often than not, the machines will overestimate by as much as 30 percent, though an overestimation of 10 percent to 15 percent is more likely.
The body composition factor
However, what this formula -- and all of the others -- do not account for is body composition. People who have more body fat and less muscle mass per pound will burn considerably fewer calories than those who have more muscle and less fat. For instance, a 130-pound woman with 20 percent body fat will burn calories more effectively than a 130-pound woman with 30 percent body fat.
Speed is important too
Calculations of non-weight-bearing machines are even less precise because they not only overlook body weight and composition, but frequently do not account for your speed. These machines, which include rowing ergometers, only include distance and the time of your workout in calculating calories.
The formula that non-weight-bearing machines use depends on an "average rpm cycling speed," usually 70 rpm (revolutions per minute). So the only variables in the equation are the level of intensity -- meaning the resistance you are pedaling against -- and the time you spent working out. With most stationary bikes you will find that if you ride for 10 minutes at 50 rpm, 70 rpm and then 90 rpm, the number of calories you burned at each of the different speeds are all the same or very close.
To correct for the inaccuracies, try the following tips:
Enter a body weight that is lower than your actual weight.
Try switching machines so your muscles avoid becoming conditioned to one. When you switch between different machines, the change in motion and the muscles you use will force you to work harder, helping you burn more calories.
Add an extra five minutes to your exercise session, but without the assumption that you'll burn more calories.
When using weight-bearing equipment, don't let the handles support your body weight for you -- they are intended to assist with balance only.
Try to concentrate on how hard you're working and sweating rather than on how many calories the machine shows you're burning. When you focus on being consistent and increasing your intensity, you'll be more successful at maintaining a regular exercise routine. This will maximize any cardiovascular and weight-loss benefits you'll achieve.
How Accurate Are The Calories You Burn On Cardio Machines?
The high-tech cardiovascular machines of today have display panels with flashing lights and numbers that give you motivating feedback on how far you have walked, run, hiked, climbed, etc, your heart rate and how many calories you have burned. It is this last piece of information that many people are obsessed with. After all, one of the biggest reasons why people exercise is to manage their weight and keep excess fat at bay. So a good question to ask is are you really burning the amount of calories the cardio machines say you are? I wish there was a simple yes or no answer but there isn’t because it depends on many factors.
According to the Tufts University Health & Nutrition Newsletter (May 1999), the error rate can be anywhere from ten to thirty percent.
How much do you weigh?
The better machines ask for your weight to calculate how many calories you are burning. This helps to keep the error rate to a minimum because it is a law of physics that it takes more energy to move a heavier mass than it does to move a lighter one.
The machines that don’t ask you for your weight usually base their calculations on a 154-pound male. So if you weigh much less than that, the calorie reading you are getting on the display console could be way off.
Your individual metabolism.
Even if the machine asks you to plug in your weight, the calculation could still be off-track because no matter how sophisticated and high-tech the machine, it cannot possibly calculate how much of you is lean (muscles and everything else that is not fat) and how much is fat. The more lean body mass you have, the more calories you burn. So two people could weigh the same, but the one with a higher lean body mass will burn more calories per minute. This is one of the reasons why you should increase your lean mass through resistance training (weights, rubberbands, body weight exercises).
The machine assumes you are going a certain intensity or speed.
When you set a treadmill to it’s highest incline, the machine "assumes" that you are hiking up this incline like you would outdoors on a real hill and therefore reflects the appropriate number of calories on the display panel. How is the machine to know that you are hanging on to the bars for dear life as if you were water skiing? The only one you are fooling is yourself if you think that you have really burned all those calories.
Another example is on a stepper. Most machines assume that you are taking a six to eight inch step height. That is what they base their calculations on. Again, the machine has no way of knowing that you are taking only "baby" steps. So even though the machine says that you are burning mega-calories, the reality is that you are burning much less.
Faulty equations.
Equations used by the manufacturers to determine calories burned may have been based on people who are not yet comfortable with the machine. This is especially true for new innovative machines that are not yet commonplace. You burn more calories per minute when you are learning a new movement pattern than when your body is already used to the movement. The body becomes more energy-efficient. If you were a car, you’d be getting more mileage because your engine is better tuned-up.
The Tufts University article mentions a study done in the early ‘90s, when step aerobics and stepping machines first became popular. People in the study were burning an average of 8.5 calories per minute (based on an 8-inch step height). Seven years later when the study was repeated, the researchers found that people were now burning 7.5 calories per minute. The head of the research team claimed that this could make a big difference over time. "At the rate of several exercise sessions a week, it could add up to enough calories to account for three to four pounds in a year". So if you are new at using cardio machines, you are probably burning what the machines says you are but as you become fitter and more coordinated, you will probably be burning a little less.
Another way the caloric equations could be faulty is if they are based on "gross caloric cost" and not on "net caloric cost". To explain the difference, we first have to talk about resting metabolic rate (RMR) or the amount of calories you burn at rest (doing absolutely nothing but lying still) during a 24-hour period. These are the calories burned to keep your heart beating, your liver working, etc. RMR is actually the biggest component of the total number of calories you burn every day.
Gross caloric cost of an activity combines not only the actual calories burning during the activity but also your RMR for the number of minutes the activity is being done. Net caloric cost is how many calories the activity requires above what you burn at rest.
Here is an example given in the January 1999 issue of the American College of Sports Medicine Health & Fitness Journal. The gross caloric cost for a 160-pound man walking one mile at a speed of three miles per hour is 79 calories while his net caloric cost is 56 calories.
Wrong exercise form and technique.
I once had this client who would not leave the gym until she had burned 1,000 calories. She was so obsessed with this idea that she would hop from one type of cardio machine to another until she had reached her magic number. However, she was so focused on the number of calories she "had" to burn that she subconsciously learned to manipulate the machines with poor exercise technique. Not only would she take "baby" steps on the stepper but she would also lean over the handlebars. She would do the water skiing trick on the treadmill and on the cross-trainer (an upper-and-lower body elliptical machine that is a cross between running and cycling), she would use only her legs while the machine assumed she was also working her upper body. She was not only cheating on her exercise form and technique but she was also cheating herself because she was burning "fantasy" calories.
Ohio State University did a study on steppers and found that women who held the handrails burned fewer calories than those who swung their arms as if they were walking. According to the researchers, even the lightest touch on the rails made a difference. Leaning forward and resting one’s weight on the handrails was even worse – it cut the calories burned in half! Interestingly enough, a previous study showed that men were not affected. Their caloric expenditure did not go down even if they held the sidebars. There was no mention if this included supporting body weight by leaning forward.
Practical tips to make your calorie burning more accurate.
Here are a few tips suggested by Tufts University to make sure that the calories you burn on a cardio machine are more accurate.
Go five minutes longer per exercise session than you have been going, but don’t assume you’re burning another five minutes worth of calories.
"Plug" in a body weight that’s a little lighter. This will lead to a slightly lower calorie read-out that might be more in line with the calories you’ve truly burned.
Increase the workout level after a while. Once the workout begins to feel noticeably easier at a particular level, it means you’re burning fewer calories. In fact, the best use of the display panel is to measure your progress. For example, if you see that your heart rate while working at a given intensity level has gone from 120 to 115 beats per minute, you know that you have gotten fitter (a fit heart beats less) and you can increase your exercise intensity in future workouts.
Use good technique. Handrails should be used for balance, not to carry your weight.
Consider cross-training on three or four machines. It’ll help keep your body from getting too efficient on any one particular machine
Wow, that's a lot of information, thanks. Unfortunately, it still leaves me unsure what I am doing - and whether I am off with overestimating exercise, underestimating food values, both, or opposite of either.
I don't think I'll ever be able to figure out the exercise correctly, so how would you suggest I account for it?
Utilize your slide rule or electronic or online points calculator with intensity levels, your current weight and time done to figure APs. DISREGARD anything about calories burned and don't worry about it because 99% of the time it is not figured correctly.
W/W uses sound advice.
LOW INTENSITY - you can talk and sing
MOD INTENSITY - you can talk but not sing
HIGH INTENSITY - you need a deep breath every 1-2 works to speak
Sweat is not a valid indicator of intensity because my husband sweats doing low intensity and I rarely sweat with high intensity. Most people never truly achieve a high level of intensity unless they are 1) running and a high rate of speed, 2) in training. Most of the time we fall somewhere between a MOD and HIGH for a cardio so my leader suggests figuring points for MOD and points for HIGH and then taking an average if you truly think you are higher than MOD.
I was kinda perplexed about your points problem, so I played around with my pointsfinder last night, and got these interesting results.
For 4 points:
You can eat as few as 100 cal if your food is high-fat, low fibre.
You can eat as many as 260 cal if your food is low-fat, high fibre.
Multiply by 7 for a 28-point day:
Low = 700 cal
High = 1820 cal
So there is a real range. It seems as if the point program is based on the law of averages. Sometimes, you'll eat a higher calorie point, sometimes a lower point, and statistically, it should average out in the end. This also makes people think about how much fat and fibre is in the diet. I suppose if you consistantly eat on the lower end of your points, you could get the points without enough calories.
I tend to eat on the higher end of points, mostly because I try to squeeze in every crumb of food I can to stay within points. For example, if I discover that a serving of 8 chips is one point, and I do the calorie math, I may find out that I can eat 10 chips and still be in the one point range. Maybe if I start to plateau I'll stop doing this, but so far I'm good.
Just keep trying, I'm sure you'll find the right balance.
I think the problem lies in that there are too many glitches for your activity points. a) some people sweat more than others b)some people have better endurance c)some people, myself included, have asthma so you can't even use the talking/singing thing and d)when you get into the habit of working out, you start to get into better shape, does this decrease your effort and energy spent just because you can handle it better?
Also, going back to the true points problem. If I count all my activity as moderate, then I am getting a whopping 3 points extra a day. Even eating those and flex points, the calories are SO low - how can it be healthy?
1) if you are eating healthy foods it is not that low especially with the activity points. For example look at the post from Allie again. And again in general the calories you are getting from your points is going to average pretty close to:
If you are eating properly with lower fat and higher fiber foods your average should be as follows:
Remember this is not always true but a good guide and DOES NOT include the 200-250 calories a day W/W built into the program for free veggies.
You are over analyzing....and part of your problem is the little amount of food you are getting with very little nutritional values. For example your 2 Breakfast Burritos at McDonalds are 600 cal/32 gms of fat/2 fiber...you could make 2 at home (and take with you in the morning) for much less points and higher nutrition and probably more food. What I am saying is while W/W says anything you can they also want you to utilize the 8 Great Health Guidelines and PointsPies...this way you get lots of food and the right amount of nutrition and calories in your point ranges.
If you have a hard time with the breathing then you need to figure your intensity but utilizing a heart rate...this article should help you:
Understanding Your Training Heart Rate
by: Vicki R. Pierson, ACE Certified Personal Trainer
Your training heart rate zone is a critical element in exercise. Taking your pulse and figuring your heart rate during a workout is one of the primary indicators in ascertaining the intensity level at which you and your heart is working. There are many ways to measure exercise intensity. The Karvonen Formula is one of most effective methods used to determine your heart rate. The Ratings of Perceived Exertion and Talk Test methods are subjective measurements that can be used in addition to taking a pulse.
The Karvonen Formula
This is a heart rate reserve formula and it’s one of the most effective methods used to calculate training heart rate. The formula factors in your resting heart rate, therefore, you’ll need to determine your resting heart rate by doing the following:
Prior to getting out of bed in the morning, take your pulse on your wrist (radial pulse) or on the side of your neck (carotid pulse).
Count the number of beats, starting with zero, for one minute. If you don’t have a stop watch or a second hand in your bedroom, you can measure the time by watching for the number to change on a digital alarm clock. Find your pulse and start counting when the minute number changes the first time, stop counting when it changes again.
To help assure accuracy, take your resting heart rate three mornings in a row and average the 3 heart rates together.
Another element in finding your training heart rate zone is determining the intensity level at which you should exercise. As a general rule, you should exercise at an intensity between 50% - 85% of your heart rate reserve. Your individual level of fitness will ultimately determine where you fall within this range. Use the following table as a guide for determining your intensity level:
Now that we’ve determined and gathered the information needed, we can pull the information together in the Karvonen Formula:
220 - Age = Maximum Heart Rate
Max Heart Rate - Rest. Heart Rate x Intensity + Rest. Heart Rate = Training Heart Rate
For example, Sally is 33 yrs old, has a resting heart rate of 75 and she’s just beginning her exercise program (her intensity level will be 50% - 60%.) Sally’s training heart rate zone will be 131-142 beats per minute:
Periodically, take your pulse during your exercise session to gauge your intensity level. Typically, the easiest location for taking a pulse is on the side of your neck, the carotid pulse. Be sure not to press too hard on the carotid artery or you’ll get an inaccurate reading. Count the number of beats, always beginning with zero, for 6 seconds (then multiply by 10), or for 10 seconds (then multiply by 6) to get the number of times your heart is beating per minute. If your pulse is within your training heart rate zone, you’re right on track! If not, adjust your exercise workload until you get into your zone.
Ratings of Perceived Exertion (Borg Scale)
Another method that can be used in conjunction with taking your pulse is the Ratings of Perceived Exertion (RPE). This is a subjective method that allows you to rate how hard you feel you’re working. RPE can be the primary means of measuring exercise intensity if you do not have typical heart rate responses to graded exercise. These people include those on beta blocking medications, some cardiac and diabetic patients, pregnant women, and others who may have an altered heart rate response.
On a scale of 0 - 10, rate how you’re feeling in terms of exercise fatigue, including how you feel both physically and mentally. You should be exercising between an RPE of 4 (somewhat strong) and an RPE of 5 or 6 (strong). Use the following table to determine the intensity level:
The Talk-Test Method
Like the RPE, the talk test method is subjective and should be used in conjunction with taking a pulse. The talk test is quite useful in determining your comfort zone of aerobic intensity, especially if you are just beginning an exercise program. If you are able to talk during your workout without a great deal of strain, you’re most likely in your comfort zone. Work at an intensity that allows you to breathe comfortably and rhythmically throughout all phases of your workout. This will ensure a safe and comfortable level of exercise.
I'm a vegetarian, and before joining WW, I never cared about how much fat I ate. (Bear with me, here, this is relevant!) I always had low cholesterol because of the vegetarian diet.
When I joined WW, I realized that I was eating a whole lot of fat. I was eating things like pesto, high-fat nuts, and fried vegetables. But on WW, high fat = high points, even if the calories are low.
For example, I'm on the 22 point plan. Last Friday I ate pasta with pesto. It was 12 points -- 60% of my daily allowance! Yet it was only 520 calories. On another day, I ate 2 fried boca burgers, some peas, and a piece of fruit. Just about 520 calories, only 5 points. The two fried boca burgers had less fat in them than the pesto.
You might be able to eat more calories under WW if you eat less fat.
TBJ333, That is exactly it. It depends on the foods you eat how many calories you get however the average should be well within a good caloric intake. The higher the fat the higher the points.
about your points problem, so I played around with my pointsfinder last night, and got these interesting results.
