Okay, so let me get this straight... let's put our brains together here. We're all told to diet + exercise right? Right... And to lose weight we need to create a deficit between what we eat and what we burn every day. So if I'm on a 1500 cal/day plan, I need to burn more than 1500/day to lose - is that, like, totally off or :shudder: right? And if right, how in God's precious earth are we supposed to burn that many calories a day, aside from exercising til our legs fall off?

I dunno why but I am totally confused on this whole concept all of a sudden...cause if that's true, and we are not burning more than we eat every day, does exercising really help us lose weight? Not debating exercising here, just trying to grasp this... Thoughts everybody?

find out your BMR. It's the amount of calories you burn just to live - you could be sitting there just breathing and burning calories, and thats your BMR. For example, I eat about 1400 calories a day but my BMR is 1697 calories. So I don't even need to exercise to lose, really!

Calm!

Your body burns a certain amount daily, just for living. That's why you can't eat nothing. So most people burn 1500 calories a day or more without even TRYING...and then add exercise on top of THAT, and you're burning even more!

So if you're eating 1500 calories a day, the VAST majority of that is burned by your body just going about the business of living...breathing, digesting, thinking...

hmmm...is there any way i can do EXTRA thinking, instead of going to the gym?



why am i such a smartie pants today???

I just read this weekend that 20% of all our calories are used by our brains, so I think you're onto something, Trazey!

Keep thinking, gang ...

WOW okay so my bmr is just over 2000, so if I'm eating - say - 1500 cals a day - I'm burning 500 cals without even doing anything? Is that right? And secondly, any exercise I do - say I do an hour and a half of exercise every day, and burn another 500 cals in that process... so that would create a daily deficit of 1000 cals a day? And since there are 3500 cals to the lb (is that right?), in a week I would have a total of 7000 burned, or lose about 2 lbs a week? :getting ready to do the toyota jump if I'm onto this:

Well, with the exception of the fact that those are all really ESTIMATES (everyone's body is slightly different so your numbers may vary...)...you got it!

:doing the toyota dance: yea yea yea!!! That is just too cool!!! I totally did not know that - now that is great news, makes me really see how all this ties together, and also gives great inspiration to me too - thank you all so much for your help!!!!

[QUOTE=Trazey34;1986621]hmmm...is there any way i can do EXTRA thinking, instead of going to the gym?



QUOTE]

Trazey!

I'll do some of that plus some more breathing...heavy breathing. I should be skinny as a rail in no time.

Using mathmatical formulas to figure out your BMR, total caloric needs, & calories to cut to lose weight gives you a benchmark on how many calories you need per day. I found those numbers to be too high & it was really more of my maintenance #s than for me to lose weight.

I guess they are interesting but I think it is better to find what works for you with diet/calories & exercise amounts. Well, this wasn't very helpful!

For many of us with a lot of weight to lose, the important thing is to just start a diet you can stick with & find some exercise you can do. That was very hard for me at first being so out of shape & recovering from a bad hip/back/leg injury. I had to start out with tai-chi and then move up to WATP doing it for only about 5 min at first.

I don't know if exercise helps you lose weight in the number crunching sense as you could lose by mere caloric deficit. But that isn't very healthy I guess so we need to move a bit too!

Shhhhhhh... I'm.... THINKING!!!!!



I'l be down 100 pounds in no time!!!


Linda

Besides all the wonderful benefits of exercise - energy, stamina, strength, muscle toning and shaping, heart benefits - it is helping us to create MORE of a deficit then we get with doing our every day things. Which is a GOOD thing.

you got that right girl - I work in computer networking, so I sit my big rump in a chair all day slouched over a glaring monitor oyyyy! Man, walking felt so good tonight - Leslie mentioned a desk job and how good it feels to m-o-v-e - it sure did!!!!!!!