Wednesday, May 28, 2008

Calories In - Calories Out = Weight Loss or Gain

The simple formula above is the driver to my current fitness activities. My weight loss without running or other exercise would be too slow for me to hit my "skinny by December" goal. Consequently, I am running, strength training, walking, and stepping up my chore schedule now to help keep me on track to meet my weight loss goal.

I will burn only .8-1.2 lbs per week on my current diet and fitness schedule. That is even with running approximately 30 miles per week.
  • Each mile run equals approximately 100 calories burned.

  • Each pound of fat to shed equals 3,500 calories.

  • Running 30 miles per week, burns 3,000 calories, so not quite 1 pound.

A couple of online calculators (such as the ones I have on my favorite links) have said that even keeping to a 1200 calorie/day diet and running 1 hour per day, I will only lose .8-.9lbs per week. The total lost will decline as I lose weight (as I will burn less calories hauling less weight around). My own calculations result in a slightly higher loss of 1.2lbs per week, so we will see how it goes.


Today's Exercise: The calculations above and my determination to meet my skinny goal (Motivation1) are what helped keep me going for today's (and each day's) run. I ran 8 miles, averaging 9 minutes and 22 seconds per mile. I am quite pleased with that time for such a long run. I will try to add some speed training into the rest of my running this week to see if I can decrease my time further as I go along.


Motivation 2: One thing that helped keep me going today was that I found an outlet to a local trail along the water than I can actually run to from my home. It is a mile from my home, but it made the long run so much nicer, not having to drive to some place where I could run four miles consecutively with minimal street crossings. (My shorter runs are all done in my neighborhood on streets that are not too busy.)


Motivation 3: A large study of people who lost and kept off 30 pounds or more found that they walk/run an average of four miles a day. The study done by the National Weight Control Registry is discussed in an article in Psychology Today:



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