Pushing-up numbers

By now we should all know how much calories we need to just maintain our weight. When reading a table that determines that amount of calories, it’s important to keep in mind it is based on people who are in relatively sedentary occupations.

Let’s say your number to maintain your weight is 2400 calories a day, on average, you are burning about 100 calories an hour. But really, are you burning that much calories while sleeping? No! You might be burning 60 calories while sleeping for 7 hours and the remainder of the calories the rest of the day. I’ll save you the calculation, it would be about 115 calories while awake. Those numbers are by no means scientific, I can’t really say with exactitude but it will do just for the purposes of this post. However, if I had to put money on that, I would!

I’ll use the table you can find on this link for the next paragraphs: http://www.nutristrategy.com/activitylist4.htm

The table shows that if you weight 205 lbs and walk at a 3 mph pace, for a whole hour, you will have burned 307 calories.

Now on this walk there is a bakery, you were walking toward it and the wind was in your direction… the smell made you want to speed up the pace to get there faster. You entered, you are not disappointed, there are shelves and shelves of every things that your dreams are about. It’s the only bakery in the world where they don’t put the price tag on the pastries, they put the calories.

You just burned 307 calories, and it happens there is one at 307 calories. “If that was not a sign, I don’t know what a sign is!’ you rationalized. Should you take it, it will be just too bad for this day’s work out, you are telling (or more likely your tummy is telling) yourself.

NO! walk out of the bakery right now, don’t look back, walk away and make sure the wind will not carry the aroma. What we all forgot, you burned 307 calories but if you had stayed home, you would have burn 115 calories. If you had taken that pastry from hell, you would have gained weight. In fact it would have been more beneficial weight wise to just stay on your couch and not eat a pastry because you would have burned 115 calories instead of taking an extra 115 calories! How about that!

At this rate, you would gain a pound in a month. Often, it’s the small stuff that gets you.

This “errors” is also something that I’m aware of with gizmo like Fitbit, it gives you the number of calories at the end of the workout. It’s not a license to increase your daily allowance consequently.

My strategy is to eat healthy, that is, my balance weight minus the number of calories I need to burn to lose 1.25 pound a week. Whatever activities I do, I’ll put those calories in the bank (I don’t mind if the bank account gets fat). If I want to indulge, I’ll plan it and not associate it with my activities.

That’s it, I have no more number to push-up, the next time I post something about a more technical side, it will be about food research.

Darn now I want a pastry!

I hope everyone is doing great with their goals. I’ll tell you a secret about myself, when I’m writing my post or comment on your blog and you are doing great, I can’t help myself, I have a smile in my face and in my heart. So pleeeease keep me smiling :) life is just too enjoyable to be miserable!