I’ve been always trying to 减肥。After reading so many forums, essays, blogs websites etc., I gathered that the best way to do so is to cut my calorie intake and increase my exercise output. Yeah…nothing new. I read so many things – information overload liao… But some news I really gonna share with you, think you people will be quite horrified. Haha! Take note that calorie counting is painful because everything you put into your stomach has calorie.
Basic energy consumption…
Based on some of the websites, a gal of my weight, height, age and level of activity, needs about 1,800 kcal per day (With compliments from http://www.nutrition.com.sg/ha/hacalcal.asp). Seems a lot hor…
BMI
Based on some studies, the BMI rating where above 30 is obesity and above 25 is overweight is used universally and more applicable to Caucasian. As Asian tend to be smaller build or have lesser fat content etc (cant remember exactly), the BMI limit should be lower for Asian. In fact, there is a difference in BMI limit even for different ethics group. If I din remember wrongly, the new obesity BMI rating is 27 instead of 30 for Chinese (based on some studies, which I can’t remember the source). Thus, if I pro-rated it (assuming linear relationship), the range should be as follows:
|
Range
|
Old BMI
|
New BMI
|
|
Obesity
|
30.0
|
27.0
|
|
Overweight
|
25.0
|
22.5
|
|
Healthy weight upper range
|
24.9
|
22.4
|
|
Healthy weight lower range
|
18.5
|
16.7
|
Oh! And friends, to calculate BMI, go to this website: http://www.nutrition.com.sg/ha/habmi.asp. Save you the hassle of calculating it manually.
Calories converted to weight…
Take note that 3,500kcal = 1pound ~ 0.45kg. Thus, to lose 0.45kg per week, you need to either reduce calorie consumption or increase energy output (i.e. exercise) to 3,500kcal per week (500kcal per day).
So, if I do not wish to exercise at all, I can limit my daily calorie intake to 1,300kcal! Hehe~ But never this straight-forward because I need to consider a balanced diet and be careful not starving myself. Because, if I starve myself, my metabolism rate could slowed, which could significantly reduce my daily energy consumption rate!
P/s: Not advisable to intake less than 1,000kcal per day due to risks of malnutrition and subsequent binge-ing.
Do you really know what you eat?
Why I ask this question? Because I have the tendency to compensate myself for the hardwork during the week by eating a lot of sinful food during the weekends. Then lately, I went to check the calories of some of the fast food and to my horror, they are grossly overload, really really overload…Let me give you an example of a typical sinful weekend:
|
|
Calories
|
|
Sat
|
kcal
|
|
Mac Hotcakes with Sausage meal
|
970
|
|
Snacks: Chocolate bar
|
500
|
|
Mac Big Mac meal (no upsize)
|
1,080
|
|
Sun
|
|
|
Mac big breakfast meal
|
952
|
|
Potato chips
|
500
|
|
KFC – Thighx2/Cole slaw/ cheese fries/pepsi meal
|
2,421
|
|
|
6,423
|
|
Weekly reduction (500kcal per day x 5 days)
|
(2,500)
|
|
Weekends basic consumption (1,800kcal x 2 days)
|
(3,600)
|
|
Net gain
|
323
|
Shocked! Imagine, calories from a single KFC meal exceeds my entire day’s calorie intake liao….Also, my hard work for the week is gone with the wind ~ net GAIN of 323kcal. Hmmm….Just go and check out the numerous websites about calorie information and you will notice that calories in some food are simply not within your expectation!
Combined with exercise!
Combined with exercise is a much better option because exercise helps to improve your metabolism rate as well. So perhaps a mixture of 200kcal reduction in calorie intake and 300kcal exercise on a daily basis, could help achieve my aim of 0.45kg per week. Go along with this option will be a better route than simply dieting. In fact, because of exercising, I became more aware of the food I put into my mouth. Let me cite a story…
Once upon a time, I was shopping in a supermarket. Feeling thirsty, I decided to grab some soda etc. One can of coke is about 160kcal. Then, my brain automatically starts to calculate the amount of time I need to burn this off on a treadmill (my职业病…=). Assuming brisk walking on the treadmill, it will take me about 45mins!? Horrified, I change to other alternative, fruit juices, sugar-ed drinks etc. But everything has calories, 我过不了自己那一关. Finally, I decided to stick with plain water in my water bottle. Best alternative – Healthy and cheap, save me calories and save me $$.
Ok, in order to make myself more conscious of the calories that I burned for each exercise, other than relying on the figures in the gym machines, there are some websites which calculates the calories burned for each activity (assuming optimal burning…). Here’s an useful website for reference – http://www.nutrition.com.sg/ha/hasports.asp. To quote an example, 408kcal is burned when swimming for 60mins. But if you do rope jumping (I assume is跳绳) for 60mins, you can burn 672kcal! Amazing sia….
Cut yourself some slack ;~)
Even though I have said so much, it might seems that I’m obsessed or what. But hey, it depends on what you really want. If you feel that it’s totally unnecessary, go ahead and enjoy your food. To me, losing weight is no doubt what I really hope will happen, but HEALTH and HAPPY-NESS are my priorities as well. So I will surely seek to slim in the most possible healthy way. Sometimes I do indulge in sins (it makes me feel human), like once in a way eat some chocolates, some fast food etc. But not mindlessly binge and binge and binge. For the excesses, I made plans to burn them off, so that I will still achieve my goal within the stipulated targeted timeline~
It’s a mini project for myself; maybe cos I’m too bored with my life or what. But if ultimately I feel better about myself, why not?
Disclaimer
Ok, time for disclaimer. I extracted the above information from the web, so it might not be entirely accurate. Moreover, I interpreted some of it myself. So, you might not want to rely on it. More importantly…nope…I have not lost significant weight or what…this is not like some success story after following the slimming guide etc….
To my friends, this is something to share, which I hope might strike something in you. To strangers, who happened to read this, this is not a health guide, not tried and tested, please dun trust this entire thing blindly. (But if you dun mind being a guinea pig of this, can msg me, I dun mind also~).
一杯
