[Obesity Discussion]

Originally Posted by ccwilloe

i have been wondering how many calories my body burns up doing my normal things as well.

i think you can figure it out over the course of a month as follows:

take three initial weights the same time of the day for 3 consecutive days and average them

count your calories (account for everything you take in) for one month

at the end of the month, take your weight the same time of the day for 3 consecutive days and average them.

take the difference between the initial and final weights and multiply this number by 3500. this gives you the number of calories of fat you have burned up over a month. then divide this number by the number of days in the month. this gives you average calories of fat burned per day.

next, add up all of the food calories and divide this number by the number of days in the month as well. this gives you the average number of calories you consume every day.


to maintain your weight, add the two numbers together. this is your body's metabolism daily calorie requirement to maintain it's weight.

example:

you found you consumed 45,000 calories over one month of 30 days. this is 1500 calories a day.

you also dropped 10 pounds over this month. that's 35,000 calories of fat burned.

to maintain your weight, you'd need 80,000 calories over the month or 2666 calories a day. this is your body's metabolism to maintain itself with no weight gain or loss.


good luck with your diet. i am new here as well and have quite a ways to go.

oh, the reason i took 3 days of weights at the beginning and end of the month is to try to average out your initial and final weights taking into account body water content. you'll fins that your body might vary in weight a few pounds each day and this is because of the amount of water you are retaining - which is probably not constant.

There's a much easier way to try to figure it out using the calculation for the basal metabolic rate.