PUSH: Day 16

Ok people, as I sat down to figure complete my homework from PUSH's Day 16, I am exhausted (yeah, yeah, see my earlier post about s***). But since I need to just deal with it, I decided to pull out my calculator, paper, and a pen to figure out my BMR and my Deficit Surplus. I already knew my Daily Intake since I've been tracking my foods pretty regularly. I knew, knew, knew this would be interesting based on the fluctuations I tend to see on the scale these days leaving me to wonder if my hormones are OK. 

I'm going to jump straight to the results. If you're interested in the calculation just google it. If you're coming here because you're also perplexed by your inability to see good results on the scale, then do yourself a favor and pick up PUSH and one of Tosca Reno's book's (I love Recharged).

Ok, so first you have to know today was kind of a cheat meal day. My Hubs and I went to lunch together and we went to a local Mexican Restaurant. Because it was well into the 1 o'clock hour, I was pretty famished thus I over ordered and ate too much. I do think I overestimated my caloric intake on My FitPal but I'm sticking to erroring on the side of caution (thanks Chalene for that nugget). 

The other thing to know is that you can basically take your BMR + your exercise then subtract your Daily Intake. The product should *hopefully* be a caloric deficit. It takes a total deficit of 3,500 calories in order to lose one pound. Here's how my last 24 stacked up:

My BMR = 1533
Daily Intake = 1748
Net Diff = 215

So what this basically means is that my body only needs 1533 calories in order to perform its basic functions. When I have intake days like today, then I'm overeating and thus keeping my fat. Even worse, if I keep this up I'll get fatter (I could gain 1 pound in about 2 weeks if I eat like this daily). 

I'm a numbers girl. I am highly analytical too. This little math problem scared me straight tonight. 

So the morale of the story is this: If you feel like you're watching what you eat and not seeing losses, then do the math. If you feel like you need a cheat day, then consider getting an exercise session in. Get into the habit of tracking every bite so that when you need to do the math, you have the data. I use MyFitnessPal and it's wonderful. 

That's it for now. 
XOXO
C.