Making A Dirty Word Work....

CALORIES!!!

That's a dirty word by many people's standard and invites scorned look from those who are gastronomically inclined to those who scoff at the very thought of some OCD behavior displayed by others in reaction to this word and its implications.

But as I have promised to do a short write-up regarding it, I shall keep it sweet (no pun intended)... (yeah right)

So basically what we're trying to do is MAKE the calories work for you...yeah make it work!! Calories per se is not a bad word....its a measurement of energy pretty much the same as how we would equate how powerful an air-conditioning unit or vacuum is based on the amount of Watts is displayed.

So here's the low down simple stuff.....

1. Use MORE calories than you CONSUME....... = weight loss
OR
2. Consume LESS calories than is required to MAINTAIN your present self = weight loss

So to calculate how much of calories you need to consume, reduce or refuse....we use the BMR calculator. Few factors come into play, namely the height, weight, age and activity lifestyle. Below I have embedded a calculator for your disposal (yeah, so nice of me). BMR or basal metabolic rate, in a nutshell, means the amount of calories you would burn per day if you slept a full 24 hours. Yeah sitting on the couch to watch TV takes effort too you know, especially when it comes to using the tip of fingers to channel surf....

Alterations of activity, and even the most sedentary lifestyle would require to use some form of energy, so when a BMR is stated, you would usually need a little more calories than the BMR to merely MAINTAIN the current weight.

Simple exercise if John Doe is 30 years old, 170cm and currently weight 80kg and has a sedentary life, he would have a BMR of 1808 calories (he can sleep the whole day and burn that much), but because of he has a sedentary life (which is a small level above dead sleep for 24 hours), he would require 2169 calories to just MAINTAIN his weight of 80kg.

So if dear John wants to lose weight with MINIMAL effort in 1 year....we simply recalculate his BMR based on the new details, such as....31 years old, 170cm and achieve weight of 70kg with a sedentary lifestyle. He would attain a BMR of 1664 calories.....

In other words...if John cut his intake by 500 calories a day, and do it everyday for a year.....he would have dropped that 10kg without going to the gym!!!

If you think about it, that just means don't eat that roti canai with teh tarik.....pretty cool eh.

Cheers and happy calculating