Livestrong Calories

I may need to change my tag line for this blog: "I don't count calories. I burn them." I started tracking my calories about a week ago on the Livestrong website. Using the My Daily Plate feature you can enter your height, weight and daily activity (not including exercise) to get a base number of calories your body requires. You can also select a goal such as gain one pound a week or lose one pound a week. It adjusts your calorie needs based on this.

Then, on a daily basis you enter everything you eat and any exercise you do. It tracks how many calories you've eaten and how many you've burned and tells you your surplus or deficit for the day. It is a great way to motivate you to exercise so that you burn calories that you can then consume back, as long as you don't go over the total for that day.

I like the label on the button you click when you enter something you ate: "I Ate This."

For the first week I put in I wanted to lose one pound per week. I currently weigh about 150 and wanted to get closer to 140, mainly to lose the small spare tire I have around the gut. I was surprised how many calories were in some of the things I snack on (trail mix, gatorade). However, I did not majorly change the amount or type of foods I ate, just watched it a bit closer. I did drink more water and less soda (none) and lemonade type drinks. I did like seeing the calories burned from running get added back in. That helped me to justify the occasional ice cream or chocolate milk evening treat.

I also did not change the amount of exercise I do in a given week. Lately that has been running 4-5 times a week for about 5 miles each, with maybe a longer run on one day. I have also been doing about 30 minutes of weight lifting 2-3 times a week. And maybe once or twice a week I will do either Bob's Weight Loss Yoga or a walk with my wife.

Based on the Wii Fit / Balance Board weight measurement, I lost 1.9 pounds from Sunday to Sunday. I say the calorie counting worked. It will be interesting to see if I can do another pound or so again this week.