Calculating my Daily Recommended Calorie Needs

It is of importance that we calculate the Daily Recommended Calorie Needs (DRCN) so that we know exactly how much our body needs. Weight-loss is not as simple as ensuring the loss of calories, we also need to ensure that we do not "over-lose"hence enabling the 'starvation response'.

The formula below can look menacing at one glance but it's really simply primary school mathematics, all you need a calculator or MS Excel to do the calculation for you.

In order to get the DRCN value, we need to calculate our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR):

Harris Benedict Equation:
Formula for women:
BMR = 655 + (9.6 x wt/kg) + (1.8 x ht/cm) - (4.7 x age/yr)

Formula for men:
BMR = 66 + (13.7 x wt/kg) + (5 x ht/cm) - (6.8 x age/yr)

Using the value you've gotten, multiply it with the value assigned to your activity level to get your DRCN.

Example:

I am a woman, weighing 54 kg, 165 cm tall, 28 years old and lightly active.

Using MS Excel, I'll key in "=655+(9.6*54)+(1.8*165)-(4.7*28)" to get my BMR as 1338.8 cal.

My DRCN is therefore = 1338.8 x 1.375 = 1840.85 cal

To give you an idea of how much you can eat a day, a plate of Char Kway Teow (something like fried noodles for the foreign friends) is about 700 cal and a Mac Fish Burger Meal (Upsized) is about 850 cal... so... have you been over-eating??

In order not to reach the "starvation response", we should not cut more than 20% from our DRCN. Which means, in order to lose weight, I should try to consume only (1841x0.8=)
1472.8 cal per day. Note that you calorie intake should increase with each increase in activity level, and also note that this 20% range will take you at least 3 mths to lose a mere 4kg (estimate, varies from person to person due to difference in age, weight and height). If you really can't wait, the lowest level of DRCN a women need is 1200 cal, but you'll have to take care of the health consequences that will follow (e.g. sharp increase in weight the moment this low-cal diet is stopped, muscles degenerate, low metabolism, lethargic, dizzy-spells etc.)

Heart Rate Training Zones

To perform exercises effectively, you need to monitor your heart rate when exercising, as each heart rate zone will mean different exercise effects.

Below are a list of heart zones for different exercising effects. Before you go on to explore the different zones to decide on your needs, you'll need to understand what is maximum heart rate.

When we talk about maximum heart rate (MHR), we are talking about the highest number of times your heart can contract in one minute, beyond which, heart failure will occur. In order to find out this number, you are of course, not required to push yourself to the point of heart failure, there is an easier way to find out about that, which is by using this formula: 220 - Age.

For example, given that I'm 25 years old, my MHR will be 220-25=195 beats per minute.

1. Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) --> 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate:

This is the easiest zone and probably the least tedious zone. Most suitable for people just starting on their exercise regime. It can also be used as a warm up for more serious walkers.

This zone has been shown to help decrease body fat, blood pressure and cholesterol. It also decreases the risk of degenerative diseases and has a low risk of injury. 85% of calories burned in this zone are fats!

2. Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --> 60 - 70% of maximum heart rate:

This zone provides the same benefits as the healthy heart zone, but is more intense and burns more calories. The percent of fat calories burnt is still 85%, but is a necessary zone to pass through in order to do a gradual improvement to the next zone.

3. Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --> 70 - 80% of maximum heart rate:

The aerobic zone will improve your cardiovascular and respiratory system AND increase the size and strength of your heart, which will in turn improve the respiratory process, making your fat-burning capacity more efficient! Also, this is the zone whereby mitochondrias are increased and enlarged to increase your metabolism. But due to the intensity of the workout, only 50% of the burnt calories are fats, but of course, the amount of calories burnt is much more than when you work out at 60%, so the ultimate value of fat burnt is still about the same, with greater benefit of increase mitochondria.... definitely worth the effort for weight-losing!

4. Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --> 80 - 90% of maximum heart rate:

Benefits of this zone include an improved stamina and thus an improved cardiorespiratory system, also that your endurance will improve and you'll be able to last longer in higher intensed exercises like e.g. sprint for a longer period of time. This is a high intensity zone burning even more calories, but our of which only 15 % is from fat. But of course, it has the same effect of increasing and enlarging your mitochondrias which will in turn increase your metabolism.

5. Red Line (Maximum Effort) --> 90 - 100% of maximum heart rate:

Although this zone burns the highest amount of calories, it is very intense. Most people can only stay in this zone for short periods. You should only train in this zone if you are in very good shape and have been cleared by a physician to do so. Bearing in mind that the MHR is only a rough guide, for the fitter folks, it doesn't mean that upon reaching this zone, you'll conk out and die, for the less-fit folks, even before you reach this zone, you might have already conked out... so... do watch your body and listen to the cues yea... stop when necessary, it's not worth losing your life over a few kilos!

Calculate Maximal Heart Rate

To perform exercises effectively, you need to monitor your heart rate when exercising, as each heart rate zone will meant different exercise effects and each zones contributes differently to the increase in metabolism.

For example,
Healthy Heart Zone (Warm up) --- 50 - 60% of maximum heart rate (MHR)
Fitness Zone (Fat Burning) --- 60 - 70% of MHR
Aerobic Zone (Endurance Training) --- 70 - 80% of MHR
Anaerobic Zone (Performance Training) --- 80 - 90% of MHR
Red Line (Maximum Effort) --- 90 - 100% of MHR

(For details of what each heart rate zone, click here.)

So how do we calculate the MHR? No worries, as long as you have passed Primary 3 maths, you can do this without much problem.

Let's say we wanna increase our mitochondria, we need to exercise at the Anaerobic Zone of 80% of MHR, and assuming you are 25 years old.

Step 1: Subtract your age from 220 to find out your maximum heart rate
MHR --> 220-25 = 195 beats per minute

Step 2: Multiply your MHR by 80%
195 x 80% = 156 beats per minute

Viola! You should maintain the intensity of exercise once you reach your desired HR.

You can check your heart rate during a workout, but first slow down the pace a little so you can concentrate more. Gently place your index and middle finger on the inner part of your wrist. Now count how many beats in 10 seconds, then multiply the number by 6. Of course, there are effective electronic instruments around which can purchase to make this easier for you, like a watch that measures heart rate, but that's entirely up to you.

Why is it so easy to gain back the weight I've lost?

There are many reasons why weight lost are so easily gained back, but we can safely generalise them under one principle, which is the loss of METABOLISM. Allow me to illustrate that by listing the reasons one by one:

1. When you lose weight, your body naturally doesn't metabolise as fast since you don't need so much energy anymore for basic movements, so, your metabolism slows down, resulting in an increased demand to reduce your calories intake or to increase your metabolism.

2. People who engage in dieting (cutting down on more calories than recommended) tend to fall into the natural body process known as 'starvation response', where the body starts conserving energy in order to allow the body to last long enough without food intake in the next few hours/days. This is done by decreasing metabolism.

3. People who engage in dieting (cutting down on more calories than recommended) without appropriate amount of exercise will find themselves losing their muscles, which are the key component in our body which drives metabolism. Thus, a loss of muscles will result in a decrease of metabolism.

Once the metabolism drops drastically, all the initial loss of weight will be regained with every extra calorie consumed. Therefore, it is important that we know how to lose weight correctly, if not, all the loss will be regained eventually, wasting all your initial efforts.

How to increase metabolism?

The first step to losing some fats, other than cutting the food intake and exercising tirelessly, is to increase your metabolism. In fact, if you can successfully gain a significant increase in metabolism, cutting down on your food intake will seem redundant and unnecessary. These are some methods to increasing your metabolism:

1. TONE UP THOSE MUSCLES. Remember that muscles generally call for more calories for maintenance, so by building up more muscles, the basal metabolic rate simply increases.
2. INCREASE THE NUMBER OF MITOCHONDRIA. Mitochondria are the energy factories of our body cells, the more there is, the more efficient the burning of calories to sustain our increased stamina in working out, which in turn burns more calories. To increase the number of mitochondria, we need to exercise at 80% of our maximum heart rate. More...
3. SLEEP MORE. According to research, lack of sleep can decrease the number of calories your body burns because when sleeping, our body performs more repair and restoration than when awake. Since the rate of calories your body burns at rest represents about 60% to 75% of your total daily calorie burning, the less sleep you get, will mean lesser calorie burnt for the day, which means a slowed metabolism.
4. EAT LESS BUT MORE OFTEN. Digesting food is one of the activity that burns lots of energy. Each time you eat, you stimulate your metabolism for a short period of time for digestion, which means that the more often you eat, the more you’ll increase your metabolism. Eating every 2 to 3 hours feeds muscle and starves fat. By eating frequently, you reassure your body that you aren’t going to starve; that food will always be available, thus reducing the need to slow down metabolism to store energy to last the hours before the next meal. As a matter of fact, skipping breakfast actually frightens your body into storing fat, just in case your next meal never comes. This is called the 'starvation response', which springs in everytime our body senses hunger (note that it's not 'you' who feels hungry that stimulates the response, it's a very natural process that your body goes into once the period of 'food-less time' goes beyond a few hours). STIMULATE YOUR DIGESTIVE SYSTEM. This is something you can do too to lengthen your digesting process, which is to allow yourself to salivate (when looking at nice food) and imagine yourself eating before your meal, this will kick-start the metabolism and achieve more burning of calories.
5. … BUT EAT RIGHT. Frequent eating doesn’t mean snacking of course! Rather than munching mindlessly, make each mini-meal complete and healthy e.g. a serving of vegetables and a healthy source of protein like eggs, chicken, or nuts. Upping your intake of high-fiber foods like vegetables is one of the best ways to increase your metabolism. Fiber is a non-digestible carbohydrate, but the body tries hard to break it down anyway, using up energy thus boosting metabolism in the process. Plus, vegetables are low in calories, yet high in nutrients, a huge boon for your weight loss efforts.
6. EAT FISH. EPA and DHA, the omega-3 fatty acids found only in fish oil, are found to have the power to dramatically boost your metabolism by as much as 400 calories per day. Fish/salmon oil increases levels of fat-burning enzymes and decreases levels of fat-storage enzymes in your body. For the best metabolism boosting benefit, choose capsules containing at least 300 milligrams of EPA and DHA total.
7. ALLOW YOUR NATURAL BODY COOLING/HEATING SYSTEM TO WORK. Keeping ourselves too comfortable with the help of modern appliances like air-con and heater reduces the energy we expend to stay warm in the winter and cool in the summer. So do give your natural body cooling/heating system to work once in a while to burn some extra calories.
8. EXERCISE! Not only does it increases metabolism, exercising helps to build muscles as mentioned in point 1 above. It also stimulates the production of endorphines which lifts your spirits just like chocolates do!
9. 'EXERCISE' CONTINUES... After exercising, our increased metabolism doesn't stop right away, in fact, the increased rate can continue up to 24 hours for continued repair through to microscopic muscle fiber tears and other restoration from the exercise.
10. INTERVAL TRAINING. Maximize the calories you burn after exercise by integrating high intensity intervals into your workout. Alternate 3 minutes of moderate intensity running or biking with 30 seconds of all-out effort. You’ll burn another 100 to 200 calories this way, even while sitting on the couch or lying in bed.

What is mitochondria?

Basically, mitochondria are the energy factories of our body cells. They are responsible for producing the fuel needed for all of our bodily activities. These fuels are produced, using the food that we eat, as the raw materials. So naturally, the more of them, the better our body can metabolise fat.

Cells with high energy needs often contain more mitochondria, therefore, exercising will help increase this need for energy thus raising the numbers. However, not all kinds of exercise will work for raising the metabolism efficiently enough to lose weight quickly.

The best way to increase the number and size of the mitochondrial mass is to exercise at around 80% of maximum heart rate (MHR) for at least 15 minutes. The changes occur within the exercised muscle cells and may happen within a few weeks if the workout schedule of at least 3 times a week is adhered to. *A word of caution though that not all abled persons are able to exercise at 80% of MHR for 15min, some unfit ones may find this hard to maintain and passing out is a probable response. To give you a feel of what 80% of MHR is like, imagine sprinting up a flight of 50 steps at your best possible timing, to effectively increase the number and size of the mitochondrial mass, do that for 15min.... panting hard already??

It is thus vital to raise the HR gradually over the course of 2 weeks or more, NO ONE should be exercising at 80% of MHR within the first few workouts, it will only reduce the ability for cells to develop at later stages. It is recommended to start off at around 40% of MHR increase it by 10% at each workout as deem fit.

Some of the recommended activities to help raise the heart rate to 80% of maximum are swimming and rowing as both require the use of the major muscle groups (the limbs). This places a greater demand on energy production to raise calorie expenditure making it easier to reach a higher level of one’s target heart rate. Also the more muscles involved in the activity, the more mitochondria involved in the adaptation process. There are other good exercises that raise the heart rate however some, such as running, tend to be traumatic to joints like the knees, ankles and hips.

To calculate your MHR, check out the formula here.

What is metabolism?

Metabolism is one of the most important word you have to know in order to achieve successful weight loss or simply, to look healthy and feel healthy!

Metabolism, or metabolic rate, is frequently used interchangeably as they essentially mean the same thing, which is, the rate in which your body converts food into energy, for storage or for usage.

All of us has a basal metabolic rate (BMR) which is used for maintaining activities like sleep, eat, breathe and shit. And this BMR is determined by 6 factors:

1. Muscle mass (the more the higher metabolism)
2. Age (metabolism drops 2% every year, 5% once after 40years old)
3. Sex (male generally has higher metabolism)
4. Genes (if your dad is Moses Lim, don't expect to look like Eunice Olsen)
5. Your weight (the heavier you are, the faster your metabolism)
6. Sickness (e.g. Thyroid)

Surprised by some of the factors listed? Familiar with any of them? We often hear people say, "I used to be able to eat a horse and not gain a single extra inch, but look at me now...". The explanation for this will be? Yes, age. The next time your friend says this, try asking them how old were they referring to, they will most likely tell you something like 10 years ago. Also, realised how your boyfriend can eat so much more than you but not grow any fatter but you on the other hand, eat exactly the same thing yet gain so much weight? Yes, it's the fact that they are bigger than you, thus their body will naturally burn more to carry out their daily life activities, also the fact that they are males, they are made up of more muscles than fats compared to women due to the demands of childbearing and other hormonal functions of women, that is why men has higher metabolism than women. There are also those people whom no matter how much they eat, they simply do not grow fat, they don't need to do much exercise nor do they require dieting after a large meal, they simply burn off the meal! One of the explanation can be the presence of mitochondria in their muscles, which you can gain more of too! Click here to find out how!

Other than BMR, our body also uses energy for movement, especially in exercising and other activities like having sex, shopping, cleaning the house etc. Everytime we work our body, our metabolism will naturally increase to ensure there is enough for our survival needs (breathe, eat, sleep, shit). In fact, the increase doesn't only happen during the workout, it continues for at least a few more hours after the workout!

Want to know more about increasing your metabolism? Read this.

Myth 1: I can't do exercise, I'll gain weight!

How many a times have we heard our friends say this or even encounter this myth ourselves. 'Myth'... what do I mean by this is a myth?? It is a FACT! After we gain muscle mass from exercising, we DO gain weight!! BUT.... this is healthy weight gain.... allow me to explain.

Weight gaining is not a sin as long as it is not fats gain. Muscles, due to its protein nature, weighs more than fats, which is mostly made up of water. When we lose fats and gain muscles instead due to the exercising that we do, our weight will naturally go up, but in turn, we'll look toned and healthy!

Also, another important thing about gaining muscle is that, our metabolic powerhouses known as "mitochondria" will increase in number, which will increase our metabolic rate in converting food energy into energy for daily usage --> meaning, we burn fats more easily! Find out more about this building of mitochondria in another post of mine.

Just to clarify, when we say gain muscle, we do mean those tough-looking bulging muscles, but rather, imagine a toned and non-flabby arms which looks the same whether you have it down beside your body or flagging for a cab, nothing is waving in the air with every wave...

To conclude, do not fear weight gain, rather, we should be looking forward to the weight gain after some exercising to confirm that we have lost some fats and gained some muscles which will ultimately contribute to an increase in metabolic rate.

exercise = loss of fats = muscles gain = weight increase = increase in metabolic rate = a toner looking body

HURRAY!