[Fat Guy!]Basal Metabolic Rate

So, I'm fat, and that needs to change. I'm finally getting to a point where I actually give a shit about it to a degree, mainly because I'm 26 now, and I know it's just going to get harder the longer I wait.

Let's lay it all out on the table here.

I don't really think I eat all that much. Especially lately. For instance, yesterday I had 2 pork chops, some zucchini, a baked potato (with low fat sour cream), one brownie, a bowl of fruit loops, and all I drank all day was two glasses of grape/cranberry juice, and the rest was water. Now to me, that doesn't sound like a lot, especially for my weight. I didn't feel hungry, and I didn't feel like I needed to eat more.

I think the major problem is that I don't really do a whole lot. A lot of my time, work or otherwise, is spent in front of a computer. When I go out with my friends, it's a lot of sitting around and drinking, which I know can have lots of calories in it. I don't think my eating hurts me so much as my sitting around on my ass does. The problem is that I can't find any exercises I want to stick with. Exercise bikes are boring, TV/Nintendo or not. I live in a rural area with no sidewalks so walking would involve plodding along the side of the highway while semi trucks blow by 3 feet away. I don't have a real bike to go riding anywhere. Most sports don't really interest me at all, and most of my friends live 30+ minutes away, which makes it difficult to go out there during the week to do anything physical.

Now, to the BMR:

I've been poking around online lately, trying to figure out my basal metabolic rate, so I can try to set a goal of eating below that number every day. Now, I'm 6'4", 26 years old, and about 400lbs. Yes, I'm fat, we know this already. The problem is, every BMR calculator I find seems to give me slightly different results. Some are off by as much as 1000-2000 calories a day! Most seem to think I need around 5000 calories a day, just to MAINTAIN my current weight. Now that seems completely fucked up to me. There's NO WAY I eat 5000 calories a day. I don't drink lots of soda most of the time, I don't eat much junk food, I rarely eat sweets or anything sugary, so how the fuck am I getting 5000 calories? The only thing I can think is that the calculator is wrong, or that something is medically wrong with me that I'm not burning as many calories as I should.

So, how the fuck do I figure out my BMR without getting 15 different results?

I guess a secondary question is, what would you guys suggest for me to start out burning some calories, exercise wise? I want something light to start off with, to ease myself into it. If I start with some brutal workout schedule, I'm gonna burn myself out and quit after two weeks. The other thing is that exercise seems so futile. An hour of jogging supposedly burns only 100 calories! All that working and sweating and misery for 100 measly freaking calories?! It'd be easier to just not eat it feels like :(

Another thing. If I'm really supposed to eat 5000 calories a day, and I only eat 1500, and there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, wouldn't I lose a pound a day? Not that I'm in some major hurry, but 1500 calories a day doesn't sound all that difficult, but I find it hard to believe I could really lose a pound a day. Also, people say it's unhealthy to lose weight that fast, but why? Isn't it unhealthier to be 400 pounds?

Ok lets break this down a little:

I don't really think I eat all that much. Especially lately. For instance, yesterday I had 2 pork chops, some zucchini, a baked potato (with low fat sour cream), one brownie, a bowl of fruit loops, and all I drank all day was two glasses of grape/cranberry juice, and the rest was water. Now to me, that doesn't sound like a lot, especially for my weight. I didn't feel hungry, and I didn't feel like I needed to eat more.

You need to eat 5-6 small portions of food a day.
No brownies.
No Fruit Loops.
Lots of water (almost a gallon a day).
Eat just a small amount of food and drink some water, let it digest for a few minutes (eat slowly), you will feel satisfied. Don't wait till your hungry to eat, that caused you to eat faster and more than you need to.
Browse the other threads here for food ideals (there are tons)

I think the major problem is that I don't really do a whole lot. A lot of my time, work or otherwise, is spent in front of a computer. When I go out with my friends, it's a lot of sitting around and drinking, which I know can have lots of calories in it. I don't think my eating hurts me so much as my sitting around on my ass does. The problem is that I can't find any exercises I want to stick with. Exercise bikes are boring, TV/Nintendo or not. I live in a rural area with no sidewalks so walking would involve plodding along the side of the highway while semi trucks blow by 3 feet away. I don't have a real bike to go riding anywhere. Most sports don't really interest me at all, and most of my friends live 30+ minutes away, which makes it difficult to go out there during the week to do anything physical.

Can you afford a gym membership? A lot of poeple (myself included) get motivation by just being IN a gym, you see the other people around you, and get motivated. If you cant get yourself self-motivated, maybe you could try this, there are tons of people like you in the same situation. Also, since you seem to be unable to ride a bike or run, how about swim? If you have accesss to a pool to do laps, that would be amazing for your entire body, gaining some muscle, and burning tons of fat. Lift weights. Also, clear some room in your house to jump rope, since you cant run or anyhting, jumping rope is simple, easy to get into, easy to get good at, and great to get your heart rate going through the roof.

Another thing. If I'm really supposed to eat 5000 calories a day, and I only eat 1500, and there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, wouldn't I lose a pound a day? Not that I'm in some major hurry, but 1500 calories a day doesn't sound all that difficult, but I find it hard to believe I could really lose a pound a day. Also, people say it's unhealthy to lose weight that fast, but why? Isn't it unhealthier to be 400 pounds?


That is totally wrong. If youre body isnt digesting food (i.e. you arent eating) then your metabolism is doing nothing. Also, you don't need to eat 5000 calories a day.

Anyways, this is just kinda skimming the surface, it really seems like to me you are not 100% motivated yet, and I'm not trying to be down on you, but it seems like if you really cared that much, you wouldnt have gotten into that position in the fist place. But at least your taking the first step in realising the problem and wanting to fix it. Diets are temporary, you need a change of lifestyle. I think BeliLAILIAAIlL (altnerating caps ftLoss) posted a great meal plan for someone in one of the more popular recent/on-goign threads, I'd look for that. Ok its 3:40 in the morning, gonna read some more of my book before i go to bed. Just try to motivate yourself, if its something you really want, I believe you can do it. Its your body, either be lazy and do nothing or be pro-active and change it, good luck :)

I'd suspect basal metabolic rate calculators aren't designed to approximate the BMR of the morbidly obese and the figures it gives you simply aren't accurate.

I'd think they're approximating it like you have the composition of a normal person... just 400 lbs of it. You don't. you're probably a 170-230lbs person with 170-230 lbs of additional fat (i.e. maybe 230 lbs person 170 lbs excess fat) .

To start out, let me say that I'm not expert so take this with a grain of salt.

Try this out for starters: Body Weight Workout, Nutrition Program (http://www.simplefit.org/)

It's a self-tailored workout plan, easy to begin and supposedly motivating to use their progress tracker (though I can't attest to that since I've never done the program myself).

I don't really think I eat all that much. Especially lately. For instance, yesterday I had 2 pork chops, some zucchini, a baked potato (with low fat sour cream), one brownie, a bowl of fruit loops, and all I drank all day was two glasses of grape/cranberry juice, and the rest was water. Now to me, that doesn't sound like a lot, especially for my weight. I didn't feel hungry, and I didn't feel like I needed to eat more.

Gizmo has you on the right track here, but I'm going to disagree with him slightly. Where he says almost a gallon of water a day, I would say 1.5 to 2 gallons, and that's especially important in the summer. You can judge if you're getting enough water by the color of your urine. It should be slightly off-yellow or clear. If it's bright yellow you definately need more water.

As far as the eating, you're most certainly not taking in enough. Part of the problem with not feeling hungry is that you may be eating too much in one sitting. If your meals are smaller and more spread out, then you might not have such an issue with lack of hunger (though while you might be eating more than you do now, you still probably won't be eating enough - I have that problem myself).

I think the major problem is that I don't really do a whole lot. A lot of my time, work or otherwise, is spent in front of a computer. When I go out with my friends, it's a lot of sitting around and drinking, which I know can have lots of calories in it. I don't think my eating hurts me so much as my sitting around on my ass does. The problem is that I can't find any exercises I want to stick with. Exercise bikes are boring, TV/Nintendo or not. I live in a rural area with no sidewalks so walking would involve plodding along the side of the highway while semi trucks blow by 3 feet away. I don't have a real bike to go riding anywhere. Most sports don't really interest me at all, and most of my friends live 30+ minutes away, which makes it difficult to go out there during the week to do anything physical.

The problem isn't just your lack of activity or lack of a diet. An overweight person who works out but still eats a shitty diet is going to remain overweight. You have to make a complete change, not just partial change. It comes down to one thing: behavior modification. That's what it's all about. Don't sit around with your friends drinking. Believe me, I practically made a living out of passing out in my friends presence. Now the most I have is a beer every two weeks - and an important part of this is that those friends that I drank with support me in what I'm doing now. Your friends will need to do that as well, or you'll need to get new friends.

This sounds shitty, I know. But the bottom line is that in order to go from 400 pounds to 200, you need to be committed to a life change. When I originally started working out, I wasn't committed to changing my life, and I inevitably failed more than once.

Now, to the BMR:

I've been poking around online lately, trying to figure out my basal metabolic rate, so I can try to set a goal of eating below that number every day. Now, I'm 6'4", 26 years old, and about 400lbs. Yes, I'm fat, we know this already. The problem is, every BMR calculator I find seems to give me slightly different results. Some are off by as much as 1000-2000 calories a day! Most seem to think I need around 5000 calories a day, just to MAINTAIN my current weight. Now that seems completely fucked up to me. There's NO WAY I eat 5000 calories a day. I don't drink lots of soda most of the time, I don't eat much junk food, I rarely eat sweets or anything sugary, so how the fuck am I getting 5000 calories? The only thing I can think is that the calculator is wrong, or that something is medically wrong with me that I'm not burning as many calories as I should.

So, how the fuck do I figure out my BMR without getting 15 different results?

I guess a secondary question is, what would you guys suggest for me to start out burning some calories, exercise wise? I want something light to start off with, to ease myself into it. If I start with some brutal workout schedule, I'm gonna burn myself out and quit after two weeks. The other thing is that exercise seems so futile. An hour of jogging supposedly burns only 100 calories! All that working and sweating and misery for 100 measly freaking calories?! It'd be easier to just not eat it feels like :(

Don't worry about the calories so much. Track everything. Track every food you eat, when you eat it, and how much of it you're eating. Track your weight change over a few weeks. If your weight is going up or not moving, tweak your diet so that you eat less. Don't go and change everything up out of frusteration, make small changes a little at a time. When you start losing weight, stick with what's working, and adjust as needed over time.

And yes, while an hour of jogging will only burn so many calories, your body will also be using fat for energy.

Like I said before, check out Simplefit.

Another thing. If I'm really supposed to eat 5000 calories a day, and I only eat 1500, and there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, wouldn't I lose a pound a day? Not that I'm in some major hurry, but 1500 calories a day doesn't sound all that difficult, but I find it hard to believe I could really lose a pound a day. Also, people say it's unhealthy to lose weight that fast, but why? Isn't it unhealthier to be 400 pounds?

What happens in this case is that your body is tricked into a virtual state of famine, and starts storing various things as fat rather than as what they need to be used as. Hence why eating enough is essential. Pushing it a little further will cause your body to shrink, but that will be because of an actual state of famine. You'll be losing more than just fat.

Also, it would be a very good idea, if you're not already, to begin taking a daily multivitamin. Adding fish oil to that would be even better.

I'd suspect basal metabolic rate calculators aren't designed to approximate the BMR of the morbidly obese and the figures it gives you simply aren't accurate.

I'd think they're approximating it like you have the composition of a normal person... just 400 lbs of it. You don't. you're probably a 170-230lbs person with 170-230 lbs of additional fat (i.e. maybe 230 lbs person 170 lbs excess fat) .

The calculator asks me for:

Height
Weight
Gender
Age
Approximate activity level

Now, if a 180lb person is supposed to eat around 2000 calories a day, why is it surprising that a person twice that weight would need to eat twice as much? If these calculators are so far off, how do I calculate my BMR then?


The exercise stuff is gonna have to go the cheapo route right now. I'm in between jobs, and I might be having to throw a lot of cash at moving sometime soon.

I don't understand "That is totally wrong. If youre body isnt digesting food (i.e. you arent eating) then your metabolism is doing nothing". That doesn't make any sense. According to what you're saying, human beings never have to eat? If I'm not burning calories if I'm not eating, then I'd never have to eat, and that's obviously wrong, isn't it?

I realize that weight loss requires a universal change in the way I think about eating, and how and what I eat. That's fine, I want to do that. I don't expect to eat salads for a year and then suddenly go back to whatever I'm eating now.

I'm going at it from a pure calories standpoint. I want to find out how many calories I need a day to maintain my weight, and then eat less than that. All this crap about carbohydrates and fats and protein and blah blah, I'm not concerned with that at the moment. Should I be? From what I understand, unless I'm trying to get huge muscles or something, it's not something I need to worry too much about. I mean, obviously I get whatever nutrients I need, otherwise I'd be dead, right? Every 3500 calories I burn, I lose a pound. That's my goal, to just keep racking up those pounds as steadily as I can.

I sat down and did some math. 3500 calories in a pound of fat, times 200 pounds is 700,000 calories. If jogging burns 100 calories per mile, that means I'd have to jog roughly 7000 miles. So basically, from New York City to Los Angeles, and back again. Kind of intimidating when you put things into that perspective.

So, again, how do I calculate my BMR? That's the very first step, I think.

You guys need to explain, in detail, why you're recommending the things you are. You're all talking about all this crazy shit, and vitamins and fish oil and whatever else, and I have no clue what any of that is about, or why I'd take it.

Also, if everyone is gonna recommend different stuff, how am I supposed to figure out what to do? :(

The calculator asks me for:

Height
Weight
Gender
Age
Approximate activity level

Now, if a 180lb person is supposed to eat around 2000 calories a day, why is it surprising that a person twice that weight would need to eat twice as much? If these calculators are so far off, how do I calculate my BMR then?


The exercise stuff is gonna have to go the cheapo route right now. I'm in between jobs, and I might be having to throw a lot of cash at moving sometime soon.

I don't understand "That is totally wrong. If youre body isnt digesting food (i.e. you arent eating) then your metabolism is doing nothing". That doesn't make any sense. According to what you're saying, human beings never have to eat? If I'm not burning calories if I'm not eating, then I'd never have to eat, and that's obviously wrong, isn't it?

I realize that weight loss requires a universal change in the way I think about eating, and how and what I eat. That's fine, I want to do that. I don't expect to eat salads for a year and then suddenly go back to whatever I'm eating now.

I'm going at it from a pure calories standpoint. I want to find out how many calories I need a day to maintain my weight, and then eat less than that. All this crap about carbohydrates and fats and protein and blah blah, I'm not concerned with that at the moment. Should I be? From what I understand, unless I'm trying to get huge muscles or something, it's not something I need to worry too much about. I mean, obviously I get whatever nutrients I need, otherwise I'd be dead, right? Every 3500 calories I burn, I lose a pound. That's my goal, to just keep racking up those pounds as steadily as I can.

I sat down and did some math. 3500 calories in a pound of fat, times 200 pounds is 700,000 calories. If jogging burns 100 calories per mile, that means I'd have to jog roughly 7000 miles. So basically, from New York City to Los Angeles, and back again. Kind of intimidating when you put things into that perspective.

So, again, how do I calculate my BMR? That's the very first step, I think.

because the 180 lbs person's mass is largely due to functional equipment. Functional equipment has a much greater energy requirement than fat. A much smaller proportion of your mass is due to functional equipment.


I think you're worrying to much about getting some specific #. If you have to know your BMR then you can get testing where they'll examine your VCO2/VO2 usage and heart rate during physical activity.

Like I said before, I think it's going to be hard to estimate your BMR because your body deviates so far from a normal person's.

Why don't you calculate how many calories you've been consuming recently and then cut it down from that #?

I don't understand "That is totally wrong. If youre body isnt digesting food (i.e. you arent eating) then your metabolism is doing nothing". That doesn't make any sense. According to what you're saying, human beings never have to eat? If I'm not burning calories if I'm not eating, then I'd never have to eat, and that's obviously wrong, isn't it?

I'm not entirely sure I follow your (incorrect) train of thought on this one.

You want your metabolism to be going a mile a minute, you want your calories to be burning all the time. If you don't eat, your body stores everything as fat, and you're not losing anything because your metabolism is at a stand-still.

Like Darkstrand said, don't worry about a number. What I advised you above is a good way to figure out how much you need to be eating without having to be hassled by counting all the time, which is great because it's very hard to actually figure out how many calories you're going to really use through an online calculator.

As far as the fish oil and multivitamin, the multivitamin is exactly what it says. It's your daily dose of vitamins and minerals. It helps keep you healthy, and your body working properly. The fish oil, well that's a whole other thing. I'm honestly too tired to type it up, but it's a lovely little wonder drug (not to be taken literally, it's not actually a drug); read a great article about it here: TESTOSTERONE NATION - Fish Oil and Fat Loss (http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1651364&cr=)

The problem is that I don't have a "usual number of calories". Some days I eat more, and some days I eat less. Some days I eat healthy stuff, some days not so much. My sleep schedule also tends to change a round a lot lately :[

I want to figure out my BMR because I want to have a pretty close idea to how much I can eat in a day without going over my limit. If I'm just half assing it, then I'm not going to do as well.

I still don't get the vitamin thing. I'm kind of a retard about that stuff, heh. Like I said, apparently I get all the vitamins and minerals I need, or else I'd be dead. What's the point of throwing in a bunch of extra nutrients I'm not going to use? Isn't that just going to make it all the harder to lose weight?

You guys need to assume I know nothing about this shit, because I don't know a whole lot.

So I just made breakfast. I'd say this is a pretty typical size/composition for breakfast for me.

2 eggs scrambled (100)
2 pieces white toast (140)
1 tbsp low fat butter (50)
water

290 calories

is this amount a sudden change?

if you are crash dieting you can lower your metabolic rate by losing lean muscle mass. (hence why crash dieting is ineffective)

Alright, Ill tell you what you need to do.

Eat 6 meals a day to keep your metabolism up.

Stay COMPLETELY away from sugars and simple starchy carbs (fruit loops, bagels, brownies, anything like that.)

Find a route around where you live where you can go run... and run it, every couple of weeks try and run it a bit faster.

Get in a gym and lift weights.

If you have motivational issues, just grin and bear it for a month, and when you see drastic changes in your body (which, if you stick with what I said, you will) that will be enough motivation, trust me.

Last but not least. Go READ! A LOT. Do tons of research on good cardio, nutrition... stuff like that.

*EDIT* Always remember too, its always better to burn calories rather than starving them...
SO try eat a little less than your BMR and do a lot of cardio...

Also, I thought I read you were twice the weight of 180 lbs? so youre 360 lbs? At that weight, youre going to drop weight like fucking crazy at first, Dont be discouraged after a couple months your weight stops going down as quickly... Just switch up your diet.

Honestly, you weight 400 pounds. Consult your physician before doing anything and ask him/her what you can safely do. If you're really serious, consult a nutritionist as well. Sure, it might cost you a bit, but weighing 400 pounds is costing you a lot more (i.e. decades off your lifespan).

I still don't get the vitamin thing. I'm kind of a retard about that stuff, heh. Like I said, apparently I get all the vitamins and minerals I need, or else I'd be dead. What's the point of throwing in a bunch of extra nutrients I'm not going to use? Isn't that just going to make it all the harder to lose weight?

Just because you're not getting the proper nutrients, you don't just die. Not getting them will cause your body not to function correctly however, and you might not even realize it happening. Even people who eat healthy don't get all the vitamins and minerals they need everyday just by the foods they eat (well most healthy eaters anyway).

...I want to figure out my BMR because I want to have a pretty close idea to how much I can eat in a day without going over my limit. If I'm just half assing it, then I'm not going to do as well...

Ok, let's use the Harris-Benedict formula for males to estimate your BMR right now:

66 + ((6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years))

Using the stats you provided, that gives us:

66 + ((6.23 x 400) + (12.7 x 76) - (6.8 x 26)), which comes out to a BMR of 3,346 calories.

Now let's multiply your BMR by an activity factor of 1.2 to account for walking, standing, and other types of minimal movement you do in a typical sedentary day.

3346 x 1.2 = 4015 calories burned by you in a typical sedentary day.

That's it. Set your daily calorie intake to less than 4,000 per day, and you will lose weight even if you don't exercise at all. Of course, you should exercise as often as you can since it will make your calorie deficits larger and cause you to lose weight faster.

On a day where you exercise vigorously for at least 30 minutes, multiply your BMR by an activity factor of 1.5:

3346 x 1.5 = 5019 calories burned by you in a typical hard workout day.

Let's say you set your daily calorie intake to 2500. On sedentary days, your daily caloric deficit will be 4015 - 2500, or 1515. 3500 / 1515 = 2.3 days to lose a pound of fat. 7 / 2.3 = 3.04 pounds of fat loss per week.

If you do the same calculation with your exercise number instead of your sedentary number, you'll see a big difference. 5019 - 2500 = 2519. 3500 / 2519 = 1.39 days to lose a pound of fat. 7 / 1.39 = 5.03 pounds of fat loss per week, almost twice that of sedentary days.

I link this site all the time on this forum because it lays out what you need to do in very simple terms. Read sections 1-6 and ignore the body for life stuff.

Hussman Fitness (http://www.hussmanfitness.org)

They have a BMR calculator here:
http://www.hussmanfitness.org/bmrcalc.htm

Plugging your numbers in to that (estimating your body fat to be 30%), it says to try for between 2500 and 3100 calories per day to lose fat, and that a reasonable fat loss goal for you is 2.9 pounds per week.

Now that you know, just follow these steps:

1. Choose a calorie intake number that allows you to lose weight even without exercise and consume that number of calories every day. Sustained, daily caloric deficits work. Alternating between starving yourself and overeating does not.
2. Write down *everything* you eat and drink (except water) on a 3 x 5 card and keep track of the calories. Even if it's just a handful of chips, one cookie, etc., WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN.
3. As others have said, drop the junk/processed food and excess sugar and fat. Eat healthy foods (fruits, vegetables, lean meats, whole grain breads, wheat pasta, etc.) with lots of fiber to fill you up without a lot of calories. Eat 4-6 small meals every 3-4 hours and drink a gallon of water every day.
4. Use a book like this one to look up the calorie content of restaurant/party foods ($8 at any book store):
Shop CalorieKing - Buy online - Health products - Books (http://www.calorieking.com/shop/item.php?product_id=11)
5. Take a multivitamin and fish oil supplement every day. It's a no-brainer way to get everything your body needs. The fish oil will help with the joint pain you will have when you do cardio.
6. Work out as much as possible. Strength training (see BeLial's routine for ideas) and cardio (walking, jogging, jumping rope, biking, swimming, rowing, etc.) are both essential. Do what works best for you.
7. Every time you lose 20 pounds, recalculate your BMR and adjust your calorie intake accordingly. As your body gets smaller, you burn fewer calories.
8. Have the discipline to stick to the fucking plan or it will not work.

And I'm spent. Good luck.

You guys need to explain, in detail, why you're recommending the things you are. You're all talking about all this crazy shit, and vitamins and fish oil and whatever else, and I have no clue what any of that is about, or why I'd take it.

Also, if everyone is gonna recommend different stuff, how am I supposed to figure out what to do? :(

nigga you are a grown ass man. we are giving you suggestions, its not like we were just implanted with this knowledge, do some research. it takes time. and for you, it will take a long time.

Different things work for everybody, lets say, somebody like snapple, or me, or belial or goshin gave you our meal plans, and told you what we did to stay in shape. well none of us ever have been fat, so what we eat and do is probably radically different from what someone who was/is overweight does/did to lose weight. Do some research on fish oil, omega 3 oils, complex carbs, casein proteins, find out why these are good for you.

Also, someone else mention it and I didnt even think about it before, but yes, because of your weight, it is probably a good idae to consult a physician to see what is safe for you to do. Some things may be way harder on your joints or back because of the weight.

At the gym I work at, our trainers give you easy workouts for novices to work into it, of all weight sized, and set up a meal plan for you with foods you like to eat, and they tell you how to prepare them and when to eat. Try not to get overwhelmed with all the info here, just take it one step at a time and learn what you need to do.

Have fun while you workout, buy a ipod or something, music or audiobooks while running/working out is great, it makes a 30 minute workout feel like 10.
Check out the links in Rayn's stickied thread. Get some good workout ideas. Or just read up on fitness on the thousands of websites


oh and [blazindave]do pushups and pullups to lose 1000 pounds and have abs of steel /blazindave

:sunny:

There's NO WAY I eat 5000 calories a day.
Yes there is, it is quite easy to do. Use fitday.com to track exactly what you eat over the next few days and you may be very surprised.


I don't drink lots of soda most of the time, I don't eat much junk food, I rarely eat sweets or anything sugary, so how the fuck am I getting 5000 calories? The only thing I can think is that the calculator is wrong, or that something is medically wrong with me that I'm not burning as many calories as I should.

It is possible that your thyroid has adjusted to your lower metabolism and you are not burning as many calories as you would with a healthy thyroid. This is likely a small part of the problem. To help get it back on track stay away from simple carbohydrates (refined foods, white rice, breads -especially white- pasta etc) and increase the frequency of your meals. The best time for carbs and the time you should be taking in the vast majority of them is at breakfast and after working out. Also, These formulas for your basal metabolic rate are based on statistical abstracts. They are averages based on average people. Your metabolism is going to be lower than what the vast majority of these formulas are telling you because they are assuming a lower body fat % (i.e. a higher percentage of muscle) in the calculation.


So, how the fuck do I figure out my BMR without getting 15 different results?
Make a reasonable estimate. Write it down, then track your calorie intake and change in weight using fitday.com. Through trial and error you will figure out your exact BMR. This is the ONLY way. Even thousands of dollars of scientific equipment would only get you a slightly better estimate and you would still need to use trial and error.


I guess a secondary question is, what would you guys suggest for me to start out burning some calories, exercise wise? I want something light to start off with, to ease myself into it. If I start with some brutal workout schedule, I'm gonna burn myself out and quit after two weeks. The other thing is that exercise seems so futile. An hour of jogging supposedly burns only 100 calories! All that working and sweating and misery for 100 measly freaking calories?! It'd be easier to just not eat it feels like :(

It seems like it would be easier to just not eat 100 calories but this is wrong for a few reasons. When you eat 100 calories less your metabolism decreases slightly, proportional to the decrease in calories. If you burn 100 calories through exercise it does not negatively effect your metabolism, and in fact will raise it for quite some time afterwards because your body will be expending more energy to help those muscles recover. People will tell you this is only true for strength training and not endurance/cardio. At your fitness level, however, there is not much difference. If you feel a burn in the muscles this is an anarobic workout (strength training) and will have that same positive effect on your metabolism. You need to be in pretty good shape before you can do endurance sports for a decent amount of time without feeling that intense burn.

Another thing. If I'm really supposed to eat 5000 calories a day, and I only eat 1500, and there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat, wouldn't I lose a pound a day? Not that I'm in some major hurry, but 1500 calories a day doesn't sound all that difficult, but I find it hard to believe I could really lose a pound a day. Also, people say it's unhealthy to lose weight that fast, but why? Isn't it unhealthier to be 400 pounds?
Slow your row buddy. It took you 26 years to put on 400 lbs and that is not going to change in one day. 1500 calories a day is a very very small amount of food. "1500 calories a day doesn't sound all that difficult". Well trust me it is extremely difficult to maintain a diet like that and it would destroy your metabolism. This leads me to believe that you have a skewed perspective of exactly what you are eating on a given day. I know that before I started tracking my calories specifically I would go to the fridge here and there and get a slice of cheese, a glass of milk, a slice of cold cut and wouldn't really count it. After I began to keep track I realized these little snacks were making up almost half my caloric intake for the entire day.


Let me just say a couple words about metabolism since it is a word that gets thrown around a lot and sometimes in reference to the wrong aspect of your physiology. Your metabolism is how many calories your body burns passively. Here are some things that affect it:

General nutrition - Nutrition is your fuel and a well oiled machine runs more efficiently. If you have better and more vitamin intake and drink more water your body will run better overall. It will give you more energy, recover from exercise faster, exercise harder in the first place, burn more fat more easily and so on.

Exercise - When you tear down muscles it takes energy to build them back up and this is a great way to increase your metabolism.

Muscularity - For a male, every 1 pound of muscle causes them to burn an additional 50 calories every day passively just to maintain it.

THE THYROID - Your thyroid affects how your body responds to carbohydrates. Carbs are things like bread, sugar, potatoes, etc. When you consume carbs your body breaks them down into essential sugars and begins to spread them throughout your body. When your thyroid detects increased sugar levels in your blood it begins to release insulin. This is a storage hormone and drastically increases the likelihood that your body will store these sugars as fat in your body instead of burning them in the muscles.

When you eat more simple carbohydrates your body will break them down more quickly, causing a bigger spike in blood sugar, causing more insulin to be released, which more greatly increases the chances that this sugar is turned into and stored as fat. To prevent this you can pay attention to two things. When you eat and what you eat. Eating more complex carbs means your body takes longer to turn them into sugars and makes your thyroid not respond as harshly. Even whole grain bread has gone through a few processes to be turned into bread, those processes are chemically similar to what your stomach would have to do and so the process of grinding the wheat and baking it basically does the stomach's job for it, allowing it to break them into sugars more quickly. Good sources of complex carbohydrates are oatmeal, sweet potatoes, and brown and wild rice. Vegetables are also a fantastic source but it's difficult to impossible to eat enough to really give you what your body needs. in-between sources of carbs are whole wheat bread and whole grain pasta.

Simple carbohydrates are very dangerous. These are fruit, white bread, white pasta, white rice, milk, and anything else with sugar in it etc. These should be eaten only at times when the sugar levels in your muscles are low which are in the morning when you haven't eaten for (hopefully!!!) 8 hours and after exercise.

A measure of the "sugaryness" or "simplicity" of a carb is its glycemic index. If you ever want to know if a food you are eating is a simple of complex carb you can google the name of the food with "glycemic index" and look it up. Lower scores are better. Also you can estimate by looking at the nutritional information of the food. Take the carbohydrates and subtract the fiber. This is the amount of sugar in the product. The actual amount of grams listed for sugar is very deceptive so only take into consideration the carbs minus the fiber.

How do you know which advice to trust? Well that is up to you. You are an adult and are completely and fully responsible for the choices you make, the risks you take, the costs you absorb, and the benefits you receive. In my opinion the best way is to ensure the advice is from a credible source and is compatible with other mainstream scientific theories. Look for articles that cite their sources, and those sources should be phd level scientific research articles.

And please know and ingrain into your mind the fact that:

The choices you make in the coming months regarding your nutrition, water intake, rest, and exercise will determine the course of the rest of your entire life and the lives of those around you.

Good luck.

if you cut your daily caloric intake by more than 300 calories, your body will decrease its metabolic rate

increase your energy expenditure instead.

All i can tell you is to exercise more, and to not diet, just eat smart.

What the fuck.

Nothing against you guys, I realize you're all trying to help, but this is turning into a fucking science experiment, not a diet. I'm sitting here like, fucking aggravated at all of this. I want to lose weight, not turn my entire life into monitoring every crumb I put in my mouth, figuring out chemical shit inside my body, and doing 50 workouts a day.

Exercise seems completely futile to me. You get so little gain for an incredible amount of work. There's no way I can do most of what you guys are suggesting for workouts, because I'm overweight. Do you really think I can do a lot of running/jogging at 400lbs? You guys have to remember who you're dealing with here. I'm not Snapple.

Not only is this shit confusing, but people are telling me contradictory things. The BMR calculators are all off by 1000+ calories. 1000 calories is a huge fucking difference.

I'm not going to a doctor. I told you guys that money is tight right now, and I don't need a doctor to tell me I need to eat better and exercise more.

Like I said, I'm not annoyed at you guys, just at this situation. Trying to eat better and doing some simple workouts is where I want to start. You guys are trying to throw me directly into the deep end, and I'm already confused as fuck. :(