About Melissa Anderson Expertise I have a Bachelor`s degree in biochemistry, researched metabolism and endocrinology for four years, and am currently attending medical school. Ask me anything and everything relating to Atkins and other low-carb diet plans!
Experience I've been on Atkins since 2001 and I'm still going strong!
Education/Credentials Professionally, I have a Bachelor's degree in biochemistry, researched metabolism and endocrinology for four years, and am currently attending medical school.
Question I've been doing the Atkins sort of thing for 2 yrs or so and have just made it a life style without a problem. I'm a 48 yo female and very active. I play on a womens hockey team and even spend some time on the ice in a mens league....I love it. Recently, the past 6 months, I've been doing sprint triathlons. I train 3-4 days a week now ususally a run/ swim or a bike/ swim workout lasting at least 1 1/2 hrs. I consistantly eat 1200-1400 cals a day. Always eat breakfast. Sometimes just a protein drink and bar but always something. I don't feel hungry or deprived or any other symptoms of a reduced metabolism. I'm not sure how accurate a device called the "body gem " is but at my gym it determined my calories should be 2200, so with a 1000cal deficit, I should be losing weight....I'm not. Not an ounce in over a year. I'm very frustrated and everyone keeps telling me weight doesn't matter but I'm still carrying an extra 15-20 lbs. Help !!!! thanks Terri
Answer Terri,
First of all, ignore the Body Gem. It's a pretty neat little device, but there's one fatal flaw-it is only accurate for someone eating at least 60% of their calories from carbs. The Body Gem measures how much oxygen you are burning at rest, then calculates how many calories you're using. But... generating the exact same number of calories from fat takes quite a bit more oxygen than carbohydrate.
Now-if you really want to know how many calories you ordinarily burn, then there's an extremely accurate method that's free, but extremely difficult. Weigh yourself on the first of the month, and keep a food diary for the whole month, then weigh in again at the end. For this to work, your food diary has to be PERFECT. Every peppermint off your co-worker's desk has to be counted. Every packet of sweetener has to be counted (yes, they have calories-just not very many). At the end of the month, it's a simple formula.
1. Add up all of your calories for the whole month.
2. For every pound lost, subtract 3500 calories. If you gained, then add. Do fractions if you have to-if you gained a half pound, add 1750 to your total.
3. Divide your new calorie total by the number of days in the month. Your answer is the number of calories you burn every day.
Just as a reminder, whenever you lose weight, you're bound to slow down your metabolism at least a little. The faster you lose weight initially, the more you slow your metabolism. Your metabolism doesn't speed back up for a year or two. For this reason, any kind of standard calorie calculator will NOT work for anyone who's recently cut their calorie intake. Remember, too, if you're training hard, you could easily be losing fat and gaining muscle.
