Experiment Results Are In: Are Heart Rate Monitors a Good Judge of Caloric Needs?

Results of my experiment are in! Do online calorie counters really provide a reliable estimate of how many calories I should be eating in a day to reach my goal?

The short answer is YES! But the caveat is that they are only useful if you have an honest and accurate assessment of what your activity level is.

Background of my Experiment

It's been 3 weeks since I re-started my training & diet program.  I wanted to reassess what my daily caloric burn was so I could develop an effective meal plan.  Calories In, Calories Out is really the most important factor here, with composition of the calories being the 2nd most important factor.  So how many calories should I be eating to maintain my weight, so I know how many calories to aim for in order to cut my body fat % back?

Step 1: Testing Out the Online Calculators

I plugged my biological stats (Female/30 years old/5'8"/142 lbs) into a variety of mathematical formulas and online calculators and chose an Activity Factor somewhere between "moderately active" and "very active" because, while I workout hard 5-6 days a week, I also have a desk job.  These formulas all produced the following results: 

1. FreeDieting.com says I should consume 2,068 calories to maintain my weight (at an activity level of working out "5x/week") 
2. Mayo Clinic says I should consume 2,100 calories to maintain my weight (at an "Active" activity level)
3. Calorie.Net says I should consume 2,190 calories to maintain my weight (at a "Moderately Active" activity level).  It also calculated my Basal Metabolic Rate ("BMR") - the number of calories I would need to consume to maintain if I were to lie in bed and do nothing ALL DAY - at 1,413 calories.
4. Active.com says I should consume 2,500 calories to maintain my weight (at an "Active" activity level) - and 2,227 calories at a "Low Active" level.
5. CaloriesPerHour.com gave me an RMR of 1,413 and a BMR of 1,450. These are both resting metabolic rates (the number of calories I would need to maintain if I did nothing but lie in bed all day).  They then displayed a variety of Activity Factors to determine how many calories I would need to eat given how active I was throughout the day.  I like this formula the best, because I was able to take an average of Moderately Active (1.55) and Very Active (1.725) and come up with a blended activity level I feel matches my desk job + intense after-work exercise routine.  I multiplied an average of my BMR and RMR (1,432 calories) by an average of Moderately and Very Active (1.64) to come up with a maintenance calorie intake suggestion of  2,345 calories.

I really have no idea how "active" I should have classified myself, but it appears as though to maintain my weight, I should be eating anywhere between 2,100 and 2,300 calories.  

But is this true? My goal is to shed about 3% body fat before I start a muscle building phase.  In order to lose this weight ("cut"), I would want to reduce my diet by 500 calories to create a gentle deficit.  But 500 calories off of 2,300 versus 2,100 yields a dramatic difference - either I'd be eating too many calories to make a progressive difference, or I would be eating too few given my athletic demands.  Neither situation is ideal.

Step 2: Testing Out the Heart Rate Monitor

So, I plugged my stats into my Polar FT4 heart rate monitor and wore it for 24 hours yesterday to put those estimates to the test.  I did a typical workout so as not to skew the results.  Sure enough, after 24 hours, I had burned a total of 2,423 calories.

Conclusion

I'm gonna give a thumbs up to the online calculators, because given the pretty limited information they asked for, their estimates were not grotesquely off target.  The problem is more with the user being able to adequately identify what their activity level is.  Had I stuck with my original estimates and elected to subtract 500 calories from a 2,100 calorie diet, I would be in a deficit of almost 800 calories based on my real burn.  And this was just the results of a day with a steady workout - no crazy circuits, no HIIT training.

With all of this in mind, I feel a LOT better about my idea of how much I should be eating in a day to reach my goals.  Now the challenge is to create a menu that includes a diverse variety of real foods to meet these goals.  I've been trying to stick to the below plan, but the strangest problem is that I am just not hungry enough to eat it all.  What's a girl to do??

I know I lack a diversity of vegetables in there, but my IBS prevents me from eating anything more exciting than zucchini, spinach, iceberg lettuce and the occasional serving of peas.  Carrots, celery, bell peppers, broccoli/kale/brussels sprouts, asparagus.... I could go on and on about the veggies my tummy can't handle.  But anywho, I digress!

Week Three, 2014: The Good and The Bad

Today begins my 3rd week of diet & training.

The exercise front has been SOLID.  I've stuck to my game plan, and things have gone swimmingly.  I had intended to play volleyball this weekend but a set of unfortunate circumstances kept me from playing.  So on Saturday, I cruised to the gym and did the following workout, and it was great! Left me exhausted, a little sore, and a LOT hungry :D

1) 45-lb dumbbell curls (4 sets of 8-10 reps). During rest, I did a 45-minute plank between each set

2) 7.5-lb free weight shoulder flys (4 sets of 8 reps). In between sets I did a 10 reps of tricep dips on the bench.

3) 15-lb Single arm tricep extensions (4 sets of 10 reps). While one arm was resting, I did the other arm.

4) 40-lb shoulder press (4 sets of 8 reps). In between sets, I did 5 box jumps.

5) HIIT on the elliptical. Level 10 cross ramp, 30 seconds at a level 10 resistance, 30 seconds of sprinting at level 15 resistance. Repeated for 20 minutes with a 5 minute warm-up and cool-down after.

Yesterday I allowed to be a rest day.  I told myself that I would be generous in allowing my body to heal to avoid wrecking it again, so I had no guilt or qualms about it.

Diet has been a different story. I have felt awfully heavy and bloated the past couple weeks which has been a big blow to my motivation considering as how I feel heavier now than I did when I started 3 weeks ago.  I think it's mostly water weight gain from my birth control (my doc prescribed me the wrong kind, it always messes me up!), but still -- on Sunday afternoon, I was driving home and realized that diet is the only thing between me and my goals.  I write-up meal plans but I find myself improvising FAR too often, especially on the weekends.  It's like being on a budget, but still using the credit card when I run out of cash.

The good thing and bad thing about my journey this time is that I am in a serious relationship.  The good thing is that he is a Crossfitter and former physique builder himself, who understands every component of what is required to lean out and then build up.  He is a great cook, very supportive, and we've decided to do this together -- he's going to get back into true competition shape alongside me.  The bad thing is that we are complete opposites.  He is a very lean guy who maintains a constant state of lean muscle despite having taken the past 4 months off of working out because of work travel demands and the holidays.  I, on the other hand, find it unjustly difficult to shed body fat, even when rigorously following a diet protocol.  We have different dietary needs, and considering as how I really like him and want to make him happy and impress him, the meals I cook tend to suit his need to bulk instead of my need to cut.  Case in point? Dinner last night:

While this looks healthy, it was entirely too much food.  I didn't finish it, But the baked potato should have been halved (and it should have been a sweet potato) and plain, not with sour cream on it.  Veggies were delicious but I admittedly was a little over zealous with the use of coconut oil to saute the mushrooms and broccolini.  The thing that kills me is that I could have easily just steamed my veggies and sauteed his, but alas, I chose not to.

I thought that diet would be the easiest part of this 2nd stab at my fitness journey because I was so successful with it in 2012.  Then again, it took me about 6 weeks to really figure it all out.  Suffice it to say, my grace period expired the second I woke up this morning.  I need to stick to my meal plan, have it well-thought out, use Sunday to prep meals (my boyfriend is gonna do it, too!), and not deviate except for my every-other-week cheat meal.

In better news, I bought a new heart rate monitor!  I replaced my Polar FT4 with a new one of the same model.  I'm going to wear it to gauge my workout tonight, then I'm going to put it on at bed time and not take it off for 24-hours.  Gonna see what the approximate caloric burn will be for me.  Traditional RMR calculators suggest I burn 1,426 calories a day at rest.  That is about 59 calories an hour.  When I multiply this by a factor of  1.62 (which is between "Moderately Active" and "Very Active", considering as I workout 4 days a week at the gym and then play pretty competitive volleyball consistently on the weekends), it suggests I burn 2,310 calories in total in a day, with exercise included.  If my experiment succeeds, my heart rate monitor will indicate this many calories after 24 hours.  Based on that number, I will subtract 500 calories to create a gentle deficit, and will build a final meal plan around that number.  I don't expect my diet to deviate much from 1700-1800 calories.

I know talking about calories drives people mad because often times we over think things and replace common sense with obsessive mania.  But the truth is, diet is a necessity in obtaining results.  And I inherently know I am doing my diet wrong.  And I am the type that needs black-and-white guidelines.  Just tell me what to do or not do, and I will get it done.

At the end of week 4, I plan on posting my first series of progress photos and stats.  Stay tuned!

Week Two, 2014: Those Tough Decisions

We're at the beginning of Week 2 of my 2014 Road to Results tour.  Last week was a really good start.  I stuck to my small goals (drinking three to four 20-oz glasses of water, cutting out all the crappy snack foods I was eating and replacing them with fruit, and adhering to a prescribed workout routine).  I stuck to my plan, and my back feels great!

But, I recognize that diet really needs to come under the microscope.  I am just "guesstimating" my intake, and while I said I would give myself till February 1 to continue to eat breakfast cereal, I struggle with portion controlling it.  Never ever ever ever EVER trust your eyeballs when it comes to something that is a dietary weakness for you.  Eyeballs are little liars! :P

So, this week, it's time to start making the first of many tough decisions -- reeling in my diet whether I'm ready to or not.  I know that after the first few days, the mental anguish will be replaced with a sense of pride, accomplishment, and a feeling like I am making real moves toward achieving my goals.  Still, it's gonna suck.

I need to either find a way to fix my heart rate monitor or else replace it altogether so I can get a sense of how many calories I am actually burning in a day.  The meal plan I begin to build is really only useful if I am indeed burning the amount of calories I think I am.  For now, I used an online calculator (this is a great calculator: http://vonblancofitness.com/fat-loss/how-to-calculate-calories-needed-for-fat-loss-muscle-gain-or-maintenance/).  My inputs were:

Height: 5'8"
Age: 30
Gender: Female
Current Weight: 142
How much exercise? 5 times/week (intense)

According to this, I need about 2,100 calories to maintain my weight, 1,750 to cut (lose body fat), and 2,600 calories to bulk (gain muscle).  The next 3 months I am dedicating to "gentle" cutting; nothing extreme, but slowly changing the types of food I eat to alter my macronutrient distribution.  For the first two month, I think a healthy plan would be 45% calories from carbs, 33% calories from protein, and 22% calories from fat.  For the third month, I'd go down to a 40-35-25 spread.  Although my body responds most favorably to a low carbohydrate diet, I don't want to do something dramatic and unsustainable in the first couple months because it sort of puts me in a mentally unhealthy spot -- and I'm in this for the long haul.

Week 2 will carry over Week 1's goals (water, no junky snack foods, and the same workout plan).  I will also cut out all coffee and diet soda, and will follow the meal plan below, based on the caloric intake of 1,750 calories as my goal, broken into 788 calories worth of carbs, 577 calories worth of protein and 385 calories worth of healthy fats. Knowing that each gram of carbs and protein equals 4 calories, and each gram of fats equals 9 calories, that would be 197 grams of carbs, 144 grams of protein, and 43 grams of fat.

Disclaimer:  Food Nazi's -- I am aware that this diet is not 100% clean.  I will be making my own homemade lunches starting next week, and will eventually be cutting out dairy.  But those transitions will come in the following weeks. I wanna use up the stuff in my pantry now instead of spend money making new stuff.  

Those extra 85 calories will easily be made up throughout the day, no doubt, when I grab a couple almonds here and there, or beef jerky at the office, etc. :)

In terms of how I'm feeling.... I feel like I lack the sense of urgency I felt the first time I did this journey back in 2012.  Maybe it's because I already know what I need to do... I'm just generally not feeling confident in my diet plan.  I never know if I'm eating too much... too little... I'm feeling like I should just hire a sports nutritionist and be done with it already.


Anyway, those are just my thoughts.  Week 2... over and out!

Week One, 2014: Everything is Different

I took Week 1 progress photos today; definitely not gonna show those here for a month or so.  Things do not look pretty!

What can I say about Week 1 so far?  Everything is different from the last time I began the journey of clean eating and training in 2012.  Last time, I jumped in head first; I had no idea what I was doing, but I knew it was gonna suck (at least in the beginning), and my thought process was that if I was going to suffer, I was going to do everything in my power to milk as many results as I possibly could out of it.  I obsessed over diet, I would do 2 hours of cardio a night (and about 15 minutes of weights on a good day...), I would work out sometimes 3 times a day....  It took me months to get it straight.  But those first weeks were exhilarating, because it was the first time I felt myself moving mountains and it excited me.

This time around, things are different.  Instead of diving in head first, I've had to enter the shallow end of the pool.  I'm easing myself into the routine and the lifestyle.  I'm setting small goals, and I'm setting deadlines too.  Goals for last week were simply to drink three 20-oz glasses of water a day, cut out my afternoon chocolate fix and follow a prescribed workout pattern.  Goals this week are the same as last week, plus adjustments to my diet -- nothing too crazy, just having egg whites and spinach for dinner each night, cutting out the crap snacks I was sneaking in and replacing them with fresh fruit, and measuring portions.  Little challenges that turn to little victories and get me feeling like I am able to undertake this monster of a journey again.

Another difference is the excitement of it all.  I have moments where I am so excited and willing to do whatever it takes in order to have those feelings again like I did 4 or 5 months into my 2012 regime where I'd wake up and want to cry, I was just that happy.  Every morning I'd get dressed in front of the mirror and marvel at the results, and I felt so accomplished and empowered and beautiful and it was the best thing, a way I never felt before.  I hunger for that feeling everyday.  But today at the gym, I felt weary.  I knew how long it would take in order to start even seeing results -- in 2012, it wasn't until Week 11 that I really began to see any changes.  11 weeks! that's almost 3 months! Here I was only 2 official days into my routine.  I'm willing to go the distance, I just know I will have to draw on faith and courage and inner belief in myself to get me through the beginning days when it feels like so much work is going in, and nothing is coming out.  Patience has never been my strong suit, and sometimes, it completely wears me out.

I also fear about my back, and have to be mindful to set limits and actually respect them.  I worry how my body will feel on Day 4; It's only day 2 and already my chest and glutes are so sore I can barely move! I normally would have celebrated this, but this time, it is cause for concern.  Will this cause my body to lock up? Will my spine start to pop again?  Will the pinched nerves returns?

So much is on the line, but I know one thing for certain:  It is time.  NOW is my time.  If I can continue to set small goals on the diet side, and observe the rules I set for myself on the training side, I should be able to whittle my body fat down to at least 17-18% by summer.  It won't be my best, but it will be enough for me, for now, given my new reality.

I've decided that come the first week of February, I will fully replace cold cereal for oatmeal in the morning, and I will cease the use of dairy. Next week I will incorporate Quest bars into my diet and do away with the Promax bars which have artificial ingredients.  Slowly cleaning up my diet over the course of the next 2 months will serve me my greatest advantage, but easing into it will remain a priority to me.

As far as my training is concerned, this week I will be following this routine:
Monday: 
Back and Chest Day
Bench Press & One-armed Rows
Lat Pull-downs
Chest Fly and Posterior Delt Fly
Seated Row & Planks
Cardio
45 minutes on the elliptical

Tuesday:
Legs Day
Prone Hamstring Curl
Glute Machine
Seated Hamstring Curl and Planks
Calf Raises
Incline Leg Press
Cardio
4 mile run

Wednesday:
Biceps, Triceps and Shoulders Day
Bicep Curls
Shoulder Flys
Tricep Extension
Shoulder Press
Dips and Planks
Cardio
45 minutes on the elliptical

Thursday:
Legs day
Prone Hamstring Curl
Glute Machine
Deadlifts
Glute Extensions and Planks
Glute Bridges and Side Planks
Cardio
45 minutes walking on the treadmill at 10% incline

Friday:  Day-off
Saturday:  Volleyball
Sunday:   Yoga and Rest

I've got to gauge and see if my back can handle this much; I might need to shuffle the days around and take Wednesday as my gym day off, bu I'll make that judgement call tomorrow at work.

So, for this week, I am signing off.  My only thoughts are that I feel scared that my back may sabotage me... and I fear that fear will keep me from believing that if caution is exercised, all will be fine.  So I'm just going to focus on day-to-day, minute-to-minute decisions.  Small goals, resting when I feel I need it, and not beating myself up if I need extra rest days to recover.  This will be a slower journey than 2012, but I'm prepared to put the Tortoise and the Hare theory to the test.
As for diet, I don't expect to be fully clean and on a completely programmed diet until Week 3 or 4

Rebirth

I've spent some time today thinking about what it is about New Years that makes the so-called "resolution" so particularly potent, as if adding one digit to the calendar year has the ability to wash us clean of our sins.  It seems as if New Years is the only time we truly allow ourselves forgiveness; absolution from bad habits, transgressions, messy splurges or anything else weighing us down and pinning us to the floor.  

Forgiveness is sometimes the most important part of a journey.  Whether we feel we are the victim or the culprit, it doesn't matter; we all have chains that hold us down, and we all need to be released before we can move on.

So it is to that end that I sit here now.  January 2014, and reflecting on the past two years and such a varying degree of high highs and low lows.  A week ago, while on the elliptical, a wave came over me and I realized that it was a new year, and I was ready to forgive life for having dealt me such a sour blow last year.  And I'm ready to forgive myself for giving up on myself.  All in one moment, I realized the power of the New Years Resolution; where for some they may be nothing more than whimsical hopes to soon be abandoned, for others there is a force in the NYR that can't just be made up.  There is a power in forgiveness that is so strong and so liberating that the euphoria provides a source of energy that cannot help but thrust you into a new phase of life.  

In January of 2012, I experienced my first such NYR moment.  I had always been into fitness but I did it all wrong, I ate all wrong, and I was sick of the body I had.  So I decided to fold all my excuses up and lock them in a trunk.  I undertook the most incredible task of my life; rethinking the way I live, the way I eat, the way I train, and the way I feel about myself.  The results were greater than anything I've ever achieved in my life, and the feeling of having a lean, toned body capable of any feat I put it to has been like a drug I haven't been able to stop thinking about.  Remember the random half marathon I ran in the deep sand at the beach on Thanksgiving of 2012!?  What an unbelievable feeling to be unstoppable.  The feeling of owning who I was, being proud of everything I was.... it's something I long for in a way I cannot humanly describe.  Every time I achieved one goal, I had two more to replace it.  Setting my mind to things I once thought were impossible was no longer a laughable matter to me, but something that stoked a fire somewhere deep within that never seemed to burn out.

In January of 2013, I suffered a horrific back injury.  I went through ever phase of grief, some of which took months to exit.  I saw all my dreams die.  I watched every part of the death of my dreams; I watched them lugged out to a field, I watched them slowly loaded onto a pyre, and finally in September or so, I lit the match and burned them myself.  All the hard work I put into my physique slowly faded away.  I lost my sense of self; I realized I didn't know who I was without fitness, what I wanted in life without fitness, where I fit in without my training discipline, work ethic and physical evidence of such to show for it.  I fought for almost 9 months to maintain my way of life and my physique as best I could despite my limitations.  Having to give up my passion, volleyball; Bed rest for a month; only being allowed to walk for 9 months.  It wore down my psychology, and that deep bloodlust to take back what was taken from me started to give way to impatience and an overwhelming mental exhaustion of wanting something so bad for so long, with no light at the end of the tunnel near to tell me I could start fighting for it again.

Finally, in September, I met someone, and somewhere between him and the holidays, I found the peace to let go of my dreams and what I wanted so badly to achieve.  I gave in to my new reality and tried to find a place for myself in the mediocre limbo of semi-consciousness and routine adult life.  I tried.

But my back began to get stronger, and I started having the sensation that I was healing enough to entertain the thought about starting the fight back up again.  So last week, on that elliptical, having that sudden surge of hope and belief flood my veins.... it was like magic.  It was then that I decided I wasn't ready to give up yet; I'd have to start all over from the beginning, and I would have to re-tool all my workouts and programs to ensure that I was gentle enough on my back so as not to re-injure it, but.... there was hope!

So here is sit.  I have the exact physique I used to have before January 2012 when I set out on my fitness journey the first time.  Same physique, same bad eating habits, and same fire lit inside to experience the joys all over again of putting my mind and heart to a task and seeing it through to the end.  So I'm going to document it all here, all over again, right from the start.  This is my first entry.  Sure it's a random Wednesday.  It isn't New Years Day; it isn't even the first day of a new week.  But I'm starting now.

My plan for the rest of the week is to follow these steps:

1) Train legs tomorrow, back and chest on Friday, and play volleyball on Saturday and Sunday.

2) Drink a minimum of three 20-oz glasses of water - one in the morning, noon and night.  I'll work my way up to 100-fl oz in due time.

3) Cut out the noon-time chocolate fix I've been giving into.  I'm replacing my immediate sweets cravings with fresh fruit.  Eventually I will phase out fruit for veggies like carrots and peas, but I need a couple weeks to ease into this regime.  

Next week, my diet will set into place.  Giving up cereal right off the bat will be difficult for me, so I've settled on the following:

Breakfast:  2 cups unsweetened bran flakes with 1 cup fat free milk

Snack:  Cup of green tea with a handful of raw spinach, handful of blackberries and a handful of almonds

Lunch:  Homemade chicken, barley and veggie soup (I'm on a big soup kick!) and a little avocado on the side

Snack 1:Low-sugar yogurt and roasted seaweed snack

Snack 2 (Pre-workout): Banana and 2 tbsp Peanut Butter

Dinner: Protein shake and a 3 egg omlete (2 egg whites, 1 yolk) with a little feta cheese, 2 cups of spinach, and a few green olives

This all comes to about 1700 calories.  As I increase the intensity of my workouts, I'll adjust the my macros accordingly.  I think 1,700 is a good place to start. 

I'm taking progress photos every Monday morning, and I'll do measurements every 4 weeks.  So.... here we go! I already feel myself going through a sweets withdrawal right now.  I know that waking up tomorrow morning knowing I didn't cave in, though, is SO much sweeter than a temporary dessert :)