body weight - Keyboard Athletes

On day 5 we started our morning with a climb up a 500-foot lava rock wall.

It wasn’t a technical climb (meaning no ropes, carabiners, etc), but there were times it was close.

I remember two very distinct moments when I said to myself, “If I miss a step here I’m dead.”

Obviously, since I lived to tell about it, I managed that step just fine.

It’s tough when you can’t trust your body

It can be scary, though, if you don’t feel you can trust that you are going to step where you need to and can maintain your balance while pulling your body weight across a 4 foot cravass (don’t tell my brother).

Navigating a cravass is an extreme example – and doing that is not just balance, but also strength, and overcoming the fear of falling. But, there were balance challenges every single day. Some days were hours on end of scrambling up and down rocks. For me, the more technical the hiking, the more fun I had. For others in my group, it was sheer torture.

I do a lot of balance training on my own and with clients. It’s simple and it reflects the balance skills you need in the real world. Here is a simplified version to get you started.

Basic Balance Training

Stand on one leg.
Quickly turn your head left (while still on on leg). Stay there for 10-15 seconds.
Put your leg down and head back to center to reset.
Get back on one leg and turn your head quickly to the right. Stay there for 10-15 seconds.
Put your leg down and head back to center to reset.
Repeat with the other leg

(You can also try other head positions and eventually graduate to eyes closed)

How did that go for you?

My guess is that simple did not equal easy in this case.

Yes, this training applies in real life

Sometimes I get asked, “but when would I do this in the real world.” My answer is, “do you ever turn your head to talk to someone while walking?” About 80% of our gait cycle (walking) is on one leg or the other, so this most definitely reflects the real world. You can then expand this exercise to looking and down. And, for an added challenge, try doing it with your eyes closed. Why eyes closed? Ever blink, sneeze, or cough while walking?

These are the same drills I did to prepare for Kilimanjaro (in addition to actually climbing in similar conditions). I needed my body to be able to trust that it could safely be on one leg with my head in different positions, eyes open or eyes closed.

The drills, combined with my other training, worked great. I never questioned a foot position, wasn’t wobbly on one leg while going up or down, and was able to navigate the rocky conditions with ease.

Although some people would classify me as an adrenaline junkie — I’m so not. I’m very opposed to putting my life in danger, but I do like pushing myself. And, I believe there is a very distinct line between those two.

For more about balance training, check out the Z-Health Essentials of Elite Performance DVD.

You’ve had it! You’ve tried every diet in the book – South Beach, Atkins, Ornish, the Zone, Cabbage Diet, Grapefruit Diet, the Master Cleanse. I’m sure there are hundreds more that I’m missing, but you get the idea.

Anyway, you’ve run the gamut, but you still aren’t the trim, svelte individual you have in your mind’s eye. Believe me, been there, done that!

There is a simple (but not easy) weight loss plan that:

Lets you eat what you want when you want.
Has just one rule.
And is GUARANTEED to work.

At this point I bet you are thinking, awesome someone else that is just going to tell me, “consume less than I eat and it will all work out in the end. Fantastic, I need that advice like I need a hole on my head.”

Yep, sadly that actually is the rule, but, I have a new twist on it that will give you a FOOLPROOF way of figuring out what your caloric target should be. And, wait for it, some structure so that you really can have your cake and eat it too.

Here are the magical steps:

1) Compute your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). BMR is the number of calories your body absolutely NEEDS to get through the day. It does not account for exercise, activity level, or bodyfat.

(I am using the Harris-Benedict Formula, as that is currently believed to be the most accurate)

Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )

Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.8 x age in year )

2) Decide how many pounds per week you want to lose. It takes a 3500 calorie deficit to lose a pound, so choose carefully!

Weekly Deficit = pounds per week * 3500

3) Compute your Weekly Caloric Total. It is a simple formula. (BMR * 7) – Weekly Deficit

Let’s look at a 40-year-old female that weighs 170 pounds, is 5’7” tall and wants to lose one pound a week.

BMR = 1,524

Weekly Deficit = 3,500

Weekly Caloric Total = (1524 * 7) – 3500 = 7,186 calories

4) Divide those calories out through the week. If I divided the 7,186 by 7, I’d get 1,024 calories per day. But, daily totals, while very popular with weight loss programs DO NOT really work in real life. I know you know that, I don’t know why diet “gurus” don’t.

Precise daily numbers look good on paper, but looking good on paper and working in the real world are two very different things. Being hungry all the time SUCKS, never feeling like you have a choice SUCKS, and having to perpetually turn down dessert, eating out, or even a BITE of your favorite chocolate SUCKS. So, this is why I’m a big fan of weekly averaging.

So, if you like your Friday lunch with your co-workers, go for it. In figuring out your week, start by deducting Friday lunch, and then spread your remaining calories out throughout the week.

The way I have made this program work for myself is that I prefer to have one large meal mid-afternoon, and then I eat very little in the morning and very little in the evening. My BMR is around 1550, so at 1 pound a week, I get to average about 1050 calories a day. That is what I shoot for, and then if I end up going out, I cut back a few hundred calories a day for the next few days.

Now, I’ve been a semi-professional dieter for probably close to 30 years, so I have a freaky knowledge of calorie counts all stored up in my head. You might not be able to get away with this. If you want a tracking tool, I highly recommend Lose It! if you have an iPhone. The Daily Plate at LiveStrong is a great online resource.

I’ve had to learn that hunger does not equal harm, and keep fresh veggies all cut up in the fridge at virtually all times. Some chicken or steak on a bed of spinach with some goat cheese is a fantastic, low-calorie meal that I’ve come to embrace.

Why Didn’t I Include Bodyfat?

Unless you are doing hydrostatic weighing, bodyfat is nothing more than an educated guess anyhow. Bodyfat scales have an error rate of +/- 8%. They are great for identifying trends in bodyfat if you are really consistent about the time of day and hydration levels in using it (most research indicates that your most accurate result is going to be mid-afternoon).

So, I’m simply eliminating that variable. The BMR is very accurate for all but the really lean (but then you probably aren’t reading this anyhow) and the very obese (BMR is still probably close enough to get you started).

What About Exercise?

Much like bodyfat, it’s all just an educated guess, and most modern research indicates that most solid 60-minute training sessions don’t burn more than 400 calories.

The way we ended up with such a discrepancy between what you find in calorie calculators and what we find in the real world is complicated:

We get efficient the more we do any activity. Being more efficient means we burn less calories doing the same exercise at the same intensity for the same amount of time. So, what happened when researchers went and computed calories burned during exercise, they measured someone who is brand new to that exercise, but you aren’t.
Body weight and body fat. We burn calories differently based upon our weight and bodyfat levels.
Metabolism. Everyone burns calories at a slightly different rate.
Marketing. The people who have those machines that tell you how much you burned on the treadmill have a stake in fudging the numbers a bit in their favor.
Intensity. The more intense the activity, the harder it is to maintain it for any length of time. So, while kettlebells, for example, may burn 1200 calories per hour, I don’t think I know anyone who can swing a kettlebell for a full hour without setting it down.

Not counting exercise also gives you a bit of wiggle room because calorie counts aren’t as accurate as we’d like to believe, and you probably don’t weigh and measure everything you put in your mouth. A little bit of undercounting here and a bit of overcounting there, and everything works out in the end!

Isn’t My Daily Caloric Limit Too Low or Unsafe?

As long as you play by the rules outlined above, no. BMR goes down as we age and with loss of lean body mass (which is why this program isn’t great for super-lean people). 70% of our calorie expenditure typically comes from BMR, so doesn’t it make sense to use it as our baseline?

That gives us another 30% for fudge factor in both calorie counting (we tend to underestimate) and exercise (we tend to overestimate).

As I said, simple, but not easy. This is hard work, and isn’t for everyone. Or, email me, and we’ll figure out a way to work together to achieve your weight loss goal. Everyone does better with a coach!

Balance: Key #6 to Summiting Kilimanjaro