Input versus output
21 June 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
Someday some enterprising entrepreneur is going to invent a wristwatch that will be able to tell you at a glance how many calories youve burned performing your daily activities. At the end of the day the watch would tell you how many calories youve oxidized in the previous 24-hour period. Even if its within say a 10% margin of error, this would be a breakthrough tool for individuals serious about triggering true physical transformation. You would be able to match up calorie input with calorie output and be able to take all the guesswork out of dieting.
If for example the George Jetson watch told you that over the past 24-hours you oxidized 2,583 calories you could tailor caloric intake to match the energy output. If over a seven day period the watch told you that on your most active day you burned 2,975 calories and on your most sluggish day oxidized 2,525 - and further the seven day blended average was 2,755 calories per day, you take this information and establish a precise eating plan. Juxtapose and contrast how many calories you consume against how many you burn off during weight training and cardiovascular training. You would be surprised how few calories are needed to cancel out the caloric cost of an exercise session. The energy cost of working should be juggled with food intake.
We need a degree of precision out of our technological reach currently. People universally overestimate the caloric expenditure associated with exercise and universally underestimate the amount of calories contained in modest portions of regular everyday food. I happened across a Pizza Hut Nutritional Guide (an ironic title, an irresolvable contradiction in terms) and to my surprise discovered that a single slice of meat lovers extra large pizza contains 500 calories. One slice. When was the last time you ever had a single slice? I can put away a half-dozen when Im hungry. Thats a lot of calories! So I gotta stay away from the pizza!
Trainees universally (albeit unintentionally) exaggerate the number of calories burned off in an exercise session, even a serious aerobic session. Body weight is the largest determinant in how many or how few an individual burns off in an exercise session. A 300-hundred pound NFL lineman will burn calories approximately three times faster than a 100-pound Olympic gymnast, each doing an identical task at an identical pace. In a cardio session of identical length and intensity, a 100-pound female athlete in shape could oxidize upwards of 300 to 450 calories during a vigorous 30-minute session. The 300-pound football player could burn 700 calories doing the same thing. One of the hardest things to do is determining basal metabolic rate: how many calories do you burn during the course of an average day? Each day would be slightly different but generally speaking you would discover that you posses a normal caloric range.
The wristwatch that guesstimates calories burned with an acceptable degree of accuracy would allow you to determine current caloric burn rate. This would enable you to synchronize how much you ate with how much you did. Protein and carbohydrate calories go way further than saturated fat calories: you can literally eat twice the volume of food if it is derived from protein or natural vegetable carbs. Fat contains whopping 9-calories per gram whereas natural carbs and protein (lean protein devoid of saturated fat) contain 4-calories per gram. By allotting 80-90% of your calories to carbs and protein you can eat more food in terms of sheer volume and therefore feel full more often. Cardio is valuable even if its calorie-burning value is exaggerated: a vigorous aerobic session elevates the basal metabolic rate for hours after the sessions cessationthe bodys thermostat is jacked up and more calories are burned than normal for a protracted period. In addition cardio really help digestion and improve the entire process of food and nutrient assimilation.
Cardio gets the juices lightly jangling as Zen Master Satchel Paige once observed. Cardio creates a forced flushing of veins and arteries as the heart pump sends torrents of nutrient-rich blood rushing to muscles taxed and fatiguing rapidly from the workout. Cells exchange healing regenerative nutrients for toxins and muscular waste products. Currently, heart rate monitors only are able to register beats if they occur at a rate of 90-beats per minute or more; if the heart rate dips below 90, for some reason the microprocessor is unable to input the impulses and the running tally is interrupted. Once they are able to take the heart rate sensitivity from 90 to 40 (no need to go below) then the George Jetson wristwatch becomes a reality.
Keep your fingers crossed that one day soon the smart boys over in the science and technology section of the fitness revolution will get it together and provide us with the watch that can provide the caloric daily lowdown. This might seem like a mighty hi-tech gadget for such a low-tech guy, but a heart rate monitor is one of two grudging concessions this purposeful primitive fesses up to the other being protein powder. Every gym bag owned by a serious fitness devotee (no poseurs please) should have a heart rate monitor in it. Would you lift weights without knowing the poundage?
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