Two years ago, I did a pretty good job combining training with weight loss by tracking my calories in a spreadsheet (2010 version). The spreadsheet has a few components:
- Day’s weight (post workout, preferably).
- Base calorie needs (weight in pounds x 13 calories)
- Net intake [calories consumed - calories burned running only - base calorie needs]
- Intake [calories consumed - calories burned running only]
- Details
- calories consumed with notes
- calories burned based on post-workout weight and distance ran [using numbers from RunningAhead.com]
When I was keeping up with things, the calories per pound [H3 cell] was pretty close to 3500.
One challenge that I had was trying to be honest about “how much” food I was consuming when the portions weren’t from a pre-measured package or menu item. Ultimately, it was the tedious game of guessing my calorie intake that frustrated me and caused me to stop tracking calories.
To combat that problem, I have purchased the following food scale. There are a wealth of resources to help determine the calorie content of foods, generally by googling “[food name] calories”. However, the portions aren’t always usable or realistic. With this scale, I hope to remove some of the time-consuming guess work from tracking my calories.
[Paid Amazon Affiliate link]
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I did about 6 months of calorie counting, mostly focused during ramping up my mileage for my best marathon time ever (by at least 50 minutes). I had intense focus on both training and diet (at least calorie intake) during this time.
However, I never regained momentum after the May marathon, as you may notice in the Net Calorie Intake log.
That said, it was a very effective way of learning how many calories were *really* in certain foods, as well as estimating which food choices were the best choices when you didn’t have a calorie count/guide at your disposal.
The spreadsheet breakdown:
Baseline:
- Basal metabolic rate – estimated at 13 x current weight.
The “net intake” is the:
- Total calorie intake for the day
- - Calories burned running (I used runningahead.com’s numbers for my post workout weight x mileage, which were the most conservative estimates of calories burned.)
- - Basal metabolic rate (post-workout weight x 13 calories)
My target for “net intake” was a net deficit of 500 calories. As you can see, I went overboard early on, but eating caught up later on. If you notice the “averages” line, I averaged about a 476 calorie deficit.
The “intake” number is the:
- Total calorie intake for the day
- - Calories burned running
You’ll notice that I didn’t count any other exercise. There are two reasons for this:
- Calories burned directly during non-aerobic exercise are negligible (at least for calorie counting purposes). You may burn 200 calories doing weights, etc…, but you’ll probably get that much error in a too generous portion at a restaurant as well. I tried to keep a good estimate.
- I didn’t really do any other exercises other than running. Cycling and elliptical machines give wildly varied calorie readings, and I always felt more of a workout from 1-2 miles of running than an hour of hard cycling.
I have to emphasize, this was a time of incredible focus for me, but the log itself was not sustainable for even my statistics-minded head. I also need to point out that the calorie need calculations are from the over-simplified 13 x weight in lbs formula.
I’ll share some other insights into my “calculations” and what I learned about nutrition during and after this exercise.
Tags: calorie counting
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