BMR

On friday morning, I visited my registered dietician, Catherine Kruppa to have my BMR tested. The reason I wanted to do this as I've mentioned before (I think) is that I believe I am targeting too low a number for daily calories. Lo and behold, I was right. I was underestimating my BMR by ~800 calories. So here are the results:

BMR: 2780 calories/day
BMR x 1.2 daily activity factr: 3336 calories
Target daily deficit (per Catherine): 1000 calories/day
Target caloric intake(non-workout days): 2336/day
Target caloric intake(workout days): 2336 + calories burned during exercise

Now, here's the ugly little trick. On days that I work out, I still need to maintian only a 1000 calorie deficit. So, however many calories I burn working out, I must add that to my intake. So, the big question is how many calories am I burning. I know that all the calculators out there are just best guesses. Also, my Polar RS200sd gives me total calories burned. Some of these numbers are hard to believe, though. I guess given my weight, they may be true. For instance, according to Polar, my 28 minute, 1.75 mile jaunt on Thursday burned 389 calories. That's a lot to me. So, for Thursday, my target caloric intake would be ~2725. WOW!!! I can live with that. Especially since I would feel guilty before for eating more than 1700 or 1800 calories. No wonder I was always soooooooo hungry leading to gorging and binging on sweets.

I know this BMR thing and calorie counting is not an exact science. Still, it gives me something to shoot for. And I believe the estimates are pretty close. I guess the proof will be born out in the coming months. If anyone out there has experience with calculating calories burned during exercise, I'd be interested in hearing from you.