Viva la difference: Messing with perfection

I've lost 24 pounds since the first of the year, and 12 of them at a very consistent pound-a-week since the middle of May when I took out a new membership at the pool and started swimming several times a week. My progress has all been based on the accountability that comes with posting regularly here at BMGS 2.0 and acting reasonably on the knowledge that I will lose a pound a week if I limit my calories to 2500 a day or fewer and get regular exercise. This is not rocket science.

But I suppose it has made an impression on my pal, and in the past couple of days she has kind of asked me if I would help her do the math so that she could get on track herself and maybe drop a pound or two by the time she celebrates what some might consider a big birthday in late December. Although I am not one to mess with perfection, I have agreed to help.

She is 5'8", and that is all you need to know. Although I have recorded other data in the table that follows, I am a wise man who understands the value of the little Google Docs gizmo that blacks out certain fields. If it worked for Bush and Cheney, it can work for me. Some information is best handled on a need-to-know basis.

As you can see from the table, life is not fair or gender-blind when it comes to the arithmetic of weight loss:


My pal's exercise program involves:

• a) a combination of walking and running for 30 to 60 minutes on the bike trail near our home,
• b) the 8-minutes-a-day workout program with weights, and
• c) situps
• c) some yoga.

Based on her numbers, my take is that, if she does (a) and (b) 4 times a week each and does (c) and (d) once a week, her BMR based on the "moderately active" calculation would be 2087 calories a day, or 14,609 calories a week. That is the rate of calorie intake that would keep her weight at its current level. In order to lose a pound a week, she would have to consume 3,500 calories less than 14,609 each week. In other words, her target rate for daily calorie intake is 1,587 calories.

Now that I am finished with the considerable exercise involved in moving and I am back to swimming with an occasional day of walking and jogging, my exercise program involves:

• a) swimming laps for 60 to 90 minutes without resting;
• b) walking and slow jogging for 20 minutes; and
• c) crunches, pushups, or weights.

Based on my numbers, if I do (a) three times a week and (b) and (c) once a week each, my BMR based on the "moderately active" calculation would be 3227 calories a day, or 22,589 calories a week. That is the rate of calorie intake that would keep my weight at its current level. In order to lose a pound a week, I have to consume 3,500 calories less than 22,589each week. In other words, my target rate for daily calorie intake is 2,727 calories.

It isn't fair that I can lose weight just as quickly as my pal while I consume 1,140 more calories a day, or about 8,000 more calories a week, but, well, viva la difference!

Sources: BMR Calculator, BMR Calculator2, Harris Benedict Equation Calculator.

Afterword: In my 12-step program, this draft post would be called 12th-stepping. But whether I post it will depend, of course, on whether my pal feels her anonymity is protected.

Stay out of the kitchen - Originally posted to BMGS 1.0 October 2, 2007

Stay out of the kitchen

I had a nice email the other day from old friend Nick Wyman, writing from Sarasota where he will appear beginning October 13 in the pre-Broadway premiere of A Tale of Two Cities at the Asolo Repertory Theatre's mainstage, The Harold E. and Esther M. Mertz Theatre. My efforts to get back to my old playing weight struck a chord with Nick, and he told me he’d been struggling to keep his weight where he wants it. 

One significant difference between us that bears mentioning here is that Nick is 6’5”, while I am 5’11 on a good day. In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that I have sometimes envied very tall people their ability to wear a few extra cheeseburgers more elegantly than the rest of us.

But I know that is silly, and I understand that it is every bit as much of a struggle for Nick as it is for me. He is doing admirably with a regimen of yoga, gym duty every other day, and some sensible meals. But he got me thinking about another Nick.

Nicky D. was also 6’5” and struggling with his weight when I knew him a few years ago. He was doing time for some drug-related problems (like a couple of million other Americans). Who am I to hold that against him? Like Nick Wyman, Nicky D. was a great guy who I loved being around.

But there was a big man. He had started out somewhere over 1100 pounds. No, that’s not a typo. 1100 pounds. Of course nobody starts out at 1100 pounds, but I think you know what I mean.

He worked at it so hard. He lost over 500 pounds, down to under 575. Yeah, he lost the equivalent of 3 grown men of normal proportions. He did it by eating healthfully and walking every day. He had a lot of extra skin hanging here and there on him, but it wasn’t hard to imagine he might continue his successful effort and get back down around 300, which he had carried well as a high school football player 20 years earlier.

Then he got a job in the kitchen at the prison where he was doing time. Not surprisingly, he was a very good cook. Everybody else in the joint wanted him to work in the kitchen, I heard.

But within a few weeks I could see that things had changed. The scale started moving in the other direction. (He had to use an industrial scale). In a few months he was over 700 again. He could gain 5 pounds at a single meal, and ate around the clock, but the key to it all was that his kitchen job gave him unlimited access to foot after a couple of years of deprivation.

There are morals to the story. Simple ones. Being 6’ 5” is no protection. And if weight issues challenge you, don’t get a job in the kitchen, any more than an alcoholic should be serving drinks or a gambling addict dealing cards.