Quote:
Originally Posted by Hektore
I didn't see anyone run any numbers for you anywhere so I thought I'd throw them up so you could see how much exercise and diet 17lbs is.
At 3,500 calories per pound, 17 pounds is 59,500 calories.
Burning 59,500 calories in 5 days requires an average of 11,900 net calories burned over what is consumed.
Consider then, what you eat has to be added to that total. 1500 calories per day taken in works out to 13,400 calories burned per day to reach this goal.
If you have a very, very high BMR you may be burning 3500 calories per day.
According to the calculator and Runner's World a 315 lb. person would burn 6253 calories over the course of a marathon.
So, if you add a (very high) BMR to a daily marathon that works out to ~9,750 per day, leaving you an additional half a marathon or so to make up the rest of the calories to reach your 13,400 per day burn goal.
Not that you couldn't figure that all out on your own, I just like running numbers and figured I'd share what I came up with.
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The key to understanding this is that there are 3500 calories in one pound of fat. When dealing with anything other than fat, that number isn't really applicable.
Any time someone loses more than a pound or two over the course of a week, the bulk of what they're losing is unlikely to be fat. In this case I suspect there was a lot of retained water being lost, particularly with the alcohol consumption being cut out.
Baraka_Guru's advice is spot on here, as always. The only thing I'd add is that you may want to increase your exercise levels as well. If you can manage it, stopping after work might be a better option; it means you can safely get yourself all sweaty without worrying about offending your co-workers. Aim for a moderate intensity (for a guy your age, target heart rate is going to be around 155 or 160 bpm), and if you can spare a bit more time you might want to add some strength training as well. It doesn't have to be an every day type of thing, and for strength training really shouldn't be -- cardio every day is pretty safe, especially on a cross-trainer because there's no impact stress, but when strength training you need to give yourself time to heal between sessions. 40 minutes or so three times per week is a good target.
The biggest thing for changes like this is to keep it sustainable. A 'diet' in the sense that most people think of it rarely works, because it's not sustainable as a long term change. To be healthy, you have to live healthy; it's a permanent thing. Don't burn yourself out on it.