KCAL and CALORIES

[abrannan]

0rion.78 said:

i would like to know this also. discounting arm movements, just steps and what the game counts, is it really that accurate? if it is, then that would be awesome!

It's not that accurate. What it can provide you is a good relative workout value. That is, if you play heavy for half an hour and it says you burned 400 calories, that gives you a value you can use to compare to playing standard for an hour. Don't think of what it reports as calories, think of them as SUEs (Standard Units of Exercise).

[cibi]

YoshiisCOol2002 said:

IS kcal the same thing as the calories in the nutrional facts in the food products?

Yes! I work weekly with a nutritionist and she told me that they are the same.
cibi

[michelle9sd]

I have read over most of these posts and everyone is right -- to some degree. A person who picks a certain diet should be a person who is happy with that kind of food menu. It is also true that a life change is the only thing that will keep weight off, so if you don't incorporate a life change into your maintenance, you will gain weight back. Personally, I think that the best weight loss plan is Weight Watchers. It lets you have any food you want, as long as you stay within your points. You don't even have to go to meetings, because now you can do it on the internet. Even if you stop doing Weight Watchers, you still know which things are good and bad for you, even without counting points. I have stopped going for a long time and have not gained any weight back. Check out their website!

The one thing that I didn't see anyone mention was the fact that it is your heart rate which determines when you will start burning muscle for energy. There is a certain heart rate zone you should be in while working out that will burn fat. If you go over, you begin to burn muscle. This is because your body is working so hard that it cannot go to the trouble to convert fat to energy anymore and must use muscle instead. Another point is that the very first thing that will be burned is the carbohydrates in your blood, because those are easiest, so don't eat before you work out. A good way to track this is to get yourself a heart rate monitor. I got mine from Big 5 Sporting Goods on sale for $50 a few years ago. Make sure it is one with a chest strap. The strap has an electrode that tells you your heart rate while you are working out (transmitted to a watch). It also has a stop watch, a calorie counter (yes, kilocalorie), time, date, and heart rate zone that you can set for it to beep if you are over or under your ideal heart rate zone. The only drawback is that the calories will not be completely accurate because they base it on the calories that would be burned by a 150 lb person. It doesn't really matter, though, because you can just figure that if you weigh more, you are probably burning even more calories. I put this on every time I do DDR and play continuously until I burn 1000 calories. It usually takes 1-1.5 hours for me to do this. I hope this information was helpful.

[blueshirt3k]

I've tried low-carb (Atkins) but it never proved effective. With minimal carb (less than 10g/day) intake I just wasn't able to maintain ketosis, a state in which your muscles are protected from being broken down for energy. I loss muscle and I started to hate eating. Meat at every meal gets old, especially when you try to stay with chicken. Frankly the food selection made eating around other people extremely socially awkward. After a short while my losses stopped.

I've since tried the tried and true method of calorie budgeting and it's working fine. I can eat normal foods as long as normal isn't fast food. There's a lot of 'diet' food (Fat free, diet soda, etc.) in my diet to reduce calories but I find it all delicious. As long as I stay within my calorie budget I see results. When I 'cheat' I just make up for it by exercising a bit (ITG/DDR usually).

As I understand it, after your body is done burning carbs it will switch to burning protein (muscle!). Which is why ketosis is so important in the Atkins diet. Without ketosis to protect you your body would just burn muscle. Losing muscle slows your metabolism, eventually stopping weight loss. Unless you are already maintaining ketosis, which in my experience was neigh impossible, then it would seem to make sense to actually eat carbs before and after your cardio session to prevent muscle from being consumed.

You are always burning a little of every but from what I've read you fat starts the ratio tips towards fat after about half an hour of exercise in the ideal heart rate zone (which is something like 75% of your max). Considering the length of the workout necessary to induce this state it would seem logical that you need plenty of fuel to get there. Most people don't want to burn their muscle for fuel.

Please feel free to correct me.

[malicedmind]

hmm...I'm trying to break weight loss down to reasonable terms. If you burn a pound of fat, that's 3,500 calories.
Sleeping eight hours = 500 calories burned
Breathing all day = 300 calories burned
Going to school = 500 calories burned
Dancing to DDR = 500 calories burned.

That's 1,800 calories a day, average. Given that you eat 1,300 calories a day, you would burn 500 calories a day away from the food you have eaten. That's a pound a week, friends
Hence the reason that weight loss can be so slow sometimes...

[imperfectious]

They are one and the same. I moved from the US (calories) to Germany (kcal), and went to a nutritionist that studied in the states because I was confused as to how I was supposed to count my food.

[lorikitty]

I used to "burn" about 600 calories in an hour session of standard DDR, until I realized the PS2 version was also counting the x, o, triangle and square presses as part of the calorie-count. There's a patch you can get that fixes the problem, it makes it so that pressing those buttons doesn't even register. Since then I've gone from 30 calories for a standard song to 20/25 for a heavy one it's a much better counter now! and I burn a more reasonable 400

[v]

Oi...why does it have to be so complex? Anyone I know who looks great doesn't drag a nutrionist and a calculator with them every time they leave the house.

If I just cut out the junk food and keep my portions small, lift weights every other day and play my ddr for an hour a day. I'll lose weight right? lol?

[abrannan]

In a nutshell, yes. You don't really need to micromanage your diet and exercise to lose weight, though it can be a useful "calibrating" exercise to see how many calories are in what you eat, so that you can learn how to eyeball a proper portion.

[luminalazure]

Some of these diets are misleading (Look at Dr. Phil... haha). However, for people like me (Who work more than needed) can buy say... Lean Cuisine and eat it for lunch. I prefer this option, because if I ate what I was craving (which was a chili dog with cheese or Mc Donalds.. or.... say.. Something smothered in butter and salt.. (my usual XD ) ) I would regret it in the long run. With these 'diets' I am able to eat something that is not smothered in those things and it does offer veggies.
I am not saying that everyone should do this, I only do this for lunch and at work only.
If people really want to eat healthier and lose weight, set that double cheese burger down. Go eat carrots or something.
Instead of that candy bar, try lowfat chocolate or another fruit- maybe yogurt?
However, another problem I believe that people are having is not checking the serving size on the back of candy.
Example:
Eating a large package of reeses is NOT the same as eating the smaller one.

[xstatic]

Portion size is what gets me. I swear, I can eat as much as a professional linebacker. I generally eat well, but then when I let myself cheat, I binge and it's back to the start again. Over and over....