“How Do You Burn Calories?”

This is a foundational question for anyone who is just beginning to understand the healthy human body, weight loss, and physical fitness. To get us started, here are a few pieces of information regarding calories:

• Definition: A measurement of the energy your body gets from food. Your body needs calories as "fuel" to perform all of its functions, such as breathing, circulation, and physical activity. When you are sick, your body may need extra calories to fight fever or other problems (found from: www.thewellnesscommunity.org/support/glossary.php)

• 3,500 Calories = 1 Pound of Body Weight

• Calories are a measurement of the scale and effectiveness of a workout.

• Simple free calculators can be used measure the calories burned during exercise.

• The “Math” of calories does not always work.

• The calories burned by the body just from being awake and alive for a day can be measured through a process called The Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Click HERE for a BMR calculator.

So, with this information in mind regarding calories, lets consider our question: “how do you burn calories?” Honestly, calories are burned by the body just from being awake. Since calories are a unit of energy, any activity requiring the use of energy burns calories. Did you ever notice how you probably get tired after a large meal? Well, even the act of digesting food in the body requires the use of energy. When the energy of the body is being used to digest food, it creates as sense of tiredness, or lack of energy, during this time. Look around after thanksgiving dinner next year and you'll see it. Unfortunately though, it doesn't take nearly as many calories worth of energy to digest the food compared to the calories in most food (with the exception of celery maybe?). So, since all activity burns calories, its important for us to make sure that we maintain enough activity that our calories burned outnumber our calories consumed. Although the scale does not always agree with the numbers, “how do you burn calories?” is simply a question of math.

The “Math” of the Calorie
The math of the calorie starts with the BMR. Since your BMR is the number of calories you burn just from being awake during the day. Take this number and multiply it by 7 to get a weekly number. On top of this add the number of calories you burned from the exercising sessions and activities that you did during the week. Add these two figures and you have the total number of calories that you burned during the week. Subtract from this figure the number of calories you consumed during the week. The resulting number is the number of calories you burned during that week. For every 3,500 calories you have in this final number, you could expect to lose 1 pound. Of course this math doesn't always work because there are so many other factors that effect the question “how do you burn calories?” (water weight, time of day foods are consumed, quality of calories consumed, etc). But this math does provide a framework for tracking and understanding your progress.

The Math of the Calorie Formula
(BMR*7)
+ Caloried Burned by Activity/exercise
– the calories consumed
= Calories Burned

A Complete System?
Unfortunately, losing weight and being healthy involves so many more variables then just calories. Because of this, I highly recommend the use of a Complete System that brings together all the variables within the exercise decisions, eating decision, and lifestyle decisions so you can achieve success in this struggle. Click here to read all about this complete health and weight loss system and Join in on the Success!!