Solid numbers...

Maybe it's the logical side of my brain - you know, the part that likes numbers and statistics and solid data to look at and examine - but I actually feel so much better after going to get my metabolic testing done this morning. According to the fancy-schmancy computer that they have, my resting metabolic rate is 1488 and my restime metabolic rate plus my lifestyle (light activity at work - this doesn't count any exercise that I might do) is 1934.

Basically, I can eat around 1900 calories a day and not exercise at all if I want to maintain my weight. I should never eat less than 1500 calories per day and on the days that I do hard exercise I should add the number of calories that I burned during that exercise session to my daily intake for that day.

When I exercise with my heartrate between 127 and 136 beats per minute, I'm burning 6.6 calories per minute, 4.7 of which are from fat. When I exercise with my heartrate between 137 and 153 beats per minute, I'm burning 8.4 calories per minute, 3.1 of which are from fat. When I exercise with my heartrate between 154 and 171 beats per minute, I'm burning 11 calories per minute, 2.1 of which are from fat. Above 171 beats per minute, I'm not burning any fat because that's my aerobic threshold.

When Sara was explaining everything to me this morning (some of which I already knew from my own research), she told me that people who work out at higher intensities burn more calories but tend to have higher cholesterol because their body has not been taught how to burn the fat that is floating around in the blood stream. I generally exercise between 124 and 165 beats per minute with the majority of the time spent between 124 and 140. That explains why my HDL (good cholesterol) and LDL (bad cholesterol) are both at 70. That's a very good number for HDL and an extremely good number for LDL. My doctor was actually pleasantly surprised at those numbers and told me to keep up whatever I've been doing.

So, now that I have a solid grasp on the caloric intake and expenditure rates of my body, I can get back down to the nitty-gritty of my diet and exercise plan. Yea!

I love technology...