New Recruit about to start the Rookie Regimen

[Michael Ramm]

Greetings to all,

I am about to start Rebel Fitness at the Level 1 Rookie as a 40 year old IT professional. I have two children and want to lose a few pounds and get in general shape to be able to actively coach my son's baseball teams for the next couple of years.

I am using My Fitness Pal for all of my tracking and I am a little baffled by some of the goals that it has set out for me. I am 6' 5" 40 year old that weighs 240 pounds. The BMR calculation that it gives me is 2,116 cal/day. My BMI is 28.5, which is telling me my ideal weight is between 156 and 211 lbs.

When I went through the setup, it asks a couple of questions about lifestyle (sedentary, because I do sit behind a desk most of the day), and workout (i put 6 days at 30 mins per day (just a guess of what the Rookie level will be)) with a goal of losing 1lb/week.

The dietary goals it gave me was 2,140 cal with 294g carbs, 74g fat, 80g protein per day, along with burning 1,580 cal/week through exercise.

Do these seem right to you? The Rebel Fitness Guide talks about capping cals at 2,200/day for men and the protein calculation based on my weight would be about 192g/day, which is way off of the site.

I am totally new to the whole reading labels and figuring out how to eat well. I have always eat what I wanted and when I needed to lose a little weight, I could cut out fried food and I would drop pounds.

I would appreciate any help to tweak these goals into something more inline with real life and what the Rebel Fitness program will give me.

Thanks in advance!

Michael

[ebm1224]

i'm no expert but if you're 6ft 5 unless you are really lanky i don't think you should go as low as 156...alot of my male friends are about 6ft and 200lbs...even for them i don't think they would look healthy at less than, say, 170 or 180. having said that, weight is often not the best indicator of health - i'd see about getting a body fat measurement done. in terms of diet, i'm not really sure about calorie requirements for men but, from what i've learned, alot of the sites have very low protein requirements. since actively staying away a bit more from breads, pastas, etc, i've found it pretty easy to get over 100 grams of protein a day...and that has seemed to help me stay full longer (a good thing when trying to lose weight). glad you're here and good luck!

[Corbab]

I'm with ebm -- don't trust the scale. It's a good metric if you're just looking to lose weight, but if you want to really improve your health and lifestyle (like you do), there are much better measurements to focus on. The projected weight from the BMI calculator is ridiculous -- you'd be nothing but skin and bones (almost literally) at 156lb. Unless you're really attached to weight, pick some other goals (like getting through a full practice, running X laps, etc) to work towards. These will keep you motivated and leave you much happier in the end.

As far as the calorie restriction goes, try this calculator. It takes into account all of your activities and gives you both your basal metabolic rate (calories burned in a day of doing nothing) and total energy expenditure (basal metabolic rate + calories burned from exercise). To lose 1 pound per week, you need a 3,500 calorie deficit, which means eating 500 calories below your total energy expenditure per day (3500/7 = 500). As far as the macronutrient ratios go, the ones you found are most likely based on the USDA recommendations (which are misguided, if not flat wrong). If you still want to eat a fairly normal diet and focus on calorie restriction, shoot for 35% protein, 35% fat, 30% carbs. However, cutting carbs to 50-100 grams daily is an excellent way to speed weight loss.

TL;DR: Calculate your BMR, don't eat below it. Get at least 35% of your calories from protein, get no more than 20% of your calories from carbs. You'll do well.

[161803398874989]

I've heard bad things about My Fitness Pal as far as calories burned go, so don't trust that.

[HughMannity]

Forget numbers (unless you're a diabetic and tracking your blood glucose -- that's a different set of numbers all together) Ignore the scale. BMI is a junk measurement. Body fat % is a better measurement, but BMI is useless as a guide to fitness.

What matters is how you look, how you feel, and what you can do. How much energy you have. How well you sleep. These are the things that matter.

Take photos. Measure your chest, waist, hips, thighs, upper arms and use those to track your progress (what? measurements are numbers? you lie! they're measurements, totally different!). Track your progress: how far and how fast you can run/walk. How many reps you can do. How much weight you can lift.

Keep your favorite pair of jeans and take a photo of yourself wearing them as they get bigger and bigger each time. (amazing how clothes can change size)