Be skeptical of online health and fitness tests (or, Don’t Count on Calorie Counters)
When browsing through most health and fitness websites, you’re sure to come across a variety of calculator tools that will determine everything from your body mass index, to ideal body weight and caloric needs. It’s fun to input your stats and see what comes out.

But if you’re relying on these calculators for anything more than an anecdotal number, you might end up following some very bad advice.

Not all calculator tools are the same
Not all calorie, BMI or ideal body weight calculators use the same formula to come up with their numbers, so one can be very different from the next. As well, some calculators take more variables into account than others. But just because a website’s calculator is more in-depth doesn’t make it any more accurate.

Don’t blindly trust the results
Know your body. If something that’s recommended sounds too extreme get a second opinion from your doctor, which you should be doing anyways if you’re starting a weight loss program. At the very least you should see what other calculators come up with, because as I’ve found firsthand no two will be the same.

The advice you get can vary widely
I checked out a few calculators to find out my BMI and my daily caloric needs to maintain my current weight. It’s a good thing I didn’t seek out this kind of advice when I was starting my fitness journey.

In order to maintain my current weight with my moderate activity level (I can’t be considered very active because of my sedentary job and the fact that I don’t exercise every day) they tell me I need to consume either 1,300, 1,815 or 1,909 calories per day. That’s a pretty big difference. Trying to maintain my weight by following the lower guideline and I would end up losing about a pound of week (if the higher one was actually correct).

What makes it worse is I doubt my calorie intake falls anywhere within that range. If I do a quick total of what I eat in one day I come up with a number closer to 2,000. Only one calorie calculator I used hit that target.

As for my basal metabolic rate (BMR) the number that comes up most often is around 1,300, which means I need to consume that many calories just so my vital organs can function. The Discovery Health site’s calculator agrees so I assume it’s a safe number.

Some results can be dangerous
Now here’s where it gets sketchy. Many of these calculators are used for the purpose of deciding how many calories you need to eat to lose weight. But since they can’t even get the numbers right when it comes to maintaining weight, imagine how far off they could be when it comes to losing weight. When I put in the weight I was at a year ago they calculated that I’d need to eat between 1,100 and 1,466 to lose weight. Plus a number of them mentioned adding exercise without changing caloric intake.

Well, I did lose weight, and I did it by eating better, doing cardio and strength training but there’s no way I would have starved myself like these tools suggested. My one pound or less a week came off the healthy way, which is why I’m feeling pretty good about my chances of maintaining it. Listening to bad advice could cause your body to work against you and conserve instead of expend calories, making the weight loss process more difficult than it has to be.

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Dieting makes it hard to maintain a healthy weight

It’s no secret I mistrust the weight loss plans found in many health and fitness magazines. I feel they don’t take into account all aspects of how our bodies burn calories and that they end up sending readers off in pursuit off what amounts to a starvation diet.

I used one example in the article Do Magazine Diets Sabotage Weight Loss?, in which women were instructed to consume 1,400 calories per day while getting regular exercise. After all factors are accounted for, women following this diet are left with only 500 to 800 calories to fuel their vital organs (the number of calories required to do this is known as BMR), much less than they need. Is it just me or does this plan sound unhealthy, even for a women with a low BMR of 1,200.

The reason so few calories would be left over is that about 140 would be burned off through digestion, 400 through exercise and several hundred more through non-exercise activity thermogenesis, which is the remainder of the movements we make throughout the day. Many diet plans don’t seem to take into account the combined effects of diet and exercise.

Will you still lose weight?
Some of you are probably thinking, who cares if it’s healthy, at least I’ll lose the weight. But that might not be entirely true. When our bodies aren’t getting enough calories they start conserving and metabolism slows. It’s that very same ability that kept our ancestors alive in times of famine. When your body thinks food is scarce it begins to store more calories as fat.

So while you may think restricting calories to the extreme will help you meet your goals it can actually do the opposite. When you finally give up on these impossible diet plans, as most people do, your body won’t automatically go back to burning the amount of calories it did before you started, but chances are you’ll go back to eating the same amount of food. This is the reason people quit diets and end up weighing more than before they started.

Calorie restriction causes a loss of lean muscle tissue, which is one reason your metabolism will slow. During caloric deficit the body can’t build muscle because it’s too busy using it for fuel. Why would you want to destroy the very thing that speeds up your metabolism and allows you to take in more calories?

If you’re still not convinced, I took some weight loss and weight maintenance advice I gathered from other websites and applied it to myself. For the most part the results don’t even come close to my actual situation. If I followed their advice I would be one unhappy and unhealthy woman.

But don’t give up on your healthy living plans, it is possible to make positive changes in your body that you’ll be able to maintain. As far as I’m concerned it’s a lot easier to lose weight than diet “experts” would have you believ.

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Some plans just don’t add up

I’m always a little confused when I read the details of weight loss plans that I find in popular health and fitness magazines. So I decided to crunch some numbers, and I was more than surprised with what I found.

Why popular weight loss plans concern me

Take this diet I saw in a fitness magazine. It probably sounds a lot like plans you’ve seen in similar publications. The first thing that made me uneasy was a recommended 1,400 calorie a day meal plan. No way, I thought,  you don’t have to starve yourself to lose weight.

Now I’m no expert, but I’ve read what many of them have to say. Most women need a few hundred calories above or below 1,400 (it can vary by person) just so their vital organs function, which means brains, hearts, lungs, kidneys and more. If you don’t consume more calories than that basic amount you’ll be risking your health and likely setting yourself up for a failed attempt at weight loss.

What about calories burned through exercise?

Which brings me to my next point. These weight loss plans don’t end at restricting calorie intake, they also recommend regular strength training and cardio workouts. If you take in 1,400 calories a day and burn off 400 during one workout session, that leaves only 1,000 for your body to use during the rest of the day – much less than what is considered essential. And as we’ve been told by experts in these same magazines, one workout session can boost the amount of calories you burn for hours afterwards, meaning even more calories gone.

What about calories burned through digestion?

But here’s another factor. You have to eat to take in those 1,400 calories, and every time you eat you’ll burn calories. About 10 percent of the calories you take in are burned off through digestion. So if you’re only taking in 1,400 you’ll burn about 140.

What about calories burned through NEAT?

The body’s calorie burning doesn’t stop there. You won’t be lying around doing nothing all day, getting in that one hour of exercise before becoming sedentary again. Every move you make throughout the day causes your body to burn calories, even something as seemingly unimportant as fidgeting. When calories are burned this way it’s known as non-exercise activity thermogenesis or NEAT. Some people fidget and gesture so much throughout the day that they burn up to 350 calories.

When you do the math it’s easy to see why calorie restriction sets dieters up for failure.

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Supersets help you get things done faster
When most people tackle the weight room, they start with a plan that includes straight sets. This method involves performing two or more sets of each exercise, with about a minute or more rest in between each set. While there’s absolutely nothing wrong with doing straight sets, it does have some negatives, including the fact that your sessions take longer to complete and your body will eventually adapt and quit realizing results. That’s where supersets and all its variations come in.
What are supersets?
Supersetting is when you perform two exercise sets without rest in between. Some pros recommend you perform sets on opposing muscle groups, meaning if you do one set of barbell curls to work your biceps, you immediately follow it with one set of skull crushers to work your triceps.

You can also perform two exercises that target the same muscle, such as leg extensions and squats. This method is known as pre-exhaustion supersets because the first move isolates and fatigues the quads and the second involves them in a compound exercise. Post-exhaustion supersets are the exact opposite, you do the compound move first and the isolation move second.

Why you should try supersets
• Supersets are a great way to blast through a weight loss plateau because they challenge your body to do work it isn’t used to.
• They make gym time go a lot faster since you’re resting less.
• They allow you to reach muscle fatigue without lifting heavy weights. This is good for someone working out without a spotter or who doesn’t want to lift heavy.
• They make for an easy session. All you have to do is pick two exercises, rest, then repeat. While you’re resting after those two you can decide on two more, until before you know it you’re done.

Types of supersets
• Pre-exhaustion supersets – See above.
• Post-exhaustion supersets – See above.
• Tri-sets - This one is pretty self-explanatory. Perform three exercises in a row instead of two.
• Opposing muscle groups - As explained, this method involves working one muscle group and then its opposing group. It can be very beneficial because you’ll be working both muscle groups evenly.
• Compound supersets – Two different compound exercises are performed in a row.
• Isolation supersets – This is also known as same-part supersetting. An example would be doing incline curls followed by barbell curls.
• Staggered supersets – This type of supersetting involves performing an exercise for a larger muscle group, followed by one for a smaller muscle group.
• In-set supersets - two different exercises within a rep. One example would be doing a dumbbell bench press and transitioning immediately into a dumbbell flye.
• Upper body/lower body supersets – It doesn’t matter which part of your body you target first, just that you follow up an upper body exercise with a lower body one, or vice versa.

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After coming across yet another diet prescribing 1200-1600 calories a day to lose weight safely, I’ve got to get something off my chest. There are a few things about these diets that really bother me. Since this rant is going to be a little long and scattered I’ll continue it on the next post as well.

Most experts say it is safe to lose 1-2 pounds of fat per week, although we’ve all seen contestants on The Biggest Loser drop twice that amount in a day (that’s another issue for another time). So if someone has become overweight by eating 3,000 calories a day, wouldn’t it be safe to assume they’d still lose a healthy amount of weight by cutting that down to 2,000?

It  takes many years for people to become overweight, why make them feel like a failure by expecting them to take it all back off in a matter of months through something so torturous as starvation? Seriously…if the average moderately active woman requires about 2100 calories a day, why change that formula if you don’t have to (I understand that there are other factors for certain people to consider and they should follow the advice of healthcare professionals). It is just reinforcing the idea that weight maintenance is about sporadic dieting and not an overall healthy lifestyle.

In one very basic way a human body is like a car. It requires fuel to run. But it is obviously much more complicated. Without fuel a car simply won’t run, whereas the human body will continue to run using stored energy. It sounds good for people wanting to get rid of excess fat. Quit giving your body food and it will start to use stored fat for energy.

But using stored energy comes at a big cost. The body reacts to a limited supply of fuel by conserving it and burning fewer calories. And when the body doesn’t get the right amount of calories for maintenance it uses muscle as well as fat for fuel, which can decrease metabolism further. So when the day comes that you discontinue your diet, and it will, you’ll be eating the same as before but with a body that can no longer burn calories as efficiently as it once could. I hope that analogy makes sense and has you questioning the value of restrictive diets. If you’re exercising while dieting, there’s even more you should consider.

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