** shamelessly stolen from an explaination given to me at my fave diet site **

Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the amount of calories your body (given normal metabolic conditions) burns in a day, given that you do nothing more than exist. No eating, no walking, no getting out of bed. These are your ‘existence’ calories. To calculate your BMR, use these formulas:

Men BMR = 66 + (6.3 x Body Weight in lbs) + (12.9 x Height in inches) – (6.8 x age)
Women BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilos) + ( 1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age)

YOU SHOULD NOT AIM TO EAT LESS THAN YOUR BMR!

Now that you’ve got your BMR, you’ve got a good starting point for how your body (at your current weight) burns calories. Now it’s time to use that information and figure out how many calories you burn during a normal day. You know, when you crawl out of bed and actually do something. Take the BMR, and multiply it by the Activity Multiplier below that best describes your average day:

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = 1.2 (little exercise, desk job)
Light Activity = 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Moderate Activity = 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)
Very Active = 1.725 (heavy exercise/sports 6-7 days/week)
Extreme Activity = 1.9 (heavy exercise/sports, physically demanding job)

Now, if you’re trying to decide where you fall – say you’re thinking you may be between light and moderate activity – then pick a number in between. Remember, this isn’t exact, so don’t stress too hard. So now you have a rough estimation of how many calories you use during the day, courtesy of the Harris Benedict method.

To figure out how many calories you want to take in every day, you need that first number from earlier, the one about lbs/week. If you want to lose 1lb a week, you need to cut 1lb worth of calories per week. A pound of fat is equivalent to about 3500 calories. Luckily, that divides nicely by the number of days in a week, so subtract 500 cals from your Harris-Benedict number, and that’s what you need to take in. It’s that easy. Again, even if it means having a deficit of less than 500, don’t eat less than your BMR.

Registration opened for the CNIE conference today and I got a look at the price points. I can’t believe the cost. I’m really hoping that it will be possible to register as a student (300$ instead of $600) but have a strong suspicion it won’t be allowed. Their registration info specifically mentions full-time enrolment and I’m a part-time student. I simply can’t afford to cease working and attend school full-time.

It appears that CNIE is more restrictive than ISSOTL was when it comes to student conference attendance. Such a shame.

I’m still hoping to find some way to attend. Mum wants me to come home for a visit and my mentor, Dr. D will allow me to participate in the presentation of our paper at the conference if I can manage to get there.

Large incentive indeed!

Very proud of my lazy self today. Got up many hours before the crack of noon. Wrote a paper for my International Relations course & managed to submit it a few hours before it was due. Packed my lunch for tomorrow. Managed to get in my treadmill time. Nothing too earth shattering but surprisingly I feel like I got a lot accomplished.

Spending the weekend doing boring things.

I was visited by the snow shovelling fairy on Friday and decided to pay it forward this morning. I awoke crazy early to find snow had fallen over night and while outside clearing my walk decided to increase my exercise level and cleared the neighbour’s walk as well.

Have I mentioned how odd it is to be waking up at 7:30 am on a weekend? Sleeping in an extra hour over a weekday hardly seems to be sleeping in at all.

I got my treadmill time in post breakfast then wrote my meal plan & grocery list for the week. Then it was off to the grocery store with J.

Post grocery store visit I did some cooking and prepped meals for a few days.

Did I mention I have a paper due tomorrow? Dishes washed. Kitchen cleaned. Floors washed. It’s amazing how much work you can get done when you’re procrastinating.

Running out of time & excuses I finally knuckled down and completed my readings on political culture to prep for my paper writing mega session tomorrow.

Nothing to see here. Boring, yet oddly productive day all around. Hope yours was more exciting.

We don’t have a scale but we do have a Wii. The Wii has a scale. I really like the Wii Fit step aerobics. Tonight while playing on the Wii it told me I’d gained weight since my last weigh in. As much as I wanted to freak out, I didn’t run for a snack. Instead I tried on a pair of pants and a top I couldn’t get into two weeks ago before I started on this lengthy journey. The pants are still snug but I was actually able to get them on and buttoned! The top isn’t super tight. Just snug. So, I may be gaining some muscle mass from the exercise but I am seeing some positive results in the clothing department. Good thing I kept a few items of clothing I couldn’t fit into for a while. looks like they’ll come in handy to keep me motivated.

Perhaps the proper ‘next step’ to take is to take measurements so I can tell if I’m losing inches…