350,000 - Numbers dont lie

A journey of 350,000 calories begins with single step. 350,000 calories = 100lbs, or more specifically 350,000 is the number of calories you would need to burn in order to lose 100lbs and conversly 350,000 is the number of calories you would need to consume in order to gain 100lbs. These are of course "net calories", less then you consume to lose and more than you burn to gain.

Lets break this down; You gotta burn 3,500 more than you take in to lose a pound.... one single pound.   So if you're a big fat guy like me.... Quick aside, I'm not being hard on myself, the clicinical term for me at my current weight is morbidly obese, to me "big fat guy" some how sounds better..... now .....So if you're a big fat guy like me, with a BMI of 41.6 you need about 3,000 calories a day just to maintain, just to sit on the couch. 3,000 calories a day will keep me even.

So for example if I cut my intake down to 2,500cal/day I would theroretically lose a pound a week (500cal deficit x 7 days = 3,500 calories a week or 1 pound). Or 52lbs in a year. Cut down to 2,000 a day and we're there; 100 lbs in a year.

This is the basic idea but overly simplistic because of course as we lose weight we need fewer calories to maintain the new smaller us. So that 2 pounds a week we lose for the first few weeks at our new 2,000cal/day diet will begin to taper off and then disapear.

That is where exersise comes in. If I take in 2,500cal/day and I burn 3,000 just watching TV and then I add 30 minutes of walking at a moderate pace, 3 times a week  I'll burn an aditional 500cals a week. (that's right walking my big fat ass a mile only burns 165 calories). Increasing weight loss and hopefully improving my calorie burn while on the couch.

And ofcourse as you lose weight you have to go faster and father to burn the same calories.

This is why weight loss is so damn hard and why people get so frustrated.  Add to this that I live in the south, where the food at the gas station rivals any resturant in the rest of the country... And that I'm middle aged and have less testostrone and all the other hormones of youth....this is gonna be a bitch.

I say all this so you will understand the extreem nature of my plan.  I know what I'm doing and what needs to happen to get me from the couch to the finish line of a half Ironman 100+ pounds less then I am today in 381 days.

I'm not gonna over do it, over train or blow out a knee (again like I did last time). I'm gonna start the exercise slow, in the water with no joint stress. and start the diet hard with a fast. More on that next post.

This is gonna be hard but also fun and exciting.  And I am blessed.  My prooblem is that I want to get into shape.  Not fresh water or my kids playing near unexploded mines, or cancer but weight and fitness.  I'm blessed with first world problems today.

So follow my progress and join me if you like.  It all starts Thursday March 14th, 2013 at 6am CDT.  Training, diet and progress updates as they occur.

Here's a link to a BMI (or body mass index) calculator and a basic Metobolic rate (caloric need) calculator

http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

http://www.diet-blog.com/05/how_to_calculate_your_daily_calorie_needs.php

See you at the finish line!

Thanks to Scott Nieman who cought my math mistake in the first posting.  I had origionally put 35,000 calories....it is 350,000......  OMG!