User Queries : How many calories?

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Image courtesy of db*photography

Image courtesy of db*photography

I’d like to lose the 20lbs that stand between me and a size 12, or  even the 50lbs that stand between me and a size “Wow!”.  I know that to do so I need to make calories in less than calories out. But how many calories should I shoot for in general?

I’ve used a number of calculators, with so vastly different results.

Here’s two examples:

The American Cancer Society says I need 2318.

The Mayo Clinic says I need 1550.

What gives? Where can I get a reliable number?

Thanks,
Naomi

Ok.  Wow.  You guys have really decided to stop throwing softballs at us when it comes to these questions, haven’t you?  Next time why not ask us how to perform open heart surgery or something?  Sheesh.

Seriously, though – The reason this is a difficult question is because the first (and most honest) response is “it depends.”  It depends on a lot of things.  It depends on how old you are, how tall you are, how much you weigh currently, how active you are, what your sex is, and what type of calories you’re putting in to your body (a 1200 calorie a day diet consisting of nothing but Snickers bars isn’t very likely to warrant positive results).  With all of those factors in place it is no wonder that you’re having a hard time finding a solid answer to your question.

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New York continues to wage a battle against bulge

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poundsNew York is probably not the first place you think of when it comes to healthy living.  It might be the first place you think of when it comes to pizza, bagels with a shmear, restaurants that are open twenty-four hours a day, street vendors selling hot dogs, and deli sandwiches bigger than your head, but that pretty much proves my point.  California generally holds the reputation as the place where the “granola loving health freaks” live, but as is the case with most stereotypes California and New York are actually pretty similar when it comes to the percentage of the population that is considered obese.  In 2008 approximately 23.1% of the population of California residents fell under the obese classification, while 23.5% of New Yorkers were in the same category.  For those of you that are curious, Colorado actually came in as the leanest state with “only” 18% of their population falling into an obese weight range.

In spite of their reputation as being lovers of unhealthy foods (or, perhaps, because of it) the lawmakers in New York have taken it upon themselves to wage a war against obesity, and their primary targets seem to be soda and restaurant food.  In 2008 the Governor of New York proposed a 15% sales tax on sugary drinks, and a few months later the New York City health commissioner made the case for the same kind of tax to be imposed on a federal level.  New York also ordered all chain restaurants to begin posting calorie counts on their menus and banned the use of trans fats in food production.

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Researchers use XBox 360 to fight heart disease

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BizarroGoodbye.  Me am Bizarro Mike.  Me am writing post from Bizarro world.  Here on Bizarro world things am different from world you live on.  On Bizarro world cigarette smoking am good for you and help fight cancer.  On Bizarro world kids am loving vegetables and cry if you am making them eat candy.  On Bizzaro world XBox 360 am revolutionary machine used to fight heart disease.

What you mean that not only happen on Bizarro world??

Ok, Real Mike here.  I hate to burst Bizarro Mike’s bubble, but I was afraid that if I didn’t take over the article soon I’d hear the sound of my editor’s head exploding in a fit of utter and complete apoplexy.  The fact of the matter is, though, that a scientist in England has come up with a way to use the XBox 360 to detect heart defects.

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The recession is a good thing!

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charlie_chaplinThe economic recession that has crippled the world economy for the last few years is, according to Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, “likely” to be over.  We won’t know for sure until well after the fact, but the indicators are currently pointing towards a growth in our Gross Domestic Product.  Unfortunately for those of us who don’t have lots of money in the stock market, the unemployment rate is going to remain high for a long time – possibly years.  Unemployment is always a “lagging factor” during a recovery and is the last economic indicator to show improvement.  This time around they don’t think the unemployment rate is going to come back quickly at all, so those of us who are out of work or stuck in a low-paying  job and unable to find anything else are going to be mired down for a while.

I’ve  mentioned before how difficult it is to maintain a healthy diet when you are poor due to the high cost of nutritious food, so imagine my surprise when I read recently that despite the fact that things, in general, tend to suck during an economic downturn the populace on the whole tends to get healthier.

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Shoop da whoop

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Lizzi MillerI’ve said on several occasions that I picked the folks who work for me here at ShrinkGeek because of the fact that they represented a fairly wide range of perspectives on health and fitness.  They also happen to be big geeks, but that’s beside the point.  While we can all pretty much agree that the best way to improve your life is to eat less and exercise when we wander beyond that particular point we start to diverge in our viewpoints on how, exactly, to go about doing so.  On some things we utterly and completely disagree.

Rafe wrote a piece yesterday that falls into that particular category for me.  So much so that I felt the need to address it in a separate post.

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Progress Pictures

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Behind the cut below you’re going to find a whole slew of pictures (and lots and lots of my flesh).  I’m pasting in all the progress pictures I’ve taken over the last few years.

If you don’t want to see me without my shirt on don’t click the link.  Can’t say I’d blame you, really.

Here goes nothing…

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User Queries: It’s good pho you!

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Image courtesy of stu_spivack

Image courtesy of stu_spivack

While there are some great resources out there for this question  (Dotti’s Weight Loss Zone, Weight Watchers, Daily Burn, etc) , none of them have a clear answer on one of my favorites: Pho (Vietnamese noodle soup).  While I am elevating ShrinkGeek to the level of the oracle on Delphi, do any of you guys know? Or – how about just a Boolean: Is it healthy, or not? BTW: I’m talking about restaurant Pho, not the crap in the ramen noodle aisle.

I tried to take the easy way out of this question and defer the answer to Jaden Hair, Tampa Bay area food celebrity and author of The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook.  I follow her on Twitter and am constantly assaulted by posts about the amazing Asian recipes she talks about so I figured if anyone would know it was her.  Sure enough, she has a recipe for Pho on her site that sounds absolutely amazing.  Unfortunately for me when I asked her if she had ever figured out the nutrition information for the recipe she replied that she had not, and that we should all follow the advice of her Mother who so wisely said “Just eat!  It good for you!”

Which, I suppose, answers the second part of the question.  So much for this being an easy assignment.

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You’re never far from the golden arches

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Image courtesy of bryangeek

Image courtesy of bryangeek

One of the biggest challenges that we face in the modern era when it comes to having a balanced diet is that cheap, unhealthy food is considerably easier to get than the healthier alternatives.  Low-calorie, low-fat,  and nutritious food is frustratingly expensive when compared to the dollar menu at your local fast food chain, and if you’re dieting on a budget those pennies can add up quickly.   What’s worse is that when you are really hungry it sure seems like it’s a heck of a lot easier to run for the border than actually go through the effort of cooking something that is good for you.

Well, it turns out that perception may not be too terribly far from reality in America.  Unless, that is, you literally live in the middle of nowhere.

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The world gets smaller

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I remember when the internet was still new and shiny.  Back then if you were one of the folks who actually had a computer and, on top of that, the “luxury” of an internet connection you could pick a handle to be known by and spout off whatever you wanted to online without fear of the people in your “real life” finding what you said.  Oh, sure…it happened on occasion.  I’ll bet most of us who were around back in those days had at least one uncomfortable moment where we were confronted with the person who we had slagged up one side and down the other on Live Journal.  There’s nothing quite like that sinking, horrible feeling you get in the pit of your stomach the first time someone says “I read something about me on your blog” when you didn’t know the person in question even could even figure out how to turn a computer ON.  On the whole, though, the internet was a vast anonymous playground in those days.  The people who knew you in meat space were likely in your social circle and could generally be counted on to be trusted confidants.  You could talk about anything you wanted to, and we did.  Oh did we.  We talked about our sexual conquests.  We talked about how insane our families made us.  We talked about our jobs, and what we really thought about them.  We talked about our secret dreams.  We talked about recreational drug use.

We swore a lot, too.

Those days are over.

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Freedom of religion and expression

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There’s a guy who hangs out in Ybor City on the weekends that stands in the middle of crowded night clubs preaching about Jesus.  At least, there used to be.  I really haven’t been clubbing in a long time so I couldn’t say whether or not he’s still doing it, but to be honest I kind of hope he is.  You see, I kind of admire this guy.  I think he’s a little crazy, of course, and I know he’s made some friends of mine uncomfortable on more than one occasion, but really…you have to kind of give it up for a man who willingly puts himself into what is almost certainly going to be an uncomfortable situation because he believes that doing so will help him save someone’s immortal soul.

There’s another reason why I like this guy, though.

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