Friday, June 13, 2014

It's a Math Problem!



We're on week 8 of our University training so I thought it was about time we did a little math!  This week was focused on exercise and weight loss...the math problem! 
Here's a little re-cap of yesterdays class room time at HWU!

If you are an inactive person who weighs 200 pounds, every nutritional label in America is written for you! If not...they aren't!

Being highly effective people, we began with the end in mind, in this case goal weight. Each one of us  wrote down our ideal maintenance weight and then calculated our approximate calorie intake for that weight based on this chart.

Multiply your ideal maintenance weight by:

10 if you are inactive (sitting most of the day, no regular physical exercise)

11 if you are moderately active (sitting most of the day but do engage in physical exercise regularly or at least 3 to 4 times per week for 1/2 hour or more)

12 if you are active (standing and/ or walking most of the day and engage in regular physical exercise)

13 if you are very active (walking or involved in strenuous physical labor most of the day and engage in regular physical exercise)

That number is your approximate total calories to maintain your goal weight.

Now I know that there are many more complicated ways to estimate and discover your appropriate calorie intake for your goal weight...the truth is, you will find the same answer at the end of every story problem. I've done them!

So, you've done the math??? What's your number???

We have men in our Healthy Weigh family. Only a couple of them will be able to eat 2000 calories to maintain their weight. Everyone else in the room ranged from 1250 calories to 1800. So why does every nutritional label in America say..."Based on a 2000 diet."? Good question! The only people that can and should be eating 2000 calories per day are men weighing close to 200 pounds, or a woman who weighs 155 and works in a job performing physical labor all day and then drops by the club to work out on the way home!

I've spent over 30 years helping people lose weight. I am proud to say that I administer one of the greatest weight loss programs available any where...but losing weight has never been the hard part. People knuckle down, eat less, move more, and then lose weight.

Keeping if off for life is the struggle. I believe that our nutritional labels aren't helping matters. It would make sense that most people in America would believe that they should eat 2000 calories...right? It says that on the back of every food label everywhere!!!

I read an article the other day in search of an answer to this problem. It said that 2000 calories per day was used as a standard because that is how many calories it would take to maintain the average American. Wow, how sad is that? What if our labels said "Based on a 1500 calorie diet?" What would the average American look like then?

I hope everyone left yesterday with a little bit more knowledge about math and weight loss.  The key is to take that knowledge, then wrestle and grapple with the facts.  We need less calories to maintain our weight!  We when come to terms with that fact, and start living it out, we'll find not only our goal weight, but contentment too!

Our winning teams for the day were excited to take home some cash for groceries! 
Noon: Team "Lido Shuffle" Chris and Linda won with a 2.51% of weight loss!
6:00 PM : Team "Low Mtx" Chris and Angela, finally won with a 1.76 % for the week!
Congrats to all of you who are working so hard!! 

We had big winners of the week who took home $50 gift cards and passes to the Nike Employee Store! Congratulations to Sue H. and Olivia N. who had the greatest individual weight loss % this week. You two are going to have fun getting a new pair of running shoes!!  Thanks again to Dave T. for the great donation!

I made my announcement about the summer Team Challenge!  We will be re-visiting one of the greatest challenges so far! "The Travelers Gift."  I'm excited to present this challenge again after many requests to do so!  We will be starting our Summer Challenge July 17th!  Get the word out!!  The Travelers Gift is coming back!!

We've got two weeks to go in this Spring challenge and lots more weight to lose!  Hopefully the new information on our math problem will inspire everyone to be even more careful this week!  Here's to a couple of great weeks ahead with some awesome weight loss!

Always encouraging you,
Letha



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