The mystery deepens (RMR testing results)

Last night I had my Resting Metabolic Rate tested. I've been really interested in having this done because I typically track what I eat pretty carefully and I'm always trying to figure out what that magic number is for me - how much should I eat? how little?

RMR gives you a reading that is supposed to tell you what your metabolism uses at rest, or what you burn simply sitting around, doing nothing.

I figured mine would be pretty low. It came in at 1714, which I'm sure sounds pretty darn good, but keep in mind that it is currently artificially inflated by the fact that I'm pregnant. The general information I've been able to find seems to indicate that you burn about 300 extra calories per day during the last 6 months of pregnancy. So, that would bring me to am RMR of about 1414. Let's round down to 1400 to account for any margin of error (although I think the testing has a possible margin of error up to 10%, so it could possibly be from 1272 to 1555!)

Now, I don't have the rest of my numbers yet (estimate of what I burn by going about my day-to-day business, etc), but I'm supposed to receive those later today.

Here's my mystery: I try to eat 1300-1400 calories a day. I am moderatly active at work. I rarely make it to the gym these days, so I take the stairs at work instead. I try to do 20 floors (up stairs) per day, which burns (in theory) around 200 calories. When I'm at home, I rarely get the chance to sit down between playing with my almost 3 year old, cleaning, cooking, etc. I get to watch maybe an hour of TV a week. On the weekends we do things like go to a park, go to the zoo, etc. We stay active. I am supposedly burning more fuel than I'm taking in, even if I go with the low estimate of 1272 (rmr) + 200 (exercise) = 1472.

SO WHY DON'T I LOSE WEIGHT???? STUPID MATH!!!!

I've been doing a LOT of reading lately as part of a bariatric counseling certification I'm pursuing, and there seems to be quite a lot of information appearing that is challenging our old notions of the key to weight loss being a simple equation: eat fewer calories than you burn and you will lose weight. Apparently, I am living proof. I think that math worked for me for a while, until I reached a weight at which my body decided that it wasn't going to be so simple anymore.
So, for now, I'm trying to focus less on the calories than I am on WHAT I actually eat - aiming to keep my insulin lower and more consistent throughout the day. We'll see how that goes! So far, it seems to have halted my pregnancy weight gain or at least slowed it a LOT.

Is it any wonder that SO MANY of us have a hard time reaching "goal" or losing everything we want to lose, when our bodies make it so complicated?

Dev how do they do this test and is it expensive ? I would love to know what mine is. I can eat 1000 to 1300 calories a week and not lose a single pound. No matter how well I eat, how little I eat I just wont lose. I have always been that way so I knew getting the band it wouldnt help in that dept. I just needed help with portion control which the band does do its job there .

Does it take a special doc to do this ?

I found someone in my area who does it by visiting the website for the manufacturer of the machine. It's pretty easy and it just takes about 10 minutes. The person I went to charges $50.

There are several manufacturers, but this is the one I found: http://www.korr.com/support/finder.php

Check out www.myfitnesspal.com there are a bunch of posts over there with links to sites to figure out your metabolic rate.

It is a free site and has a good community and a good food journal, too, if you want one.

Well, I recently joined My Fitness Pal on line and there are posts all the time that encourage eating 30%above your numbers to lose.

If your body needs 1400-1700 to do NOTHING, and you are up and moving part of the day, you have to eat to lose.

I wish I had the answers .... I think your approach is great ... Focus on the macro nutrients and keeping your sugars consistent and less about the calories.

Congrats, again on the pregnancy ...can't wait to hear about the happy and healthy delivery!!!!

Kath,

I love my fitness pal I use it all the time. I can use it on my IPhone also which is very handy when I'm not at home.

They are saying for me to lose 2 pounds per week with exercise 3 times a week at 60 min I need to around 1600 calories per day .

219 carbs per day also. I never hit that high.  I eat alot of fruit and veggies and we know those have carbs in it.  When I eat things like that I dont pay no mind to my carbs because I'm eating good carbs.  When I eat my bad food is when I really pay attention to my carbs .

Shoot I even started to scale my foods out. I went and bought a really nice scale and I measure everything out now .  If the serving size says two oz that is what I measure out lol.

Yeah, it told me about 1600 as well, but when I eat that much, I gain!

Can you tell me more about the bariatric counseling certification? Is it through the ASMBS? Thanks!

Also, I wonder how much does your pregnancy have to do with it? With hormones and body changes going on I could see that stuff messing up with the "math".

Karen

The certification is through the AABC: http://www.aabc-certification.org/
I have an LMSW and I work in healthcare already, so I think it could be a useful certification for me.

The "math" problems pre-date my pegnancy. I just decided I really wanted to have RMR testing and get a clearer idea of my numbers. Since it would also be affected by breastfeeding, my rationale was to do it now since I think the calories burned during pregnancy might be more consistent than what is burned during breastfeeding. I might have it done again once I'm done with breastfeeding, just to see what the difference is.

thanks for the info. I will look into it.

This weight loss stuff is soo tricky and our bodies are definetly designed for survival-to hold to weight. Good luck with your labor, delivery and recovery. I heard years ago that RoseAnn Barr (Arnold and now who knows what) lost alot of weight when she was breast feeding because of the extra calories you expend. I don't think that was a good weigh to loose weight.

Also, thanks for the ticker tracking the baby's development its been cool to see over the months.