i30×5 Nutrition

Weight Management

Let’s keep this real simple… if you want to lose weight simply eat less calories than you burn. If you want to gain weight, eat more calories than you burn. If you want to maintain your weight, eat the same amount of calories that you burn. Yes, it is that simple.

Let’s talk a little more about weight loss. Most “dieters” jump on the scale and look for their daily or weekly weight loss. However, is that really a good indicator? What is more important is your body fat percentage. For instance, if 2 people of the same height weigh in at 200 lbs, but one of them is at 20% body, while the other is at 15%, the one with the lower amount would look leaner and more “cut”, not to mention much more fit. So as you get close to your goal weight start using body fat measurements more and the scale less. For those looking for abs, you will probably begin seeing them around 10% to 12% body fat.

A good healthy ratio calories should consist of 40% protein, 40% carbs and 20% fat. I personally don’t recommend low carb diets for active people. If you are exercising or training with intensity, you need good quality carbs. They provide the fuel your body needs to get through those workouts. Low carb diets are for sedentary folks.

Figure out you caloric requirements

So the first thing you need to do is figure out how many calories your body requires. You can get a pretty good idea by getting your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate and adding the amount of calories you expend beyond that. Basically BMR is the number of calories you would burn if say, you laid in bed all day long. To get an accurate figure would require a lab. However, you can get a pretty good estimate using a simple equation. To find out how many calories you body burns at rest (Basal Metabolic Rate – BMR) do the following…

BMR Formula

Using pounds and inches...

  • Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) – (4.7 x age in years)
  • Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) – (6.8 x age in years)

Using metric measurements…

  • Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilos) + (1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in years)
  • Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kilos) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in years)

Ok, now that you have the formula to calculate your BMR or resting caloric burn we need to figure out how many more calories we burn for any added activity. We will use the Harris Benedict formula.

  • If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
  • If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
  • If you are moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
  • If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
  • If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9
Example

Ok, so let’s figure out John Doe’s total caloric requirements. Joe, 35 years old, is a 6 ft, 175 pound male. While Joe has a desk job he works out regularly using i30×5.

So using the BMR formula we get this…

Step 1 – Get Joe’s BMR
66 + ( 6.23 x 175 lbs ) + ( 12.7 x 72 inches ) – ( 6.8 x 35 years old) Simplified… 66 + 1090.25 +914.4 – 238 = 1832.65 BMR = 2308.65
Step 2 – Add Joe’s activity level to his BMR

According the Harris Benedict formula (see above), Joe’s activity factor is 1.725 (i30×5 is an intense 6 day a week workout program). So… 2308.65 x 1.725 = 3161.3 Joe burns over 3000 calories a day!  So if Joe wants to lose weight, he could reduce his caloric intake by about 500. So he could eat around 2661 calories a day. Over a period of 7 days he could shave 3500 calories (7 x 500). That is roughly a pound a week.