Following the Body For Life principles we get used to counting “portions” of food which is so “freeing” and makes life so easy when it comes to losing weight.

The results on this site have shown that adopting the Body For Life way of eating 5 to 6 small, nutritious meals a day consisting of a portion of protein and a portion of carbohydrate in combination with plenty of water has allowed me to lose an average of 2lbs every week while exercising well, and to maintain my weight while only exercising sporadically.

So we know it works for weight loss and is just so easy you don’t have to think about it after a few weeks.

But equally two things have got me thinking recently…

1) Could my lack of muscle growth during the challenge have had as much to do with unsufficient calorie intake as much as my exercise regime? I’m not naturally a very muscly person which means my body type is the “thin” type that finds it easy to lose weight but hard to put on muscle (this, as we have seen, has been the case). In these cases, increasing intake of food can increase results.

2) Apparently, the more fat you have to lose, the easier it is. The less you have, the harder it becomes and shifting the last few pounds can be a real struggle. Bearing in mind I only have 10lbs to go I assume these will count as the “last few pounds” and are likely to be harder to lose than all the weight I lost last year.

So out of interest I am going to be keeping a record of the calories I consume over the next few days then comparing them with suggestions for what I *should* be eating to see how the two match up.

According to Tom Venuto, the fitness trainer and author, the most accurate method of working out your calorie requirement on a daily basis is the Katch-McArdle formula.

It is deduced using the following formula:

370 + (21.6 x lean mass in kg)

For me this would equal:

370 + (21.6 x 51.85) = 1,490 = BMR

Then we just multiply the BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) by a factor depending on activity level which for me should be in the “lightly active” to “moderately active” groups.

So my calorie requirement is between:

1,490 x 1.375 and

1,490 x 1.55

In other words I need between 2,049 and 2,310 calories per day.

It’ll be interesting to see how my average diet matches up to this requirement…

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