The medical, health, and fitness communities rely on data to determine a person’s peak health and optimal weight. To make things easier to find, we highlighted some of the most essential tools and formulas and pointed you to resources for digging deeper.

That said, anyone who’s spent time in health and fitness knows that trends come and go. Further, these tools and formulas focus on large populations, not always matching an individual’s goals. New theories, tools, and approaches constantly emerge, so we must continually revisit and refine what we know.

Disclaimer

Before diving in, here are the axioms that drive our statement that each tool is a single lens on where you are in meeting your goals, not who you are. 

• Each human being is a different living, breathing organism. 
• Every health organization and government must try to set standards that are the broadest for all people. 

Also, we aren’t here to judge these openly. We aim to discuss what each is attempting to ascertain, how it tracks it, and how it provides insight into your personal goals. Now on to the tools!

Body Mass and Composition

So, like us, you are curious and want to understand your body weight and makeup. These tools help answer questions like “Am I heavy for my size?” or “How much of my weight is muscle, fat, or bone?” They do this by measuring parts of your body and comparing them.

• BMI or Body Mass Index Calculator: A calculator for adults to gauge if they are over-/or underweight. 

• Skin Fold Test: This test uses calipers to measure specific skin folds to determine a person’s muscle-to-fat ratio.

• WHR or Waist to Hip Ratio Test: Another body composition test that relies on a difference in the circumference of someone’s waist relative to their hips. 

• Dunk or Hydrostatic Weighing Test: This test uses your buoyancy to determine your body composition. It uses Archimedes’ principle to make its determination.   

Calorie Intake and Consumption

• BMR or Base Metabolic Rate: A calculator that estimates the total number of calories your body burns daily at rest. Rest means eating, sleeping, and performing normal respiration and blood pumping. 

• TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure: This formula is roughly BMR with activity added. That being said, activity is also not a standard because it is based on you and your current state of conditioning or fitness. 

• DRI or Daily Required Intake: DRI is BMR calories broken down into fats, proteins, carbohydrates, macronutrients, etc., according to the USDA MyPlate.gov standard. 

But Wait, There’s More!

We didn’t get into activity calculations, such as the RPE (Rate or Perceived Energy) Scale for perceived exertion, nor Bone Density scans, such as DEXA (sometimes called DXA), to determine body composition. Why? We wanted to focus on those most available to the average person just looking for basic guidance, like we were. 

An Important Point To Note

Remember that post on serving size we wrote? Yes, take a look at your BMR and TDEE. You may find that you are not what the USDA terms the ‘average’ person who needs x calories daily. This is where most problems with weight management start for people. Once you have done some research, you will find your number.

Wrapping Up;

This post collects a variety of tools commonly used to guide weight and health management. Each can be helpful, but each has pros and cons. We aren’t here to decide what’s right for you, but if you choose to use them, remember to research them. None of these tools is an authority on you unless you fall into the exact ‘average’ they are targeting. Instead, see them as valuable tools, helping you shape and refine your approach to your goals.

The post The Truth About Fitness Calculators first appeared on Simplified Living Lab.

When you change your activity levels you change the amount of calories your body needs. Based on your goals, you need to adjust your intake accordingly. The goal of this post is to help you understand the impact of your activity levels on your goals.

Making it Personal

If you have gone through the BMR exercise in this previous post you know physical activity impacts how many calories you need. The more active you are, the more calories you burn. When first distilling this for our own needs, much of what we found was maddeningly unhelpful information.  

I like going to the gym and lifting weights. For me, it is a stress release. It is also a lifestyle choice because I want to be able to do certain things. If I have to move a 60 lb bag or concrete, I don’t want to have to call someone. It gives me independence. This has a direct impact on my weight and my calorie needs.

I can’t stand going to the gym and walking or running on a treadmill. I do it because I have to. My partner loves running on a treadmill or outside. That is her stress release. She can outrun me and doesn’t become as winded as easily. This activity has a direct impact on her calorie needs. Though she does it, she doesn’t enjoy lifting heavy weights. She can’t carry a 60 lb bag of concrete very far.

Different People, Goals, and Abilities

 Different people, different activities, different impacts on burning calories. We also have different goals and outcomes we want for our specific lifestyles. This is not a post on weightlifting or cardiovascular care so we won’t go into that. We also recognize that both are important in holistic health. Our point is simply both are activities and both impact calories needed and therefore our weight management plans.

Activity isn’t necessarily tied to a gym. Activity can be in multiple forms such as climbing stairs or mowing the lawn. This is what we read when trying to analyze our personal activity levels for the BMR and that makes sense. What we found missing in those explanations was the personalization. 

If you lead a sedentary lifestyle and you climb 2 flights of stairs, you may be winded. A person who runs all the time may be able to climb 50 flights of stairs and not feel winded. Let’s now add one person who is shorter than the other with a smaller step. Do they both get the same physical activity from walking up those steps? 

This is the main issue; we are not all the same. What is a hard activity for one person is not the same as another. This is another reason why people can fail at managing weight; lack of information specific to them. Here is an example of what we find. It gives information for someone who’s 154 lbs. I am not 154 lbs and I don’t want to be. If I was, I doubt I would be able to carry my concrete very far! I was there once and had no muscle structure!  

Ways to Define Activity

We like the definition given here on activity level that takes into account heart rate and breathing. That is for a later post. For those starting, the talk test provides very initial ideas about what moderate and vigorous activity is. It also will give you some idea of what others see as moderate and vigorous activity. This will help give you some guidelines as to how your weight management plan is affected by your activity levels. 

Understanding what activity is to you based on your current abilities is an important piece. It will change as your body changes. You can change it as your goals change. By knowing what it means you can now do an apples-to-apples comparison for what it means to others, This allows you to make a more informed decision about how many calories you need based on BMR. 

This post gives you another tool in your weight management toolbox. You can define what you need to meet your weight management goals. You know what you need without activity and you know the impact of activity on the calories you need. The problem is becoming definable.

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