Simple Math of Weight Loss

Whatever the weight loss regime you follow it is essential to know your body before you start. There are two ways to learn your body. The basic way is to fix an appointment with your doctor and he will take care of everything. But if you are not lazy enough to do some simple calculations you can easily know which sort of weight loss regime is apt for you. However, if you have any major health risks it is essential to take physicians suggestion. The following are some simple calculations that come in handy for your weight loss regime.

Calculation of Body Mass Index

BMI serves as an index for your obesity. A weight loss measure that best suits your body is decided based on BMI.

Here’s the formula to calculate BMI

BMI= [weight / (height x height)] x703 with weight and height in pounds and inches.

A BMI in the range of 25-30 is considered as overweight.

The BMI of 30-35 is considered as moderately overweight and attention has to be paid to avoid major health risks.

BMI of 35-40 means that you are at high risk and immediate care has to be taken about your body weight. Strict measures have to be implemented to lose weight.

Calculation of Target Heart Rate

Target heart rate determines the extent of calories burnt while doing exercises. Make sure that your heart rate reaches the target heart rate while exercising to lose weight effectively. Target heart rate is generally 60-70 percent higher than normal heart rate. It is suggested to carry out the workouts early in the morning with empty stomach to force reserve calories to burn.

Calculating target heart rate involves multitude of steps. These steps are made simple and presented here for you.

First, calculate your heart rate early in the morning when you get up. Do this for three successive days and the average of this will be your resting heart rate.

Next, calculate your maximum heart rate by subtracting your age from 220. Then calculate your heart rate reserve by subtracting resting heart rate from maximum heart rate.

Now calculate the upper limit and lower limit of your target heart rate (THR) using the below formulas.
Lower limit of THR= (heart rate reserve*0.6) + resting heart rate.
Upper limit of THR= (heart rate reserve*0.8) + resting heart rate.
Now your target heart rate is the average of upper limit and lower limits.

Note of caution is to stop your workouts if you are exhausted. Do not try to attain the target heart rate.

Calculation of calorie requirement

Before you plan for a weight loss regime it is essential to know the calorie requirement of your body.  Various factors like age, sex, height, and weight and activity level are to be considered while calculating the calorie requirement. Individuals with low activity level burn less number of calories compared to others with higher activity level and same age, sex, height and weight.

One easy and simple way to calculate calorie requirement that takes into account all the above factors is by multiplying the BMR with an activity factor that depends on the daily activity.