It's A Numbers Game

Weight loss. It's just a numbers game. Calories in. calories out. If you have more calories coming in than out, you gain weight (and vice versa). And as the saying goes, "Weight is just a number."

Considering this, I wanted to see what the numbers look like in my own personal weight loss numbers game.

Let me break it down:

My current weight is 220 lbs.
My current body fat percentage is 25% (according to my bathroom scale; who knows how accurate that is?).
That means that 55 lbs are fat (kinda gross) and my Lean Body Mass (LBM) is 165 lbs.

Now, if a healthy body fat percentage for a guy in his twenties is 13 –18% that means that I need to reduce my body fat percentage by a minimum of 7%.

Taking into account my LBM, if I were at 18% body fat I would weigh 200-202 lbs (35-37 of them fat). If I were at 13% body fat I would weigh 190 lbs (25 of which would be fat).

Now, I honestly believe that my “ideal” is 15% (a weight of 195 lbs, 30 lbs Of fat) and that is what I am going to shoot for. This of course means that I have 25 lbs to lose still. That sounds a bit daunting. However, I can do this shit. I am so ready to make it happen.

The thing about the body fat percentage is that is based on the ratio of fat and LBM. The numbers I have listed above are based on my current LBM and if I continue to work out like I am and increasing my lean muscle mass those numbers will obviously change. Though, either way I think that 25 lbs is a good goal to set.

My original goal of reaching 205 lbs by August 15th still stands. Then shed those last 10 hopefully by October, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.
Continuing on with the numbers game I wanted to figure out just how many calories I need to burn to get rid of those 25 lbs.

Here’s the breakdown:

1 lb is the equivalent of 3,500 calories.
I have 25 extra pounds to get rid of.
That means I need to burn 87,500 calories! Holy shit!

But to put that into perspective, since I started this blog I have lost 28 lbs (98,000 calories). And since I started this process many years ago, when I weighed over 300 lbs, I have burned upwards of 350,000 extra calories. That makes the final stretch of this long journey seem like a drop in the bucket.

If I continue to work hard like I have been, both diet and exercise wise, and maintain a minimum of a 5,250-calorie deficit at the end of each week, I will lose 1.5 lbs each week and totally meet my August 15th goal.

-FQ