Wednesday, December 15, 2010

Does Not Compute

Through the magic of Fitbit, I now have a couple of weeks of data to review to see how I'm doing. Of course, I'm not doing spectacularly, as mentioned previously, but I just wanted to go on record as saying, I'm not doing THAT badly either.

I still dutifully record my calories most days on SparkPeople, including the cookies and other Christmas treats that I've consumed. I have made an amazing* discovery. You know that whole "calories in/calories out" rubric that the experts like to throw at us? It's just not true.

Since I started recording with my Fitbit, I've averaged a daily caloric burn of 2441 calories. My daily average caloric intake is 1612 calories. I just did a little figuring, and if 3500 calories is a pound, by the magic of calories in/calories out I should have lost 3 pounds in the last 2 weeks. 3.2 pounds., actually.

Instead, I weigh exactly what I did when I got the Fitbit. I'm really becoming a believer in the truth that it's so much more complicated than just calories in/calories out.

Also, I bought a Greek yogurt at Starbuck's this morning and the teeny tiny girl in front of me bought a gingerbread latte and a great big Morning Bun. Unless that's all she's eating today or she's bulimic (which I fully realize are possible), I think that the difference in our sizes (in that I am about 6 inches taller and 120 pounds heavier than her) may be based on more than just calories.

*heavy sarcasm

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Yeah, I hear you. The mathematician in me wants to believe that a calorie deficit = weight loss, but experiments have definitely disproved this over the years. And then there's the case of my friend's two daughters, who eat the same foods and do the same activities, and one is stick-skinny, whereas the other is chubby. Stupid genetics.

Kelly said...

My dream is that all of our children inherit Jason's father's and siblings' metabolism.