Interesting day today. I found out by going to the nutritionist at Evans Army Community Hospital that Fort Carson has a KORR metabolic test machine at the wellness center. So, for free, I could take a 10-20 minute test and determine my actual basal (resting) metabolic rate. In other words, I could determine how many calories I burn in a day if were just laying on my back. This is important to me because now that I have lost most of the weight I wanted to lose, I need to make sure I am eating enough calories to work hard during hard workouts and recover well.
It took me a while to find the building, but I made it about 15 minutes ahead of my appointment. The physiologist took me to a room and sat me in a comfortable recliner and asked me for some information. I weighed in at 194 which was about 4 pounds higher than my Tanita Ironman scale that morning. But because I had clothes on and had eaten and drunk water 2-3 hours before my appointment, I figured this was close. After the weigh, she took my age, sex, height, weight, and goal weight (182 lbs.) She then directed me to close my eyes and relax for 10 minutes.
As I did this, I tried to focus on clearing my always racing mind of distracted thoughts about everything I should be doing or need to do better. If I had read Steve Jobs, before this test, I might have tried to learn my Zen, but I hadn't so I just tried to remember the beach and hear the waves. After about ten minutes the physiologist came back and sat down at the KORR machine.
She told me that the test would take from ten to twenty minutes depending on how much air expelled from my lungs was reaching the machine. The KORR works by measuring the oxygen consumed by your body between and inhale and exhale. The amount of oxygen used is closely correlated with the number of calories that were burnt during the cycle.
She then handed me a giant blue nose clip and I stuck the breathing tube in my mouth. I have had serious surgery on my nose so that I could breathe and get rid of sleep apnea in the past. My deviated septum was described by the surgeon as, "like and accordion," after he told me he did the best he could. Even after the surgery I have a major blockage in the right nostril. But I digress. Needless to say I was even less excited than I already was once I put it on my nose. It was uncomfortable as hell.
Luckily I was done in 10 minutes on the NOSE and my results printed.
My resting energy expenditure was 2,462 calories, 26% faster than the average for my age and build. I had been using a planning figure from www.loseit.com of 2145 to lose the last 11 pounds I lost. So this was good news, that underestimate is probably the only reason I made it through Thanksgiving and Mexico without putting back on all of the weight.
It said that my life style activity usage was 738 calories and then gave me a random exercise burn rate. I am sure that the 738 is super high, she probably entered me at the highest level of activity because I am an Infantry Soldier, but in reality I sit at a desk all day unless I am training, so I am throwing that out the window. And for the exercise, I will continue to add what my HR Monitor tells me I burnt during a workout to www.loseit.com to determine how much more than the 2462 calories I am initially allotted I can, and should eat. If I am losing more than half a pound a week I will add 100 calories at a time until I hit it on the nose.
The test predicted I will hit my goal of 182 lbs in 5 weeks. We shall see.
I left there feeling good about things and then realized it was 11 or so degrees outside with 20 mph winds from the North. I was supposed to do a tempo run and because I had missed some key workouts I tried. It was MISERABLE. Every time I hit the far side of the track I felt like I was running into the wind on the top deck of a cruise ship. I was running each 400m interval at 2:03-2:09, about 10 seconds slower per lap than the last time I did the same workout. That will certainly not be a benchmark test, but it was good mental toughness training. I should have hit the dreadmill.
www.korr.com
www.tanita.com
www.loseit.com
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