I hope everyone stuck with the 30 Day Challenge over our long Columbus Day Weekend! My mom (she’s a personal trainer) made sure I was doing everything in perfect form- it was brutal! Remember to break the daily amounts into manageable sets so you can focus on your form instead of how tired you are. My roommates and I are doing these sets this week:
Everything BMR
While I was home this weekend, I talked with my mom about my fitness column; she had a million and one suggestions for different topics for articles. As a former nurse now personal trainer/spin class instructor/avid I-spend-three-hours-there-everyday gym rat, she knows her stuff about health and fitness. So, with her help, this week I’m here to tell you all about your BMR.
BMR stands for Basal Metabolic Rate, which is how many calories are burned if you lay in bed all day. As a 5’5” 19 year old girl who would love to stay in bed all day, I burn over 1,435 calories each day! Once I found my BMR, I used this to calculate my daily caloric needs. Since we live on the hilly Bentley campus, I estimated that just walking to class puts me at ‘lightly active,’ so I multiplied 1435 by 1.375 to get 1,973 calories as my suggested calorie intake.
I’ve used apps like MyFitnessPal before, which lets you easily calculate how many calories you’ve eaten each day. It’s good to be aware of how many calories you’re consuming to ensure that you’re living a healthy lifestyle. If I were a ‘very active’ person, I would multiple 1.725, meaning I would need to consume 2,475 calories each day!
In addition to whatever calories you calculated that you need to survive, be sure to factor in whatever workouts you’ve done for the day! If you’re using MapMyRun, you can log your 30 Day Challenge workouts to determine how many calories you burned. Both MapMyRun and MyFitnessPal can estimate based on your Couch to 5K workouts or any other cardio you do. More calories burned means more calories you need to consume!
Congrats on being halfway done with your 30 Day Challenge and one week into the C25K! Comment your progress below, and stay tuned for more fitness tips next Tuesday!