Healthy Body Calculator® FAQs

The reason there is a max on protein is that current nutrition practice does not endorse high protein intake for any reason. The Healthy Body Calculator® uses algorithms used in current nutrition practice and standards established by medical research.

While high protein diets temporarily result in weight loss, they usually don’t maintain long term loss. In fact, the yoyo effect of quick weight loss of low carbohydrate diets often results in re-gain once a person goes off a high protein diet and resumes their normal eating habits.

Carbohydrates you eat attract water in your body. When you store carbs as glycogen in muscle, carbs bring water into muscles. So, when you deplete stored muscle glycogen, you lose water. When you start eating carbs again, weight gain results from your muscles re-hydrating

More than likely, you overestimated your activity level. Another factor is your current weight. The more a person weighs, the more calories are needed to maintain that weight. So, to lose weight, you might not have to eat a really low-calorie level.

I agree that 3600 calories seem high for weight loss for a person of your height. Go back and adjust your activity level. You can also reply with your stats to me so I can verify your results.

More than likely your ISP (Internet Service Provider) has tried to cache my pages. Since the Healthy Body Calculator® is an online program, it has to run on my server. So, I would suggest you click on “reload” in your browser window. If that doesn’t do anything, I would suggest you contact your ISP. I just tried it and is it working fine.

I just tried the Healthy Body Calculator® using your data and the results said you were underweight at 60 pounds with a healthy body weight of 140 to 127 pounds. Please try again and if you get the same results, reply with all the data you entered.

No 60 pounds is not a healthy weight other than for a much younger small child.

As you gain weight, your body adds muscle and fat to provide increased organ size and muscles to nourish larger demands and provide mobility for your increased weight. It would be like changing the body of your car to a Cadillac and keeping a Volkswagen engine. The smaller engine just couldn’t keep up with the larger body. So, organs and muscles increase in size due to the increased demand of body weight.

There is no “ideal weight”. What is ideal when talking about an infinitely variable human being? Body weight depends on a lot of factors. Don’t beat yourself up over your weight. The Healthy Body Calculator® is an estimate of your healthy body weight using scientific formulas and criteria you enter.

First thing I would suggest is exercise. Get moving. Exercise increases your metabolism for up to 15 hours afterwards and as you note helpful in reducing depression. Aim for 30 – 60 minutes of exercise 3 to 5 days a week. Get your kids and husband involved in your exercise routine as it provides quality time together and model for a healthy lifestyle for your children.

Why are you opposed to anti-depressants? Perhaps you should visit a psychiatrist and talk about how you feel? I am not big on pushing pills either, but you may need something to get you over the slump you are in. A psychiatrist can prescribe anti-depressants, but only after talking to you. Most anti-depressants don’t cause weight gain. Lithium used in the treatment of bipolar disease (manic depression) can though.

Depression is not caused by poor diet or even anything you eat. Carbohydrates can increase the endorphins (feel good chemicals) in the brain. So perhaps you feel better after eating carbos. At this time, we don’t know if certain foods can prevent depression other than the effect carbohydrates and chocolate have on increasing brain endorphins.

Depression does not cause your body to store fat or effect your metabolism. However, some people eat more when depressed and that could contribute to weight gain. Also, some people have a difficult time getting out of bed or out of the house when depressed which would reduce exercise and result in weight gain.

You are a good person who deserves a good life. Go talk to someone who can support you through this difficult time. No one expects you to do it alone and don’t take on too many things at once. First deal with your depression then with your weight.

As to your diet, you should not have to make different meals for your family and yourself. You can eat anything in moderation. The obvious is to reduce fats and eliminate sweets or desserts. I would suggest you eat more at breakfast as I found in my practice, people who don’t eat breakfast eat more at night. Add protein like an egg or low-fat cheese to your breakfast. Also, your diet is low in fruits and vegetables based on your info below. Aim for 5 fruits and vegetables each day.

I understand.

Your concern about your weight should be balanced against treatment for your bone symptoms. You should discuss with doctor the impact any weight loss would have. If you gained weight, it could reduce your ability to get around. If you lost weight, it could make your bones more fragile.

First you need your doctor’s approval for weight loss and then eat a bit less (1 teaspoon) than your typical serving size. Aim for 45 calories less per day which is about 1 teaspoon of margarine or 1 tablespoon salad dressing less than you usually eat. At your weight, it won’t take a lot of calories to maintain your weight, maybe around 850 to 950 calories so I would not suggest any drastic reduction in calories. Your weight loss will be slow, but over time, you should experience some weight loss with no additional weight gain. Make sure you eat a variety of foods from all food groups and don’t eliminate any food group. Ask your doctor about taking a vitamin and mineral supplement.

Also talk to your doctor about what exercises you can do. You may find that a little more of your activities of daily living (dressing, bathing, moving around) will support slow weight loss without increasing your risk of breaking a bone.

Since there are no standards for little people for weight by height, I can’t tell if you are at the appropriate weight for height or not. You should make an appointment with a dietitian in your area who can read your medical chart and visit you in person.

Visitors: Osteogenesis Imperfecta is an inherited collagen disorder that causes fragile bones and 50% experience a hearing loss. The whites of the eyes can appear bluish because the veins in the eyes are more visible. People with Osteogenesis Imperfecta can easily break bones so they have to be very careful.

WHOA, you got me pegged wrong!

The calculator has some built in safeguards because people with anorexia use it. I don’t want them to get the false impression that they can weigh less than 100 pounds no matter what their height or current weight.

Yours is a special case in 2 ways – your height and that you use a chair. I have looked for accurate data for people with spinal cord injuries and people in wheelchairs but have not found any. Further, there are no formulas or tables to use for little people. Sorry, but the calculator won’t give you the data you are looking for. I will continue to look for accurate data for little people and people with spinal cord injuries so that I can make the calculator work for more people. Do you have any information from working with various health professionals?

I am curious as to what data you entered? I can’t reproduce your protein calculation with the data you provided even with the maximum amount of protein allowed at 35%.

Protein powders are not necessary and you can eat enough protein from foods such as meat, fish, poultry, dairy like milk and cheese as well as soybeans, whole grains and vegetables. Fruits and fats contain almost zero protein

You are at a healthy weight for your height. Try the Healthy Body Calculator® by clicking on the link on the upper left of any web page.

The Healthy Body Calculator® only runs on the Internet and is not a PC based program. Furthermore, my company licenses it to companies for their Intranet sites and the algorithms are proprietary.

Sorry that I cannot assist you. Thank you for your comments about the Healthy Body Calculator®.

You are right that 35 to 39 kilos would be way too low for someone of your height and the calculator is designed to prevent that as well as weight loss during pregnancy. Your post pregnancy weight should be around 52.3 kilos.

Moderate is average walking speed or average biking speed. Your heart rate should be in the aerobic range. A simple test is you should have enough oxygen to carry on a conversation without running out of breath.

Depending on your height and weight as well as the activity hours you entered into the calculator, this may be accurate. Perhaps you overestimated your activity?

Not all persons need a 1200 calorie diet. Research has found that quick weight loss diets of > 2 pounds per week are quickly regained.

The amount of fat grams would depend on the nutritional goal you selected for the percent calories from fat.

Try the calculator again and re-think your activities and fat percent goal. The calculator is designed with formulas used in current nutrition research and practice to ensure accuracy but is dependent on user entered data to compute.

The international standard is 25. The U.S. was discussing lowering the cutoff points for obese from 30 down to 25 or 27 but didn’t. So, based on what is current accepted nutrition practice in the US, yes, the BMI part of the Healthy Body Calculator® is correct.

In fact, my Healthy Body Calculator® does consider body builders since I have worked with more than a few, but you need to know your current body fat percent. If you are 24%, then you will still get a healthy weight range of 155 – 189 pounds and a high BMI calculation because 24% is too high for a person 5 feet 11 inches weighing 250 – 260 pounds. Would highly recommend you get tested from someone who is adequately trained and very experienced in body fat testing. Try an exercise physiologist or sports dietitian. There are many flaws to the electrical impedance method, especially dehydration. Read my sports nutrition topic for more info about body fat testing.

BMI is an estimate of body fat and only correlates for average persons, not lean athletes. As long as you continue training and maintain a body fat under the normal range for males, then BMI will not provide you with meaningful results. The problem comes when a body builder or other strength trained athlete like football players, stop training and lose muscle while gaining fat without losing weight. That would be unhealthy and BMI would then be meaningful to an out of training athlete.

With regards to the protein you want in your diet, the calculator can handle that too. One gram of protein per kilogram of body weight (2.2 lbs) is not unreasonable. One gram of protein per pound of body weight may be unless you are eating at least 5000 calories. Do you eat that much? If yes, then 250 grams of protein would be within reason. The current research on strength trained athletes is that at most they need 1.5 grams of protein per kilogram (2.2 pounds) of body weight. At that highest level, the most protein you would need is 170 grams of protein.

Thanks for your feedback, but sorry my algorithms are proprietary. If you were a dietitian, you could use the algorithms familiar to you. Whether or not they worked in practice wouldn’t be important for your college project.

Congratulations on your weight loss and exercise program. Sorry, but computers are literal with their math calculations. I am not offended by your comments and I designed the program so I do control what it says.

One-pound equals 1/8 gallon of water or approximately 16 ounces of water. Depending on when you weigh yourself and your fluid status, one pound is nothing. It is not unusual for the human body to vary 3 – 4 pounds within a day. So, congratulate yourself on your progress and don’t sweat your weight that much.

If you feel good and look good and exercise, then perhaps your body fat is lower than average and more muscle. Have you ever had your body fat tested? If so, the Healthy Body Calculator® will take that measure into consideration when calculating results.

Since you had a body composition analysis done, you should know your percent body fat. The Healthy Body Calculator® is designed for average body fat people, not lean people. If you are lean, I would recommend you include your percent body fat next time you try my calculator. BTW, the Healthy Body Calculator® is based on current nutrition science and practice.

If you would like to read additional information about the validity of body composition analysis methods like electrical impedance, skin fold calipers and underwater weighing, read the sports nutrition topic and search for electrical impedance.

You’re right, the algorithms are proprietary and I do not release them. Furthermore, the program is designed to run on the internet as a script on a smart phone, tablet or PC computer, but understand you could probably do the programming on hand held. I am interested in Psion handhelds and have looked at their website though they are more popular in Europe.

Thanks for your comments.

BMI is an estimate of health risk to chronic diseases like heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke because overweight causes an increased risk. It is based on some assumptions about the human body but BMI only uses height and weight.

The Healthy Body Calculator® is a program that runs on the Internet not your local PC. You are welcome to use the Healthy Body Calculator® as often as you wish, but I do not store your data.

Thanks for your comments.

Check it out yourself on my Healthy Body Calculator®. Click on the calculator link at the top left. You can also include your health goals like weight change or how much fat you want included in your calories.

I have questioned several exercise machine companies (Nautilus, Universal and Nordic Trak) on how they determine calories burned per hour per pound that they report on their visual display and they are unable to provide any information on how they calculate this.

Calories burned per hour of exercise is dependent on the person’s level of fitness, muscle mass as well as body weight and length of time. While exercise machines can record your body weight and time, they cannot assess your level of fitness or percent body fat.

So rather than using the calories burned per hour as an estimate, use the text descriptors to determine your activity level. Biking would be moderate activity for 1/3-hour, stretching would be light and lifting weights moderate for 1/3-hour times how many days per week you exercise at this intensity for this length of time.

Using the estimate of 1,530 calories per day to lose 2 pounds per week, follow this level for a couple of weeks and record your daily food intake and weight once a week. If you have not lost the predicted amount of weight, then re-do the calculator with a more conservative activity estimate.

Please check out my Health Body Calculator® and find out for yourself. If you put in your age, gender, height, weight and weight goal to gain 1 or 2 pounds per week, the calculator will provide Your Nutrition Facts with calories you need to gain weight. Come back often as your weight or health goals change.

I appreciate your concern for your friend’s weight, considering her eating disorder. But, she is at a healthy weight for her height if you are sure she actually weighs 120 pounds and is 5 feet 2 inches. You are 1″ taller than she and therefore can weigh more.

Actually, if a person weighs within their healthy body weight range, they should have a reduced risk for the major causes of illness in the U.S. (heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes). If a person’s weight falls below the lower range of healthy, then I would agree with you that their immune system would be negatively affected. People who live to be 100+ years of age are usually at the lower end of a healthy weight for their height.

Who has assessed your friend’s eating behaviors to determine that she has an eating disorder? Does she have a distorted body image or has she had wide fluctuations in her weight (+ or – 10 pounds within a couple of weeks)? Does she binge on a large amount of food then force herself to vomit? Perhaps, your friend needs to deal with her unhealthy eating behaviors which have not yet impacted her weight. Or is this your perspective given your past history with eating disorders?

The algorithms I use in the Healthy Body Calculator® are proprietary, but the program is available for license on intranets or other websites if you are interested. My calculator is written in PHP.

Nutrition is not an exact science and a lot of nutrition is subjective which doesn’t blend well with computer logic – lots of variables among people. Yes, some nutrients in excess to a point could be healthier but could also be toxic. Canada has similar nutritional guidelines like the U.S.

I have been designing nutrition software since 1989 and I would highly recommend you work with a registered dietitian so you use valid algorithms. Would also recommend you work with a dietitian who is technologically savvy.

You are correct and this bug had been fixed.

Glad you are hearing your doctors and nurses. You are underweight. Your healthy body weight, irrelative of body fat, is 103 – 127. Bare minimum, you should weigh 103 pounds.

With regards to a body fat scale reading, depending on your hydration and whether or not you are menstruating, 6% may or may not be accurate. Please read info in sports nutrition topic regarding measuring body fat and inherent errors of various testing methods.

The Healthy Body Calculator® was designed for athletes including body builders. What additional data to you want to input?

If you know your body fat, you can add that data and HBC will adjust your BMI and healthy weight results so it won’t tell you that you are overweight. The body fat fields are designed for people with lower than average body fat.

You are on the lower end or the normal range for adult women in terms of body fat percentage. Send me your stats – age, heightt, weight, etc. and I will take a look.

Have you had your body fat measured recently or is 20% a best guess? That will make a difference in your report.

Try the Healthy Body Calculator® and see for yourself. Click on the calculator link in the upper left column. Fill in your data, including your nutrition goals and on page 2 of the calculator will be the number of calories, carbohydrate, protein and fat a 20-year-old female needs

You didn’t include your height, weight or age so I can’t specifically comment on whether or not 2700 calories are appropriate for you or not. The only subjective information that you put into the Healthy Body Calculator® is your activity hours the rest of your physical data can be measured (age, height, weight, elbow, waist, hips). Do you think you accurately estimated your activity?

The number of calories in Your Nutrition Facts is the number of calories you need based on your current physical data and your choice of nutritional goals (lose, gain or maintain). So, if you chose to lose 2 pounds per week, Your Nutrition Facts calorie level includes a weight loss goal. If you had chosen to maintain your weight, then your calorie level would have been 3700 calories per day.

What activity do you do for 2 hours a day as that seems a bit excessive unless you are training for a competitive sport? If you do weight training and aerobics, do you think that perhaps you have a lower bodyfat? Have you ever had your bodyfat measured?

The BMI calculation is an estimate of bodyfat and is based on some assumptions that are not true for people who are lean. Perhaps you don’t need to lose weight, but only bodyfat.

Write back with your physical data.

I’m sorry. There is a healthy range for protein and carbohydrate in my Healthy Body Calculator®. Unfortunately, some fad diets also follow high protein, low carbohydrate (may also limit calories) eating plans which are not healthy over a period of time and I don’t want to support those types of diets. Your need is different.

If you are experiencing symptoms, then you first need to get your hypoglycemia under control. You may need to limit your carbs to close to 100 grams per day and eat 6 small meals per day. However, once you stabilize, you will be able to liberalize your diet to include more carbohydrates. Come back after you are not having symptoms and try the Healthy Body Calculator® again.

If you want to find a dietitian in your area, go Find a Registered Dietitian on the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics . All you have to do is put in your area code or zip code to find a dietitian near you that works with hypoglycemia. If you can’t find a dietitian to work with, please write back.

The only subjective data you enter into my calculator is activity hours. The Healthy Body Calculator® is based on current nutrition practice for assessing people’s weight and calorie needs. Actually, it is very accurate, but I don’t use a single multiplier. There are formulas that use a single multiplier for quick field estimates of calorie needs that range from 12 – 15+ calories per pound of body weight for healthy individuals.

Unfortunately, most people underestimate how much they eat as they don’t keep food and drink records which should be analyzed for calories and nutrients. Another important factor is the amount and intensity of exercise & fitness you get each day, but since you are sedentary, this wouldn’t be a factor. Better get moving as people who burn more through exercise, can eat more calories.

You are underweight and this is an issue that I fixed. People with lower than healthy body weights also have lower than normal body fat. Don’t put in your % body fat as that is throwing your results off. Enter your data again without including your percent body fat.

Rather than setting a goal of maintaining your weight, you still need to gain some healthy weight. Your healthy weight is 113 – 138 pounds. Underweight can negatively affect your immune system as well as other body systems, so I would recommend weight gain to at least 113 pounds.

As to the calories, I ran your data through and guessed you were 24-year-old female. The result I got with your data below said 1700 calories in Your Nutrition Facts. You may have entered different data, but I suspect that you included more activity hours than you list below or weight gain of 1 to 2 pounds per week which would have increased the calorie report to over 2400 per day. So, it depends on what data you entered whether or not the calories are correct. Though the only subjective data you enter is your activity hours and everything else can be measured so please be accurate when estimating activity hours.

The calories recommended in Your Nutrition Facts are a good basis for planning a healthy eating plan. If you need help with this, go see a registered dietitian who can help support and guide you to your goal of being lean, healthy and muscular. Don’t focus on counting calories as that is an anorexic behavior. Focus instead on eating a healthy meal plan every day.

You can gain more muscle weight without adding much fat by continuing your aerobic and weight training program. 12% is low for a woman and your menstrual cycle may not return until your body fat increases to around 18%. While this may seem a blessing, it is not good for your bone strength and long-term health.

So, you are exercising. If you notice more pronounced muscles, then perhaps your actual body fat percentage is less than a calculated BMI estimate. If you belong to a health club or know someone in the Physical Education department at your local university, ask if there is an exercise physiologist or registered dietitian that can measure your body fat.

There are several electrical impedance body fat analyzers on the market. The problem with them is there are many variables that affect the reading.

The Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and probably the American College of Sports Medicine have advertising from companies that make these devices. They are not cheap. For reading, I would suggest an exercise physiology book by Frank & Vic Katch, 2 nationally known experts in this field for a description of methods to assess body fat.

Basically one places an electrode on the dominant hand and foot. A small electrical charge passes through the body. Muscle is 70% water and fat is 15%. Therefore, if you have more muscle, the charge moves faster. The problem is hydration, alcohol, menstruation all affect the results. The inherent errors are higher than a trained individual using calipers. Likewise, because a body fat measurement is a snapshot in time of your muscle mass, it will change daily, but not so much that the measurement discernible changes. It would only be wise to re-test every 3 – 6 months for change as a result of a regular exercise program.

Read my sports nutrition topic for other body fat assessments like hydrostatic weighing (underwater).

You are very lucky to be so tall. You burn more calories because you have a greater surface area than a shorter person. If you just follow the recommendations for a healthy lifestyle i.e. eat low fat (< 30% fat) foods based on My Plate Food Guide and exercise 30 minutes 5 times per week, you should be able to keep your weight and BMI in a healthy range.

That said, as an athlete, I would rely more on body fat than BMI. As you build muscle, your weight may go up and that would increase your BMI which would inaccurately reflect increased health risk.  Whereas if you rely on body fat analysis, then as your body fat goes down, you are healthier and stronger to play. However, there is a point at which increased muscle mass (comparable to a bodybuilder) will negatively affect performance.

You are also fortunate in that males because of testosterone have a higher proportion of muscle to fat which is even more pronounced in African American males. This positive effect of testosterone on muscle mass should continue till you reach 70 when testosterone levels drop.

As I said, BMI is a health risk estimate based on a mathematical equation of a population. I am checking on the extremes of height’s effect on BMI but I don’t think height has anything to do with screwing up BMI assumptions. Your point about long legs, short legs is accurate in terms of muscle size. However, fat is distributed all over the body from the ankles to the neck, except in the brain (though some people are an exception to this rule). Hope you laughed.

BMI is not a calculated estimate of your body fat; it is an estimate of health risk. If you were very athletic and did weight training / aerobic exercise daily, then perhaps you should have your body fat analyzed. However, you state that you aren’t athletic and you will probably fall into the norms for your age.

Your BMI is 26 and your healthy weight range is 198 – 242 pounds. Your current weight of 227 is in the middle of this and close to ideal at 220. BMI’s are age related and people as young as you should have a BMI less than 25. BMI’s don’t relate as well for very tall people as you suggest, but I use a formula currently used in nutrition practice. (I assumed you are a male and if not, please write back.)

Would not suggest doing body fat analysis yourself as some of the sites on your body to measure are out of your reach. Also, it takes training and lots of practice to get good at accurately measuring body fat with a caliper. Good calipers happen to be very expensive. Besides, you don’t need to measure body fat that often and every 3 – 6 months would be sufficient. If you are interested, ask a registered dietitian or exercise physiologist to measure your body fat.

Have you considered referring yourself to a registered dietitian for weight counseling / meal planning and an exercise physiologist for exercise / strength training?

You’re welcome. Weight change (+ or -) is actually rather complicated and unfortunately unless well planned often leads to failure. So, I would recommend a 1-month weight goal, a calorie goal to achieve 1 to 2-pound weight loss per week, meal plan for an eating guide, exercise program to increase aerobic endurance and build muscle and lastly keep food and exercise records to document your progress. Keep coming back to the Healthy Body Calculator® for a calorie assessment as your weight changes. Hey, you were active once, you can do it again. Besides, you have your gender on your side. It is not as easy for women you age to turn their weight and fitness around!

You can go to the Find a Registered Dietitian on the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics . You should be able to find a dietitian in your area that can read your medical chart, talk to you face to face and design a meal plan that includes your food preferences. If you don’t find someone at ADA’s web site, call a clinic or hospital near you and ask to talk to a dietitian. They know who the best would be to address your needs. I don’t know anyone in Philadelphia area in clinical or private practice. I mostly know techies. I don’t work with individuals long term by email at this time due to contracts I currently have with my company’s clients. What you need is a nutrition guide since you can monitor yourself.

Don’t know an exercise physiologist either, but you can search American College of Sports Medicine at http://www.a1.com/sportsmed/ Their phone is on their web site and perhaps they can direct you or look up exercise physiologist in your yellow pages. Stick with an educated and trained professional so you don’t injure yourself or your knees. Don’t know if a certified fitness trainer or physical therapist would be as appropriate to design an aerobic / strength training program, but they would be other possibilities. With your medical training, you should be able to evaluate their credentials.

Best wishes and thanks for the feedback.

You’re welcome.

Boy is that a combination of specialties. I applaud your interest in nutrition.

My calculator’s formulas are proprietary but suffice to say they follow current nutrition science and practice. You could probably get a similar result if you had a registered dietitian do the math for you or if you had a reliable nutritional assessment software program. Unfortunately, most nutrition software programs do not utilize a dietitian for design and many greatly over or underestimate caloric needs or exercise expenditure. There are numerous formulas out there for estimating caloric needs and I employ the most reliable according to research. Since my formulas are proprietary, I’m sorry, I cannot reveal what they are nor where in the literature you could find the basis for these formulas. BTW, I have been designing nutrition software since 1989. I have spent a great deal of time researching formulas in the literature, making these formulas work realistically in a computer environment and trying them out on real people.

I have a bachelors in dietetics with a minor in chemistry from Univ of N Colorado in Greeley and a masters in nutrition with a minor in counseling and guidance from North Dakota State University in Fargo. I am a registered dietitian with the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics and licensed dietitian in the state of Minnesota. Many states require licensure of any person providing dietetic or nutrition services and usually states provide reciprocity. I have worked as a clinical dietitian for over 26 years. You can read further about my work experience in my bio at https://www.dietitian.com/bio.html or clicking on my name in the Ask the Dietitian banner on my home page.

BMI is an estimate of percent body fat. You are not 50% fat! I am testing a new calculator that will display a person’s BMI result and yours is 41.

Your healthy body weight range is 160 to 196 pounds and a healthy BMI is less than 30. Would recommend a realistic weight goal that you could achieve in 1 month otherwise, focusing on a long-term goal may be too far in the future. Why not start out with a 10-pound weight loss one month from today?

Research has shown that weight loss to an “ideal body weight” is no longer necessary. Some of the health risks associated with weight gain can be reduced with a mere 10 – 15% weight loss. So, at 305, your health risks would be reduced by losing 30 – 45 pounds, not down to 180 pounds.

Wrong assumption about the relationship between body weight and body fat. At 305, you could be a linebacker for the Green Bay Packers and be 9% body fat. You could still be 41% body fat at 180 pounds if all you lost was muscle during weight loss, especially if you lost weight very quickly on a very low-calorie diet (semi-starvation ketosis diet). How you exercise during weight loss and how fast you lose weight determines the composition of the weight you lose. Most people lose some fat and some muscle with weight loss. If you want to preserve your current muscle mass and lose more fat, you need to follow a very gradual 1 – 2 pound per week weight loss and participate in aerobic and weight lifting exercises daily.

If my calculator gave you an estimate of 3630 to maintain your weight at 305 then it would recommend 2630 (not 2480) to lose 2 pounds per week. It does not allow a 3 pound per week weight loss because research has shown that weight loss greater than 1 – 2 pounds per week is quickly regained once a quick weight loss diet is ended.

Calorie needs are dependent on body weight as one factor. As you lose weight, your calorie requirements to maintain your weight at a lower weight will be less. Therefore, you should come back and re-enter your lower weight into the calculator with about every 5 to 10-pound weight loss to get a new calorie level that will support continued weight loss. Otherwise, you will plateau periodically in your weight loss efforts. This is my perspective of long term weight loss, but one calorie level will not continue to achieve weight loss at 305 pounds and 250 pounds or 180 pounds simply because fewer calories are needed to support 250 pounds than 305 pounds. Go back and see what your calorie recommendation is at 300 and 295 pounds respectively to see what I mean. You will only see a 50-calorie difference between weighing 305 and 300 pounds. So, 1 pat of butter (45 calories) extra a day can make the difference over time between weight loss and weight maintenance. Surprised?

If you have become less physically active, why not try water sports as they don’t put pressure on knees and other weight bearing joints? You certainly could walk around a pool or do you swim? You were a very active person if you ran the NY marathon. What changed your exercise habits? Only osteoarthritis?

Actually, body fat (white fat) is pretty inert and just sits there as a repository for stored energy (calories) compared to metabolically active (read burns calories) muscle tissue. Brown fat located in a person’s chest is metabolically active in producing heat but does not proportionately comprise 1/3 of all body fat. The amount of brown fat differs from person to person and is often higher in persons who seem to eat and never gain weight. Sorry, there isn’t anything you can do to increase brown fat and decrease white fat. On the other hand, muscle tissue as you know comprises both organs and muscles that perform work.

Your calorie level at 2130 sounds a bit aggressive for long term success and your exercise plan may stress osteoarthritic knees which aren’t going away just because of weight loss. Also, you forgot to factor your exercise program into your calorie calculations. Remember that any exercise you start will add to your calorie deficit and increase the speed of weight loss, However, since muscle weights more than fat, you may see a slower weight loss after initiating an exercise program (especially strength training that adds muscle), so don’t get discouraged if you don’t lose weight as quickly as you anticipate.

Remember to consult with your private physician before starting an exercise program. Hope you chuckled, but at your weight and age, it would be a very good idea to have complete physical if you haven’t’ had one in a while.

Lastly, remember that eating is not an exact science and weight loss is not a linear equation. To achieve your daily calorie goal, you will need to write down everything you eat and keep track of calories. You can do that either with a good nutrition software package or the Diabetic Exchanges. Also, what meal plan had you thought of following other than fruits and vegetables with < 30% fat? Considering the time, you have spent planning your energy needs, you should have a meal plan for guidance. Being a physician, I'm sure you frequently refer your patients to other specialties. Have you considered referring yourself to a registered dietitian for weight counseling / meal planning and an exercise physiologist for exercise / strength training?

1600 – 1800 calories seem low for a male, but it would depend on your height. The data you entered was Female 56-year-old male 5’8″, 164 pounds, 7 hours of sleep, 10 hours very light and 7 hours light activity. Your healthy body weight range is: 139 to 169 pounds and you are within your healthy body weight.

Your calorie needs are determined by how many calories it takes to run your body (BMR = Basal Metabolic Rate) plus the calories you expend doing activities including structured exercise programs. My calculator is designed using formulas used in current nutrition practice and the only subjective data you enter is your activity hours. Do you think you over estimated how much activity you get?

Go back and re-enter your data, but this time leave your activity hours blank. Check the calories in Your Nutrition Facts. This amount is your BMR. Now click on your browser back button and add your activity hours. What is the difference between your BMR and BMR + activities?

The calorie amount in Your Nutrition Facts is a guide for how much to eat to maintain your weight or change your weight depending on the nutrition goal (loss or gain) that you entered on page 2 of my calculator.

Bottom line is if you eat more calories than you need, you gain weight and if you eat fewer calories, you lose weight. If you eat the right amount, you will maintain. I would recommend you ignore minor fluctuations in your weight (+ or – 3 pounds) which could reflect shifts in the amount of body water you have on board.

When weighing yourself, take off shoes, sweaters, coats and start with light indoor clothing or as I suggested before, just underwear.

Eating is not an exact science and the knowledge we have regarding how the body uses calories or nutrients is not complete by any means. Depending on the formula one uses to calculate calorie requirements and the method of including physical activity, including exercise, varies greatly. I have used formulas that follow current nutrition science and practice in designing my calculator. However, the one subjective variable i.e. activity, can be over estimated by users.

In addition, bodies of the same gender, height and weight use calories differently depending on the amount of muscle vs fat. People with more muscle burn more calories than people with higher fat. Taller people burn more calories per pound of body weight than shorter people because the body has a larger surface area to keep warm. Some thin people seem to eat anything they want and not gain weight. While they may expel more calories as body heat, it is not understood why thin people can eat more calories and not gain weight.

Bottom line is, your weight is the sum result of what you eat and how many calories you expend, so don’t sweat the formulas to arrive at a calorie estimate. (BTW, stress factors like fever, trauma and surgery add to the calorie needs of an individual.) It is just that, an estimate or starting place. Use my calculator’s estimate for your calorie needs as a guide for your meals and snacks. If after a month you gain weight, then perhaps you overestimated your activity expenditure. If after a month you lose weight without wanting to, then perhaps you under estimated your activities. Adjust the calorie estimate up or down depending on what your weight is. As a female, don’t pay attention to 3-pound fluctuations in your weight if you are menstruating as small weight gains may reflect a shift in body water i.e. fluid retention.

Scales vary as well. Most scales are spring loaded and the spring becomes stretched with time and may not accurately record weight. Digital scales are similar, but with a digital display. The most accurate scale is a beam balance scale like your doctor uses. You don’t need to weight yourself daily, weekly is enough or you can tell about your weight by how your clothes fit.

Hope this helps.

Enter your weight this morning. Your lowest weight is after rising in the morning after you have emptied your bladder and colon if possible. You can be in light weight clothing or naked, your choice as it probably won’t register on your scale. Weight is relative and changes throughout the day as you eat and drink fluids. So naturally, your weight will increase during the day, but will be back down to your current weight by the next morning after your body has digested, absorbed and excreted the foods you ate all day long.

I don’t make any assumptions regarding clothing when calculating a healthy body weight or performing a nutritional assessment like the Healthy Body Calculator®.

The calculation for a waist to hip ratio follows current nutrition practice. Since it included with proprietary formulas that I used to design the Healthy Body Calculator®, I do not provide the formula.

Waist to Hip Ratio determines distribution of body fat. More body fat in the upper body (chest and waist) suggests increased health risk for elevated triglycerides, high blood pressure, stroke, longer time to conceive, heart disease or diabetes. More fat in the lower body (hips and thighs) suggests fat loss is difficult.

This tells you where most of your body fat is located. Apple shape (0.80 or greater) means your body fat is located above your waist which indicates a higher health risk for diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure and some cancers. Pear shape (less than 0.80) means your body fat is located below your waist which indicates a lower health risk, but fat located in the lower half of the body may be harder to lose during weight loss.

If you entered your data including a 2-pound weight loss into the Healthy Body Calculator®, then yes, Your Nutrition Facts would be the amount of calories to eat for a 2 pound per week weight loss at your current weight. The calculator is based on current nutrition science and practice.

The only subjective data you entered was your estimate of activity hours. So, assuming you didn’t over estimate your activity and assuming you continue the same amount of activity during your weight loss, you should lose 2 pounds per week.

n any Ask the Dietitian webpage click on the calculator link in the upper left corner. While I do not provide the formula as it is proprietary, the calculator is based on current nutrition science and practice. If after entering your data you have more questions, please write back.

If you are 5’2″, then a healthy weight for you is 101 to 136 pounds. How did you come up with a 22% body fat goal or are you referring to your BMI? Body fat goals (BMI) vary with age, so 22% body fat is appropriate for younger people, but not seniors. Unless you have had your body fat measured, I would recommend you omit any body fat estimates or goals when entering your data into the Healthy Body Calculator®.

Met Life height weight tables are based on the self-reported heights and weights of people (25 – 59) who apply for life insurance and fit into the lowest mortality risk group. These figures are analyzed statistically and divided into 3 segments of people with lower weights assigned a small frame, the middle weights a medium frame and the higher weights a large frame. Have you ever had a life insurance agent ask you what body frame you have when applying for life insurance or has any life insurance company asked this on your medical application? They don’t.

Weight Watchers includes a greater range of body weight going up to the lower limit of obesity which is 20% higher than ideal body weight. This provides a more generous and probably attainable goal for weight loss. FYI, research has shown that men overestimate their height by 1″ and women underestimate their weight by 10 pounds.

A realistic goal is your pre-pregnant weight for starters. Then once you have reached that weight, re-assess where you are using my calculator then set a new goal if necessary. If you are breastfeeding, my calculator will take that into consideration in providing recommendations for weight loss in Your Nutrition Facts on the third page of the calculator.

First, was your body fat measured or are you estimating it? 23% bodyfat is average for a female, age 29. If you were estimating your body fat percent, then re-do the calculator without adding any body fat data. If you are sure you are 23% body fat and want to get to 18%, then the calculator would have given you a weight goal of 122 to 149 pounds based on 18% body fat goal.

Your exercise routine is very good and probably the reason for your size 10 clothes. Muscle takes up less room than fat and results in more curves. BTW, a woman’s hormones encourage curves and you may never have a flat stomach even if you lost weight to the weight goal above, but you can have an exercised body. Can you live with that? I assume you don’t have children as a woman’s hips spread (permanent) during pregnancy, but this doesn’t mean that you have to have unshapely hips. Hope you can live with that if you plan on having children.

By exercising, you have lost body fat mostly because of aerobic exercise and added muscle mostly because of weight lifting. So it is not surprising that your weight has only changed by 3 pounds. Continue with aerobic and weight lifting exercises.

If your heart rate is 33 beats for 10 seconds, then it is 198 for 1 minute which is way too high for effective aerobic exercise. In fact, your maximal heart rate at 29 years is 191. Why would your doctor be discussing beta blockers for a 29-year-old? Does he know how intense you exercise?

You are exercising anaerobically (without oxygen) and probably burning blood sugar, not fat! You should feel hungry and possibly shaky after exercising at this rate for 1 3/4 hours at your current weight. Slow down so that your target heart rate is 23 – 29 beats for 10 seconds. (To figure target heart rate, take 220 – age – resting heart rate X 60% + resting heart rate = lower target rate. Use these same figures, but at 90% to figure the upper limit of target heart rate. Then divide each result by 6 to get your rate for 10 seconds.) Heart rate is an estimate of oxygen uptake. If your heart rate is too high, you are unable to take in enough oxygen for exercising muscles to burn body fat. No wonder you aren’t pleased with your exercise results.

You wonder why exercising doesn’t make that big a difference? You have probably also increased your food intake to compensate for the exercise you now get. If you were to add up the calories burned for the exercises you do now that you weren’t doing before, that would be the number of additional calories you are probably eating now compared to what you ate before you exercised. Calories out – calories in = 0 net effect if you eat as many calories as you expend. So, to get a continued exercise effect (i.e. lose body fat), you will need to reduce the portions of food you eat or exercise more (latter doesn’t seem possible given your lifestyle).

Your family and co-workers may not notice the new improved you since your shape has changed gradually over the last 13.5 months. Why not point it out to those you care about for some positive strokes for the work you have done?

When you travel, you can still take walks or climb stairs in your hotel. Strive to fit 30 minutes of exercise into your day 5 days a week when you travel. Find a creative way to implement this goal depending on where you are in the world.

As for your large knees and calves, these muscle groups will continue to get bigger if you exercise them beyond their present size. Muscles get bigger when they are asked to do more work than usual i.e. body building results. If you lift weights using your calf muscles, they will get bigger. Aerobic exercise and biking will just keep these muscles toned. Would suggest you ask an exercise physiologist or a certified trainer about your exercise routine.

My calculator would also have told you how many calories, grams of fat, etc. to eat and those amounts would depend on whether you chose weight maintenance or loss as a nutritional goal. Look at Your Nutrition Facts on the bottom of page 3. This is the place to start if you want to make some eating changes.

If you want to reach your goal of 18% body fat, then you need to make some adjustments to your eating habits. I wouldn’t worry so much about that fact that you don’t eat your evening meal till 8 PM as it would be unrealistic to eat before exercising after work. It may be smarter if you make your main meal at noon and a lighter meal in the evening. Your meal and snack schedules are well timed though.

You seem to sense that your portions of food are a bit large and that is where you should start. Start by eating 2/3 of what you would normally eat. You eat a variety of food which is good. Would suggest you cut down your chocolate and cookie snacking as these foods mostly contribute calories, not nutrients. Instead of ice cream, choose low fat frozen yogurt. Excess calories will support storing fat which will not help you reach your goal of reducing body fat. Stick with fruit, yogurt or grains between meals.

You also mention that your lunch can get out of hand. Would suggest you stick with sandwich, pasta or salad. Choose whole grain breads, little or no sandwich spread (mayonnaise type) and lean meat or vegetable filling for sandwiches. Choose pasta with red sauce rather than white, poultry or fish rather than red meats. Ask for salad dressing on the side so you can decide how much to use. Unless you can order pizza with vegetables (no olives), Canadian bacon, ham, chicken or fish, try something else and definitely don’t ask for extra cheese! If you go to a Chinese or Mexican restaurant, order an entree that is not deep fried or ones with lots of sour cream, cheese and olives. Start to recognize sources of fat and start limiting them in foods you choose to eat.

For your evening meal, if you don’t eat some kind of meat at noon, then definitely include some meat at dinner. I would recommend you cut down your wine and beer drinking to 1 per day. Wine is lower in calories than beer, but both are a source of calories without providing nutrients (vitamins and minerals). Research does suggest that 1 glass (5 oz) of wine per day is beneficial in terms of reducing heart disease and increasing longevity. Studies point to wine’s beneficial benefits and I don’t recall research saying the same about beer.

Your other beverages during the day sound healthy, but you may not be getting enough calcium which seems to be limited to milk with cereal at breakfast, ice cream for snacks or cheese. Unless you are allergic to milk, I would suggest you include skim milk at one other meal, perhaps your evening meal.

If you would like additional suggestions, I would recommend you contact a registered dietitian. Call your doctor’s office or local hospital and ask to speak to a dietitian. It would be money well spent as you have invested in a personal trainer, why not invest in a personal nutritionist?

Thanks for the feedback.

FYI, body frame size is not a factor in calculating BMI which is determined from weight and height only.

Measurement of body frame size has not had a lot of research to back it up. The wrist measurement is based on Caribbean research done on cadavers. I don’t have the reference handy for using elbows. I checked Met Life and they use elbow measurements as well. They still publish height – weight tables, but the ones on their web site look “lighter” than the last published ones I saw.

The bottom line is people think they can weigh more if they have a larger skeletal frame. The reality is most women are small frame and most men are medium frame. Whether you use wrist or elbow, vertical height is still a factor. So, the taller you are, the larger your frame and therefore the more you can weigh.

Basically, in order to estimate body frame size, one would have to choose a site where there is very little overlying fat, tissue or skin on top of your skeleton. The wrist and elbow are the 2 most likely sites to reflect skeletal size. The wrist and elbow tables are pretty gross and should only provide an estimate of skeletal size.

The references I have says it depends on your body weight, duration and effort. Gender is not a factor in calories burned per minute during any exercise. So, I will provide you with data for a male, 176 pounds and female, 137 pounds. The numbers are calories burned per minute. If you weigh less or more than this, you can estimate lower or higher calorie expenditures per minute. Then do the math using the variables of your body weight, duration and effort.

Calories are:

• Passive, light effort (kissing, hugging) M 1.8, F 1.4
• Moderate effort (kissing, hugging, petting – fondling) M 2.1, F 1.6
• Vigorous effort (intercourse) M 2.4, F 1.8.

Actually, sexual intercourse provides much greater benefits to both men and women (skin, vaginal moistness) than calorie burning. Besides, intercourse isn’t like riding a bike or doing aerobics for a set number of minutes each time you exercise. Hopefully you are not even thinking about using a stop watch. Just enjoy each other.

Congrats on the recent weight loss!

Have you tried the Healthy Body Calculator® yourself to see how many calories you need to lose weight? You can customize your results by choosing the percent fat calories you want or whether to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week. I doubt that you have a large frame considering your height, but you can check that out with the calculator also by measuring your elbow width.

You didn’t ask about your high blood pressure, cholesterol or blood sugar, but weight loss should help bring those levels under better control. Another thing you can do for yourself is exercise 30 minutes 5 days a week. Choose an exercise you like and ask a friend to join you.

If your mom has had 2 congestive heart failure attacks in one year, she does need a sodium restricted diet. Usually, persons with CHF follow a 1 gm sodium diet, but her doctor may want her on a lesser amount of sodium (i.e. 500 mg). What that means is you don’t cook with salt or use it at the table. Also, canned food is not allowed other than fruit. Salted and brined foods are also high in sodium. You don’t necessarily need to buy low sodium foods other than possibly condiments or salad dressings, canned soups, etc. which you should be able to find in your local grocery store in the “dietetic” section. A dietetic food is not necessarily salt free. It may mean sugar free or that one other ingredient has been changed from the “regular” food. The best would be to cook everything fresh and from raw ingredients so you avoid not only added salt, but also hidden sources of sodium.

I would suggest you contact a registered dietitian who can read your mom’s medical chart to recommend a specific amount. Call the clinic where your mom’s doctor practices and ask to make an appointment with a dietitian.

Each assessment tool of Healthy Body Calculator® works independently of the other sections. Though, I have assembled these various assessment tools together in one calculator, the sum total of these assessment tools may not necessarily give you an overall “healthy” stamp of approval.

The waist to hip ratio is a quick health risk assessment for heart disease that health professionals can use in the field without instruments or lab equipment. It is a very gross method of determining risk of heart disease and is used when family history, physical exam and blood cholesterol are unavailable.

Unfortunately, due to the infinite variances among humans, you happen to fall outside the “hip” assessment norms. This assessment though should not be the only factor you consider in assessing your health. If your other assessments, i.e. weight and BMI, fall within the healthy ranges, rely on those results rather than the waist hip ratio. If your weight doesn’t increase with age and you don’t have children, your hips may never spread and your waist to hip ratio may never change to a “norm”.

Check it out yourself on the Healthy Body Calculator®. No matter what weight you put in, the calculator will result with your healthy weight for height. Remember to measure your elbow and the calculator will determine your frame size.

A healthy weight range would be 93 to 113 pounds. A good rule of thumb is a minimum weight of 100 pounds for all adults no matter what their height.

Are you referring to the Healthy Body Calculator®? If so, it is not a survey, but a nutritional assessment tool that is based on nutrition science and practice, not my opinion. The results do reflect an accurate assessment. If you are happy and in good physical condition, then congratulations. Eat healthy and exercise every day.

The Healthy Body Calculator® will adjust if you add your current body fat percent and / or a goal body fat. However, you are underweight for height (5’11” and 128 pounds) even at 9% body fat. At your current weight, you only have 5.2 kg (11.5 pounds) of fat on your entire body!

If you are competing in a sport, your low weight will be a hindrance. Even if you are a marathon runner, your muscle mass is too low for height. Why do you want to lose down to 5% body fat?

At your current weight and height, your muscle mass and strength is diminished. I would recommend that you maintain your current body fat, increase your body weight to at least 75 kg (165 pounds) through weight lifting to increase muscle mass. Are you comfortable with this goal?

Try the Healthy Body Calculator® and find out for yourself. It will figure a healthy weight, BMI as well as calories / fat grams based on your nutrition goals like weight change or limiting fat. Check it out by clicking on the calculator graphic at the top of this page. If you have problems, please write back.

I personally do not sell anything, especially not diet plans or supplements. I do however host advertising for nutrition products and services that are based on nutrition science. I do not store your data from the Healthy Body Calculator®, I do not sell the email addresses of people who write me and I do not send junk mail to viewers. Are you relieved?

Glad you enjoyed the calculator, as it is accurate. Come back often to re-check your progress toward your health goals.

The Healthy Body Calculator® uses several nutrition science-based formulas. If you are 23% bodyfat, you would not have gotten an “unhealthy weight” message. If you put in just your height and weight, you would have gotten an unhealthy weight message because your BMI calculation is in the “overfat” range as you indicated. BMI is a calculated health risk assessment based on an average (not lean) person. If you have had your body fat measured at 23%, you need to include that figure in the calculations.

If you would like your current body fat included in your calculations, you need to include it in the body fat section on page 2 of the calculator. You can also include a body fat goal and the calculator will refigure your weight goal based on your body fat goal.

So try it again and include your current body fat to get a weight range based on your current 23% body fat.

You probably over estimated your activity hours as it is the only subjective (your estimate) data. Or you are very overweight and don’t need to reduce a lot of calories to lose 2 lb. per week.

Surprisingly, most people think that 1200 calories are a one size fits all diet for weight reduction. Not true. Depending on what your current weight is and your current calorie intake, you may be able to lose 2 pounds per week on 2500 calories. You would lose a lot more weight more quickly on 1200 calories, but you may be more likely regain quick weight loss or find it very difficult to stick to 1200 calories because it is too low.

Re-try the Healthy Body Calculator®, but this time don’t enter any activity hours. Also, don’t choose to lose weight, just maintain. The resulting calories will be your BMR (basal metabolic rate). Now go back again and include your activity hours to find a calorie level appropriate for you to lose 2 pounds per week.

The Healthy Body Calculator® is based on nutrition science and practice so yes, you can believe it.

Try Healthy Body Calculator® and see for yourself. Instead of filling in your activity hours, just leave it blank. Your result will be as if you were sitting around all day. They try the calculator by adding in some activity times. You will find that your body burns more calories just keeping itself running unless you perform hard manual labor as your job.

Age is a factor in some of the calculations. For example, BMI and Your Nutrition Facts, age makes a difference in the results.

I have yet to find reliable weight tables for adults graduated by age. Actually, there is little difference in “healthy weight ranges” between 20 and 50-year-old persons based on the research I have found. There is a difference among “seniors” though as there is a loss of muscle and bone. There are some “senior” weight tables, but the data varies among tables. When I find a reliable data set, I will incorporate it.

Your skeleton doesn’t change that much with age other than loss of vertical height, which mostly occurs in the spine. Some loss of height is due to compression, some due to osteoporosis.

The Healthy Body Calculator® results are derived from your data using accepted nutrition principles and practice. Your results are a valid assessment, which provides you feedback about your nutritional status. The bottom line is you can use the results to change your lifestyle and improve your health risk from nutrition factors or not. What you choose to do is your choice.

No, the Healthy Body Calculator® doesn’t use the Metropolitan Life Insurance tables to calculate weight. Besides weight is only one parameter to determine health.

Most practitioners rely on the BMI. What was your calculated BMI and was it still in a healthy range at 195 pounds? If so, then ignore the healthy weight range.

Also, if you are aerobically fit, perhaps your body fat is on the low end, which would mean that your muscle mass is on the high end. Muscle weighs more than fat. If you know your % body fat, enter that value into my calculator because it will affect how your healthy body weight range is calculated.

There are a lot of variables to calculate weight. Guys get to weigh more because they have lower percent body fat due to testosterone. Females have higher percent body fat due to progesterone and estrogen.

You probably over estimated your physical activity, as that is the only data not based on physical measurements. Include activities for an average number of hours per week. Only include your exercise time based on your average number of hours / minutes per week. The Healthy Body Calculator® is based on nutrition science and calculates accurately if you put in measured physical data.

Congratulations on choosing low-fat foods. It is difficult to eat really low fat and high calorie because of how much more food (volume) you have to eat. The difference between the calories in 1 gram of fat (9) versus the calories in 1 gram of protein or carbohydrate (4) make fat a good choice for people who want to gain weight or are unable to eat a large volume of food. At 3,000 calories per day, you should aim for 130 grams of fat or less. This would translate into 20 fat servings. (1 tsp. butter or 1 ounce of lean red meat would approximate 1 fat serving.) At 5,000 calories per day, you would have to aim for 167 grams of fat or less. This would translate into at least 33 fat servings. While this sounds like a lot of fat, depending on the foods you choose, fat adds up quickly even if you don’t eat food that is fried.

You probably over estimated your activity level. In addition, your current weight will increase the number of calories just to maintain your weight which is the baseline for calculating weight loss.

Try using the calculator again and don’t include any activity. This will be your basal metabolic rate or the number of calories your body needs just lying in bed. Next add activity calories. Compare the difference between the calories you burn just lying in bed versus getting up and moving around.

I would think the 2000 calories diet you have been following seems reasonable, but 35 grams of fat is only 16% calories from fat which may leave you not feeling satisfied after meals. 66 grams of fat would give you about 30% calories from fat.

If the calculation for waist to hip ratio resulted apple shape, then that is what you are. You may want to re-measure your body just to check again.

Options to analyze your food intake are: nutrition analysis software, a registered dietitian who will analyze your food records, the diabetic exchange list or My Plate Food Guide which you can use as guides.

All foods can be categorized into 6 different exchanges i.e. milk, meat, fruit, vegetable, bread, fat or combinations of several different exchanges. Or you could follow the My Plate Food Guide which separates foods into the same 6 groups (fats also includes sweets in the pyramid), but pyramid serving sizes are based on nutrient content not calories, protein, fat and carbohydrate like in the diabetic exchanges. You may want to talk to a registered dietitian to design an eating plan that utilizes a guide like exchanges or the pyramid servings to achieve your health goals.

Either you overestimated your activity level or your current body weight is far above a healthy range. First, go back and check your activity level as it is the only subjective data in the calculations. All other data you enter should be based on measured values. Since body weight is the basis for calculating calories, if your body weight is quite high, then perhaps 3400 calories may be an appropriate weight loss for amount for you to eat.

Your Nutrition Facts results depend on the data you entered i.e. your current weight and your weight goal (maintain, lose or gain). Therefore, Your Nutrition Facts are what you should eat based on your weight goal.

Record the food you eat and use Your Nutrition Facts calories and fat grams as a guide. Exercise more, at least 30 minutes per day, 5 days per week. Perhaps you should see a registered dietitian who could analyze your food intake and make recommendations on an eating plan based on your food preferences (likes and dislikes).

Do you think you over estimated your light and moderate activity? Do you really exercise continuously at these rates for 10 hours per day? If not, go back and redo the Healthy Body Calculator®. Unfortunately, most people sit or stand most of the day which is very light /sedentary activity. If you do exercise, how long do you exercise at the light or moderate level?

A weight loss diet should be planned at a level less than the person needs to maintain their weight. This depends on how much they eat and how much exercise they get. It is possible that a 3,000-calorie diet is a weight loss diet if you need over 4,000 calories per day to maintain your weight. There is no such thing as a stock 1200 or 1500-calorie diet fitting everyone’s calorie needs. A calorie prescription should be individually tailored to a person’s weight, food intake and exercise habits. Successful weight loss (i.e. losing weight and keeping it off for 2 years) depends on eating less food, exercising 5 times per week for 30 minutes and nutritionally analyzing everything you eat. If you want a customized weight loss plan, go see a registered dietitian.

The Healthy Body Calculator® will accept a fat distribution down to 10%. I would suggest you try again and perhaps your fat, protein and carb didn’t total 100%. If you change the fat, make sure you also change one or both of the other calorie nutrients.

Thanks for writing.

Well the Healthy Body Calculator® will allow you to choose to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week. Re-do the calculator with that goal in mind and your personal calorie recommendation will be figured. If you want to change the percent of calories from fat, carbohydrate or protein, do so when you are on page 2.

Next you need a meal plan that includes your food preferences and a personalized exercise plan that works within your lifestyle. I would suggest you go see a registered dietitian for your meal plan and an exercise physiologist for your exercise plan. Both these professionals should be available at your doctor’s clinic. Some health clubs hire these professionals as well to work with clients.

First aim to lose 10% of your current body weight which would be about 28 pounds. At 2 pounds per week, it should take you about 14 weeks. With each 5 to 10 pounds you lose, go back to the Healthy Body Calculator® and enter your “thinner” data. As you lose weight, your calorie requirements will drop and you will need to adjust your food intake down as well so that you continue to lose weight.

Well why don’t you try the Healthy Body Calculator® out so you can put in your goals i.e. weight and calorie distribution. You should weigh around 149 – 169 pounds. You can determine your body frame size (build) by using the calculator yourself. Persons with a medium build should weigh towards the middle of the range or around 154 pounds.

First, there is no normal calorie requirements based on height alone. Your body composition and daily activity including exercise has a great impact on how many calories you burn. It is true that the taller / more active you are, the more calories you need to maintain your body. So, depending on how you entered your activity hours, there could be great variability in the calories calculated. Try entering various activities and see the results for yourself. BTW, your Stairmaster routine amounts to less than 20 minutes when averages over a week. Do you think you may have overestimated your activities when you used the Healthy Body Calculator®?

With regards to your weight, you are only about 10 pounds overweight. So, go back and rerun the Healthy Body Calculator®‘ with your weight goal and activity hours included. I would also suggest you include weight training in your exercise schedule as muscle burns more calories than fat. Include a goal of increasing your muscle mass and reducing body fat through aerobic exercise and weight training while including a gradual reduction in calories. Weight loss that is slow is more likely to be kept off. Focus on increasing your strength while eating healthy rather than a number on a scale.

Your Nutrition Facts are calculated from the data that you entered using proven nutrition science algorithms. If you chose to lose or gain or maintain weight, Your Nutrition Facts were adjusted to include that data. As to how Your Nutrition Facts compares to what you are eating now, you would have to evaluate that by writing down everything you eat / drink and analyze your food with some nutrition analysis software.

If you are overweight, then your calories and fat are going to be higher because it takes more calories to maintain your weight at that higher level. If you are on a weight reduction program, then you need to reduce your calories. As you lose 5 to 10 pounds, you will need to refigure how many calories to eat as your calorie needs will drop as you lose weight. When you get to your weight goal, you will need to slightly increase the calories you eat to maintain your weight goal, but not enough to start gaining again.

Hunger is dependent on many factors, one of which is how often you are used to eating. Depending on the fat content of your last meal, you may not be hungry for up to 6 hours after eating. Fat keeps you satisfied longer between meals because it is the slowest energy-producing nutrient to be digested and absorbed by the body.

I would suggest you start including a morning meal to break your fast from the previous night’s meal. In addition, if you split the calories you do eat into several meals, your body is more likely to immediately burn the calories for fuel rather than storing those calories as body fat. For instance, if you were to eat two 500-calorie meals, you may not need that many calories. Any calories not immediately needed for energy would be stored in fat cells. If you ate three meals of 333 calories each, you would probably not store any calories in fat cells.

I would not recommend less than 1200 calories to lose weight and less than 1600 calories per day is probably deficient in several vitamins or minerals. Since you choose to eat 1000 calories per day, I would suggest you take a multivitamin. Read the vitamin supplements topic.

In fact, the Healthy Body Calculator® does just that, if you enter your current % body fat and / or a goal even if you just want to maintain your current body fat level. Then the calculator won’t perform the average body weight calculation or a BMI. Did you read the text on page 2 below the % body fat and on page 3 below the % body fat calculation that explains this?

I formerly taught sports nutrition at the university and worked with collegiate football and hockey players who turned pro or entered the Olympics as well as body builders. That is why I designed the Healthy Body Calculator® to work for athletes as well as average people and body builders who have a lean body fat.

Yes, you are correct in your assumptions. Because your body fat is low the calculator assesses that that your body weight must be appropriate which it is not. You are underweight. Therefore, no matter what your weight, if you maintain 8% body fat, the calculator will tell you, your body weight is healthy. I have fixed that exception. Usually persons with low body fat and high body weight have problems with these types of calculations. You are the exception with low body fat and low body weight.

The healthy body weight range of 144 – 176 assumes a body fat of less than 25. Of course, you could weight more than 176 if your body fat was low.

A doctor or a dietitian can assess your weight to height ratio. You are underweight.

Counting calories is boring. It is easier to write down everything you eat and then use nutrition analysis software to keep track of calories, grams of fat and other nutrients. It has over 18,000 foods to choose from and there are a lot of “entrees” listed and many fast food restaurants. Don’t know of a good book for calorie counting.

You are a perfect exception to the body fat norm. You are thin with a low body fat. Use the calculator without inputting your body fat to calculate a healthy body weight, which should be 144 – 176 pounds. Ignore your BMI calculation as your actual 8% body fat may be much lower.

Yes you can weigh 145 pounds and still be 8% body fat. No, you will not be overweight. Try your same data including body fat but change your weight to 145 pounds. It will calculate a healthy weight range above and below 145 pounds.

To gain weight that is more muscle and less fat, weight lift to maintain your low body fat and increase your muscle mass while gaining weight. You can choose to gain 1 or 2 pounds per week and the calculator will determine how many additional calories you need to eat. Leave the fat at 30% of calories as fat is a concentrated source of calories. To gain weight, you will need to eat a lot more food than you usually eat as carbohydrates or proteins are move bulky than fat.

I would be surprised if your elbow breadth is 3 1/2″, try measuring your elbow again. This time, place a ruler on a flat surface in front of you while placing your left fingers on the protruding bones of your right elbow, lay your elbow on the ruler. Then remove your elbow but leave your left-hand fingers on the ruler. Read the number of inches between your fingers to get a better measurement. Then re-run the calculator.

Thanks.

If you are referring to the Healthy Body Calculator®, it is not down loadable software that will run on a PC. But you can run it as many times as you choose from my web page.

Look for a standalone nutrition analysis software that will calculate a healthy body weight, activity level and at least 200 exercises.

If you are referring to your Healthy Body Calculator® report, perhaps you overestimated your daily activity level. Without any of your data, I can’t comment on whether or not Your Nutrition Facts calories are too high. The calculations are entirely based on the physical data you input. The only variable left to your judgment is your activity level. Did you overestimate what you do in a typical day? Also, do you write down and nutritionally analyze everything you eat? You may be surprised.

BMI stands for Body Mass Index. It is a calculated estimate of your percent body fat. If you were to divide the body, you would have 2 piles of either fat or muscle with organs and bones. A BMI or percent body fat less than 25 is considered healthy. Since your known body fat is lower than this norm, BMI will not accurately calculate your percent body fat. I would suggest you input your body fat data to the Healthy Body Calculator® to get a more accurate result.

If you want to lower your percent body fat and know that you are 20.6, I would suggest you enter your current body fat as 21 and your body fat goal as 15. The Healthy Body Calculator® will tell you what you should weigh when you reach your goal of 15% body fat.

Your current exercise routine would support a reduction in body fat. However, you did not say what you were eating and food has a great impact on body composition as well as exercise. If you are eating sufficient calories to maintain your weight, preventing weight gain and limiting fat to less than 30% of your total calories, you could reach your goal even without any weight loss. If you also want to lose weight, exercise is the only way to maintain the muscle you have and lose only fat pounds. Unfortunately, I cannot predict how long it will take you to lose 6% of your body fat whether you maintain or lose weight. I can only predict how many calories you need to lose 1 or 2 pounds per week. You can add a weight loss goal along with your body fat data and the Healthy Body Calculator® will predict how many calories you need to reach your goal.

robably the current best indicator of a healthy weight is the BMI, which calculates the percent body fat. General guidelines are posted on the Healthy Body Calculator® BMI graph. A BMI < 25 is considered healthy, 26 - 29 overfat and > 30 unhealthy, but is age dependent. I would suggest you surf the net for Body Mass Index or BMI to get more information.

As to how to get to a healthy BMI, try diet and exercise. Diet to reduce weight. Exercises to increase muscle mass and decrease fat. Muscle burns many times the calories that fat does and keeps your metabolic rate higher for up to 15 hours after exercise. Basically, body fat just sits there, occupying space and storing calories. A certain amount of body fat is necessary though to produce sex hormones, insulate the body from cold and cushion the internal organs.

A healthy weight and muscle mass varies between individuals and depends on gender, height, weight and age. However, there is no reason that with increasing age, a person can’t maintain a healthy weight through diet and exercise.

Your Nutrition Facts was calculated on the data you entered and your weight goal. If you selected to lose 1 pound per week, then yes, Your Nutrition Facts deducted calories to include the weight loss. No guesses here. Healthy Body Calculator® is based on your physical measurements and nutrition science algorithms.

The only variable you are asked to estimate is your activity level. Make sure that you have accurately estimated your activity hours. If your weight loss does not occur as expected and you have kept track of the calories you have eaten daily, you may want to go back and re-assess your activity level. It may not be as high as you estimated.

There are limits built into the program I designed to run the calculator so that people won’t harm himself or herself. You seem to be eating a pattern like the Zone diet. I will consider increasing the protein percent to 30 after doing some research.

Thanks for the feedback.

Since you didn’t include your physical data, I can only answer generally. In regards to calories, perhaps you overestimated your activity. Most people are sedentary i.e. sit or stand most of the waking day. Go back and re-evaluate your activity hours.

With regards to your weight, the healthy range calculated is correct. I do not know what table or calculation your doctor used to recommend a healthy weight for you. Since it is a range, did you pick the upper limit of a healthy weight for you or did you read about your body frame size relative to where you fall in that weight range?

Actually, fractions of inches or of pounds would not create a significant change on the result. So, don’t sweat the fractions.

With regards to your waist to hip ratio, perhaps you could re-run the calculator with 31″ hips to see if you change to a pear shape. BTW your weight is on the low end for your height and you may be premature in worrying about your “fat genes”. Your BMI is probably on the lean end anyway.

PS I designed the calculator because so many people asked what they should weight and how many calories they should eat. I figured people would like to tinker with the numbers themselves!

You and short people are the reason why designing a weight / calorie calculator can be difficult.

Since you know your % body fat, including it produced a more realistic healthy weight calculation. Congratulations, most people your age have a higher body fat! If you think you should lose weight, I would suggest focusing on losing body fat through exercise and sculpt your shape.

I am not aware of any studies that target big or tall persons. As it is, there are few studies that deal with people of any size, gender or age as to healthy weight to height proportions. Because of that, many people rely on life insurance height weight tables.

Test out the Healthy Body Calculator®. The body fat section tells you how fat can be measured. Also look at the BMI section. You should be able to find more details by searching on the net or in your library for this assessment methods.

Unfortunately, if you are younger than 18, it will not do any calculations for you. So to see info about how to test one’s percent body fat, pretend for now that you are older.

Also, have you read my nutrition topics like exercise, sports nutrition and overweight for more info?

Thanks for the feedback.

The calories, protein, fat, sat fat and carb are calculated using your current physical data and are not based on the old USRDA food label. If you weight changes, these nutrient amounts will change. Also, whether or not you chose to maintain weight, gain or lose, the numbers would also be higher or lower.

I will re-read the DV explanation and try to clarify. The remaining nutrients are the amount of nutrients recommended by the % Daily Value on the new food label and are the same for every adult. Actually, the new Daily Value for vitamins and minerals on the new food labels contain the same recommended amounts for these nutrients as the USRDA on the old food label. These numbers are the highest nutrient amounts from the 1968 RDA’s. In other words, the % Daily Value should cover the nutritional needs of all adults, male or female for any age over 19.

Why not give the Healthy Body Calculator® a spin and find out yourself?

Congratulations on the weight loss and exercise program. First try out the Healthy Body Calculator® and find your healthy body weight. Is 145 pounds a realistic weight goal? Your body fat (same as BMI) seems healthy for a woman so your body weight at 150 is probably proportionate to your height. Your exercise program would provide you with increased energy so I would recommend continuing your routine. Have you considered adding weight training?

The symptoms you describe when forgetting to take phentermine are not surprising since one of the drug’s side effects is sleeplessness. So, when you forget to take a pill, your body remembers to sleep more.

Generally, when people quit taking phentermine, fenfluramine or a combination of the two, weight gain occurs according to current research. I would not suggest you rely on phentermine for a long-term solution to your weight as weight loss seems to plateau after 6 months. Long-term weight loss requires lifestyle changes that include reduced food intake, exercise and food intake diaries. Research has shown that a 10 – 15% reduction in weight, significantly decreases obesity-related illness. Is 145 pounds a realistic goal for you?

Here is something better. Try my new feature the Healthy Body Calculator®. It will calculate your healthy weight based on your height and tell you how much of what nutrients to eat.

Yes, you are correct in that the minimum weight is 80 pounds. The Healthy Body Calculator® (HBC) includes safeguards for people with low body weight in particular eating disorders. Yes, you could put in 80 pounds as that would still give you an idea of a bodyweight goal of around 100 pounds at 5 feet tall. Select gain 1 or 2 pounds per week and I would recommend 1 pound.

If you want to gain weight, click on HELP Healthy Eating for Life Plan on your results page of HBC. Your data will be copied from HBC into HELP where you can select the type of milk, meat, beans or not, snacks or not. HELP will create a plan for you to follow to gain weight. I would encourage you to eat snacks. Choose a wide variety of meat or beans, dairy, whole grains, fruit, vegetables and healthy fats like olive and peanut oils.

Since you probably don’t want to gain just fat, I would encourage you to talk to your doctor about exercise s/he would recommend for SLE (systemic lupus erythematosus). SLE is an autoimmune disease where your body attacks the collagen (connective tissue) all over your body. Many people with SLE are on prednisone (an anti-inflammatory drug) which can cause an increase in blood sugar and/or blood pressure as well as muscle loss. Ask your doctor to see a physical therapist who can recommend specific exercises for you that will help maintain your muscle mass as well as gaining muscle rather than fat as you gain weight. If you are on prednisone, I would not recommend eating sweets or salty snack foods.

If you have not talked to a dietitian, please ask your doctor to see a dietitian. S/he can read your medical chart which I cannot and make more specific recommendations.