Caloric confusion
Okay, I've decided that I need to get more serious about counting calories in and out. Three months of serious daily cycling has seen me drop from 240 lbs to 230, but I just talked to this guy who, when I told him my mileage, said I should have dropped far more weight by now.
I know, I know, it was just some guy. But he got me to thinking, so I came home and worked out my basal metabolic rate and the calories I tend to burn each day on average:
BMR = 3,385
Cycling = 1,859
Total daily average calories expended: 5,244
Can this be true? Thing is, there's no way I eat 5,000 calories a day. No way. Am I missing something here?
I work at home at my computer 14 hours a day. I ride my bike 1 hour per day at a high speed (used Kreuzotter's program to figure out caloric output). I eat quite healthily, though during summer I enjoy a nice big bowl of full-fat ice cream once or twice a week. But I barely drink alcohol anymore, maybe two pints every second or third Saturday.
Am I fooling myself somewhere here? Do I need to do a real daily log of what I actually eat and add everything up? I mean, as far as I can tell, with a daily output of 5,244 calories I should have been losing about 5 pounds per week for the past three months. Or is something not right about my calculations?