XPost: alt.support.diet.weightwatchers   
   From: doug@lerner.net   
      
   I'm sure that completely obvious title was an attention-grabber, with most   
   people rolling their eyes and going, "well, duh?":)   
      
   But there really is a point behind this note.   
      
   Up until now I have only counted my "net calories" each day - the calories I   
   actually ate minus the exercise calories I earned on my exercise bike. The   
   exercise bike shows my calories burned on a little computer read-out, and it   
   all depends on my input weight, time, distance, etc. It also measures my   
   heartbeat during the exercise.   
      
   So, thinking just in terms of conservation of energy if I used up 300   
   calories on the bike then I deducted 300 calories from what I ate so far   
   today, which is a great incentive to exercise!   
      
   Using this method I've lost over 70 lb in about 300 days so far.   
      
   But, I wonder...   
      
   Lately it seems to me that the less I actually *eat* - not just the net   
   calories, but the calories I actually eat (ignoring exercise) - the more I   
   actually lose.   
      
   Technically it should not make a difference whether I eat 1500 calories in a   
   day and do zero exercise, or whether I eat 1800 calories in day and do 300   
   calories worth of exercise, right? But I think I lose more when I actually   
   eat just 1500 calories.   
      
   (I assume I would lose even more if I just ate 1500 calories and did extra   
   exercise but didn't deduct it at all.)   
      
   So - I wonder. What is going on here? What are other peoples' experience   
   with the numerical value of exercise towards weight loss?   
      
   Could it be that my "net calorie" theory is correct but I'm just getting bad   
   calorie counts to use?   
      
   Sometimes I just do 15 minutes of exercise and still count those calories.   
   Should I require myself to do a minimum number of minutes before the   
   calories become "countable"?   
      
   Should I limit the number of calories I am allowed to use against food (like   
   WW does with activity points)?   
      
   Any thoughts would be welcome!   
      
   doug   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)