ACTIVITY CALORIES vs. METABOLIC CALORIES

Our bodies burn calories in two ways: 1) by engaging in physical activity and 2) the body's natural resting metabolic rate. Calories burned, resulting from exercise and lifestyle activity, are the calories that make a difference in your weight control and physical fitness. The BioTrainer is designed to measure calories burned resulting from physical exercise and not your natural resting metabolic burn. Resting metabolic rate is the total number of calories you burn when you are inactive, including the calories your body burns to digest food and while sleeping. This natural rate also depends on your height, age, sex and the amount of lean tissue that makes up your body weight.

The BioTrainer is not calibrated to measure natural metabolic burn rate. Since this rate is different for each individual and accounts for the major portion of a person's daily calorie burn, this measure would only give the user a false sense of accomplishment if displayed on the BioTrainer. Therefore, the BioTrainer is programmed to measure only the calories you burn through exercise achievement.

Accordingly, for the average person and depending on your weight and level of exercise, the calories displayed on your BioTrainer will generally account for about 20 30% of your total, daily calorie burn. Whereas, the other 70%-80% are attributed to natural metabolic burn, which also varies as a function for your overall activity.

Now that you understand the contribution by each of the components of calorie burn, you should know that weight control is the balance between the combined calories burned due to exercise and natural metabolism vs. the number of food calories you consume. Therefore, regular exercise and diet are the key ingredients for weight control, better fitness and good health. Since, on average, only 20-30% of your total daily calorie burn is attributed to physical activity, this percentage could be increased significantly with your use of the BioTrainer. It can help you increase your lifestyle activity, track your accomplishments, give you new goals to reach and help improve your exercise habits.

In many studies on exercise, it has been shown that body weight directly influences burn rate during exercise and body weight is the most important factor in measuring calories burned. Although gender, height and age play a part in your overall burn during exercise activity, the contribution of these factors is rather small compared to that contributed by weight. Accordingly, for simplicity and ease of use (no programming required), the BioTrainer is factory calibrated to measure your calories burned based on the amount of your physical activity and your body weight.

While everyone burns calories as a function of natural metabolism, burning calories through exercise is not easily accomplished. The following is taken from published research and closely matches the calorie burn data registered on the BioTrainer during a typical workout: for an individual weighing 125 pounds and walking at 2 mph for one full hour, that person would burn 160 calories. A person weighing 175 pounds would burn 206 calories as a result of the same activity while a person weighing 250 pounds would burn 273 calories. Hence, the 125 pound person burns only 60% as many calories as does the 250 pound person for the same activity. Another guideline is that the average person typically uses about 100 calories for every mile they walk or run. Most people can keep their weight off and stay reasonably fit by burning about 400 calories per day (2,800 calories per week) through exercise.

As can see from the above examples, maintaining or even increasing daily exercise without a means of measuring activity or without motivational help is a difficult assignment. However, the BioTrainer is well suited to this task. With the help of the monitor, and simple adjustments in daily lifestyle habits, you can better manage your weight and improved your overall physical fitness and health.