daily calories burned

[fuentejps]

so what is the consensus on how many calories para/quads burn in a regular day doing regular things. not counting exercise??

[SCI-Nurse]

This is highly variable, based on body weight and build, how much spasticity you have, and what "normal daily activities" are for the individual. No way to say this in a generalized way. Generally we recommend that those with SCI decrease their daily caloric intake by 10% for those with paraplegia, and 15% for those with tetraplegia, but even that is an educated guess without factoring in more specific activities and which muscle groups are paralyzed, how complete the injury is, etc. etc. There have not been a huge number of metabolic studies done on people with SCI/D engaged in activities other than manual wheelchair pushing, and even these have been low in number.

(KLD)

[fuentejps]

This is highly variable, based on body weight and build, how much spasticity you have, and what "normal daily activities" are for the individual. No way to say this in a generalized way. Generally we recommend that those with SCI decrease their daily caloric intake by 10% for those with paraplegia, and 15% for those with tetraplegia, but even that is an educated guess without factoring in more specific activities and which muscle groups are paralyzed, how complete the injury is, etc. etc. There have not been a huge number of metabolic studies done on people with SCI/D engaged in activities other than manual wheelchair pushing, and even these have been low in number.

(KLD)

thx kld. what were the findings on manual chair use??

[SCI-Nurse]

Here are some publications (some are just abstracts):

https://journals.lww.com/co-clinical..._injury.8.aspx

https://www.nature.com/articles/sc197738.pdf

https://journals.lww.com/nursingrese...ty_for.10.aspx

https://academic.oup.com/ptj/article/79/2/146/2837037

https://www.nature.com/articles/sc201385.pdf

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...03999312003255

https://link.springer.com/article/10...00000000-00000

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/...11Y.0000000046

https://www.nature.com/articles/sc199060.pdf

(KLD)

[Mize]

You can take a test to determine your basal metabolic rate. Takes ten minutes of breathing into a device that measures amonia in your breath. I went from 2500 kcal/day (kcal = calorie) pre injury to around 1200/day as a T3. Any exercise adds to that as basal rate is what you burn lying in bed.

[fuentejps]

yep, we found a place to do the test will go after holidays. how far off are the online bmr calculators for you based on you height, weight age? i found several studies stating they are generally 25-35% high.

You can take a test to determine your basal metabolic rate. Takes ten minutes of breathing into a device that measures amonia in your breath. I went from 2500 kcal/day (kcal = calorie) pre injury to around 1200/day as a T3. Any exercise adds to that as basal rate is what you burn lying in bed.

[SCI-Nurse]

There is not a good formula for BMI for people with SCI/D either.

(KLD)

[Mize]

There is not a good formula for BMI for people with SCI/D either.

(KLD)

This. I spent many hours scouring the literature for information about basal metabolic rate, calorie and protein needs, as well as kcal burn rates for different exercises and the unfortunate, but very real, truth is that we don't know spit once the person has an SCI. There have been a few papers that included hard numbers, but even these had absurd ranges like paras need between 50 and 90 grams of protein daily. That's a big range!

My recommendation is to do the test. Add a few hundred kcals to the basal number to account for daily activities (I added 300) and this is your static calorie number. Want to lose weight? Eat less or burn more via exercise (good luck estimating the rate for exercises though!). For the exercise part I recommend a heart rate monitor as this is a reasonable gauge of effort. If you're using a calorie tracker, try to find a comparable exercise, but don't use a leg based exercise if you can help it as nobody has leg-sized shoulders or arms.

[fuentejps]

thx all. i agree on hr strap. i use one while cycling but offseason i dont for cardio and lifting, but i think i'll pickup a new one to use with separate app for my workouts