How to determine your daily calorie needs #3

Let’s review everything I’ve told you up until now.

We have a female teacher, who is 30 year old, 156cm tall and weighs 70kg. Her BMI is 28.76 and her BMR and AMR are 1476.8 and 1772.16 kcal respectively.

To lose 9 kg of body fat she needs to create a calorie deficit of 69300 kcal during her weight loss journey, with as little loss to the lean body mass as possible. If she creates a 500 kcal deficit every day, she will lose the weight in 138.6 days or roughly 5 months. But if she creates a deficit of 750 calories she will achieve her goal in 92.4 days or roughly 3 months.

But how can she create a calorie deficit? Think of calories as a currency. You have 1400 calories you can spend each day. If you spend more than that, you’ll be in a calorie debt to your body (you’ll fain fat) and if you manage to save a few calories, the bank (your body) will reward you with interest in the form of a slimmer and a healthier body.

For that she has 3 options and all three of them are very specific.

1.       Reduce her calorie intake

2.       Increase her physical activity

3.       Reduce her calorie intake and increase her physical activity

Let’s look at how to reduce your calorie intake.

You can reduce it simply by knowing how much energy your body needs during the day with your basal metabolic rate (BMR) and active metabolic rate (AMR).

If you don’t move around the whole day and just stay in bed, you need to consume the exact amount of calories as your body burns to keep your weight the same. If you consume more than you need, you will gain weight, but if you consume any less, your metabolism will start to slow down and your body will be in a state of shock. This happens with most people on diets. In this case the body shuts down and stores every calorie that it can get, because the metabolism switches to “survival mode”.

If our teacher eats 1476.8 calories she won’t gain weight, if she has more, she’ll gain weight in the form of fat. And if she has, let’s say, 1000 or even less calories, her whole metabolism will slow down and go into “survival mode”

[IMPORTANT NOTE: The lowest calorie allowance I would even dare to put a client is 1600 for men and 1200 for women. Still, this is done only for a short period of time and for clients that have a lot of weight to lose.]

If she is active that day, her calorie allowance is 1772.16 calories. If she eats more than that, she will gain weight. If she eats that exact amount she’ll stay the same and if she eats less than that, she’ll lose weight.

Simple isn’t it.

Onto the other option. What should her calories be, if she decides to move more during her day and decides to burn 500 extra calories with jogging?

In this case if she eats the same amount of calories as her AMR every day she will definitely lose weight on the days when she is running, because she has created a 500 calorie deficit.

And if she decides to watch what she is eating and is physically active with jogging and a bit of weightlifting?

In that case we add those 500 extra calories burned to her AMR (2272.16) and we get her modified AMR during the days when she works out. The same rule applies here, if she wants to lose weight, she needs to create a calorie deficit. If she wants to maintain her weight she needs to eat exactly that amount and if she wants to gain weight, she needs to eat a lot more.

But this option is the best and you know why? A part of her calorie intake goes to muscle repair and it also helps to build her muscle, which increases her lean body mass while decreasing her fat body mass (but only if she is doing some anaerobic training).

This last part is a bit trickier for people with about 5kg or less to lose, but for people with a lot of kg, regular physical activity combined with good diet is a way to go.

Until next time, stay strong and be kind. 

Picture taken from: http://tiny.cc/pgcnhw

Why lose body fat and not just body weight

Do you want to know why most diets never work? Almost all of them are focused on just one thing and that is to lower the number on the scale or to get you into those slim jeans that you have locked in the deepest part of your wardrobe. But, as I’m about to explain to you in a little while, lowering your body weight in the right way is much trickier than lowering it in the right one. But before I say anything more on this subject, you need to understand how our bodies are built.

Our bodies are made out four different “compartments”. Body water, bone mass, lean mass and fat mass. Our weight is nothing more than the added mass of all of the compartments masses.

Body water is all of the water that we have in our body. It’s in every cell, intracellular space, bloodstream, in our brains (70% water), lungs (90% water), joints… The amount of body water can vary greatly during the day from being dehydrated or even chronically dehydrated to retaining water. It also varies during your life.

Like body water, bone mass also varies greatly during your lifetime. It is believed that we reach our maximum between 30 to 40 years. After that, our bones start to lose the minerals in them and the risk of osteopenia, osteoporosis and arthritis rise greatly. The average bone mass for men is 15 and 12% for women.

Lean mass is nothing more than our very own little metabolic furnace – muscles. Muscles enable our bodies to move, they produce heat and they allow our internal organs to contract. It is believed, that the bodies of men are 35 – 55% made out of lean mass. Female bodies, on the other hand, have a lower percentage of muscle mass (25 – 40%). It might seem a bit unfair to all the ladies reading this, but just keep in mind, that during evolution, men were the ones that needed more muscles, because they were the hunters. Women were gatherers and they didn’t need all that wasteful muscle tissue for their activities.

Fat mass is more dominant in women. Let me explain why, before the ladies rip me to pieces. Men have more muscles because in the past, they were hunters and provided protein from animal sources for their families. Women were predominantly gatherers and on top of that, they needed a better isolation for themselves, because they gave birth to children. Women needed to be more protected from the weather for those reasons. Average percentage of fat mass is around 16% for men and about 25-27% for women. Everyone has 2 types of fat in their bodies: visceral fat (it surrounds our organs and it protects them) and subcutaneous fat (underneath our skin. It serves primarily as isolation). Subcutaneous fat is the one that accumulates under our skin and it is the one, that makes us look fat and losing it is the real key to weight loss.

Like I’ve said before, most of the diets out there are just setting you up to fail. While you’re on them you will lose body weight, but most of the weight will come from water and lean muscle loss. The real goal in success in weight loss lies in the loss of fat mass while increasing or at the very least sustaining your lean mass. This can easily be done if you follow a healthy and nutrient dense diet on a daily basis and incorporate aerobic and anaerobic fitness into your daily routine.

No two individuals have the same ratios of these four compartments and that’s why no two people are alike.

Until next time, stay strong and be kind.

Picture taken from: http://tiny.cc/aa3mhw

References:

http://www.mrc-epid.cam.ac.uk/Unit/How/FunctionalTeams/Anthropometry/WhatIsBodyComp.html

http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/propertyyou.html

http://www.theragear.com/article/water.php

http://www.microlife.com/products/weightmanagement/

http://www.freedieting.com/body_fat_gain.htm