Random Notes/Opinion
TheHTN.com
How to lose twenty pounds...hopefully forever By Jeff Blair Opinion: Raise your hand if you have ever lost 10 to 20 pounds on a diet. Wow, that is a lot of hands! Now keep your hand raised if you kept that weight off for more than a year. Where did all those hands go? I see one in the back, I think. Losing weight is simple: reduce calorie intake and/or increase physical activity for 30 days and you will lose weight. Millions lose weight every year on a variety of diets, cleanses and detoxes. Keeping the weight off is the hard part. Repeated “yo-yo” dieting can slow the metabolism, discourage the dieter and can produce a “rebound effect” when the diet ends. Here are some tips: 1. Understand weight loss comes down to “energy balance.” Energy balance is a very simple concept. In order to lose weight, your body must burn more calories than it takes in. If you eat 1,750 calories and burn off 2,250 calories, you have created a “calorie deficit.” Do that long enough and you will lose weight. 2. Track your caloric intake from food and drink. Any calories you consume via food and drink produce your calorie intake. Most underestimate calorie intake by
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about 20%. I recommend tracking your caloric intake for at least 10 days to find your average. There are many apps available that include calories counts for thousands of foods. You can also use pen and paper. 3. Learn that the “calories burned” side involves three factors. Calorie burn includes your basic metabolism, your daily activity level and something called the thermic effect of food. a. Metabolism (or BMR). Your body burns calories simply by staying alive. Breathing, organ function and various bodily chemical reactions burn calories. The technical name for this process is Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR). Some general ideas about BMR: people with more muscle burn more calories than people with less muscle. Larger people burn more calories than smaller people. To provide some numbers, a typical 45-year-old woman weighing 150 pounds will have a BMR of about 1,400. For a 45-year-old man weighing 180 pounds, BMR will be near 1,800. These numbers should be in the ballpark for most. b. Daily Activity Level (DAL). Your DAL includes physical activity from work, intentional exercise and non-exercise activity. If your work is sedentary, you will
not burn many calories from it. But if you are a mailman delivering doorto-door, you can burn hundreds of calories daily. Intentional exercise includes weightlifting, cycling, swimming and similar activities. Consistent, intentional exercise can burn thousands of calories monthly. You may have never heard of “non-exercise activity.” Non-exercise activity is also known as “NEAT.” NEAT stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis. NEAT includes fidgeting, hand gestures and other low-level activity and can burn several hundred calories per day. c. Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). TEF is probably the least understood component of energy balance, but it is very important. TEF is the number of calories your body burns from digesting and storing food in the body. Here’s the twist: TEF rates are very different for different foods. Proteins have about a 30% TEF rate, while carbohydrates tend to be around 10% and fats about 5%. That means if you eat 100 calories of a protein, there will be only about 70 calories left after digestion and processing, so you get 30 “free” calories. For a carb, about 90 calories will remain, so you get only 10 “free” calories. And for a fat, about 95
calories will be left, so you get about 5 “free” calories. In addition to higher TEF rates, proteins release appetite suppressing hormones to the brain and can minimize late night cravings, especially if eaten at breakfast. The dramatically higher TEF rates and appetite suppressant impacts are why I recommend everyone consume at least 20 grams of protein with every meal. Protein intake can sometimes be more challenging for vegans and vegetarians, but the same ideas apply. 4. Putting it all together. My formula for success is: decrease caloric intake slightly and consume protein with every meal; understand we all have individual dietary preferences, so one size fits all doesn’t work; develop a flexible, non-dogmatic approach to eating; and exercise 4-6 times per week. Be willing to adjust as you go, and you’ll see progress. If you’d like to lose twenty pounds, give yourself at least 4-6 months. Before you start any fitness routine, consult your doctor. Jeff Blair (M.S.) is five-time Trainer of the Year, a published author and a former member of the Mens’ Fitness magazine Advisory Board. Reach him at jeff@socalsport.com for comments.
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