ChicagoJack
Hall of Fame
Hi All-
There seem to be quite a few folks asking for advice on weight/fat loss in here lately. I think there might be a few New Year's resolutions getting called onto the carpet for questioning right about now. Thought I would share what I consider to be the best post I've ever seen on the topic. This post was voted unanimously to become a permanent sticky in Men's Health Magazine Online Discussion Group. Whenever a newbie to that group floats in and needs advice, the old wise ones point them to this post. Here are a few excerpts. The full post can be found in the link provided.
[..]...................................
So, You Want To Lose Fat Do You?
http://forums.menshealth.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/295109121/m/474106321
Note the semantic difference there – you want to lose fat, not weight. Weight is a combination of a bunch of different things, most of which are very beneficial to keep around (muscle, bones, blood – you know, the good stuff). You want to lose fat, so keep that in mind.
Part 1. Calories
You’ve kept reading, which means that you’re my kind of person. So let’s talk numbers. First thing first – how much fat do you want to lose? If the number is bigger than 2lbs/week, then go back to the part about time, patience and forethought, and begin again. Trying to lose any more than 2lbs/week (without the use of pretty strong supplements/steroids) will result in either a)muscle loss (which is bad), b)a lowering of your body’s metabolic rate (which is bad), or c)both (which is really bad). If you’re starting from a big number (ie. your bodyfat percentage is above 15% and you need to lose a lot of fat) then 2 lbs a week is a good number to start from. Aiming for more will do the above (the bad stuff above). As your bodyfat % lowers and your weight gets lower, you’ll want to aim for smaller increments per week; it gets harder to lose fat the less you have.
You see, your body doesn’t want to give up the fat it’s got. Call your body crazy, but it has knowledge ingrained from a few millennia ago, when food was scarce and being fat and strong was a good way to ensure surviving both a saber-tooth tiger attack and a long cold winter without much food. With that in mind, the lower your bodyfat %, the more your body starts to rebel against your fat-loss goals. Now that you’ve got that number in mind, let’s talk about calories.
For starters, the obvious qualifier. No method is exact. They’re not going to describe the exact number of calories that your body needs to take in. What the following is a good starting point. We’ll get to how to fine tune it shortly.
The bottom line of fat loss is that calories in and calories out are the single over-riding factor. If you aren’t burning more calories per day than you’re taking in, then (barring exceptional genetics) you won’t lose much fat. After you get the nutritional part of the equation squared away, there are lots of neat things the body does that work in conjunction with the calories in vs. calories out principle, but the first thing to consider is still your daily caloric intake. There are a couple of ways to calculate your required daily intake; some are complicated, some are not.
[..]
Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Is the amount of calories your body (given normal metabolic conditions) burns in a day, given that you do nothing more than exist. No eating, no walking, no getting out of bed. These are your ‘existence’ calories. To calculate your BMR, use these formulas:
Men BMR = 66 + (6.3 x Body Weight in lbs) + (12.9 x Height in inches) - (6.8 x age)
Women BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilos) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age)
Now that you’ve got your BMR, you’ve got a good starting point for how your body (at your current weight) burns calories. Now it’s time to use that information and figure out how many calories you burn during a normal day. You know, when you crawl out of bed and actually do something. Take the BMR, and multiply it by the Activity Multiplier below that best describes your average day:
Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = 1.2 (little exercise, desk job)
Light Activity = 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Moderate Activity = 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)
Very Active = 1.725 (heavy exercise/sports 6-7 days/week)
Extreme Activity = 1.9 (heavy exercise/sports, physically demanding job)
Now, if you’re trying to decide where you fall – say you’re thinking you may be between light and moderate activity – then pick a number in between. Remember, this isn’t exact, so don’t stress too hard. So now you have a rough estimation of how many calories you use during the day, courtesy of the Harris Benedict method.
To figure out how many calories you want to take in every day, you need that first number from earlier, the one about lbs/week. If you want to lose 2lbs a week, you need to cut 2lbs worth of calories per week. A pound of fat is equivalent to about 3500 calories, so 2lbs is about a 7000 calorie deficit per week. Luckily, that divides nicely by the number of days in a week, so subtract 1000 cals from your Harris-Benedict number, and that’s what you need to take in. If you want to lose 1lb a week, subtract 500 cals a day. It’s that easy.
The super easy method is one that popeye (a mentor to many on the Men’s Health boards) has popularized. I have no idea where he got it from, so I’ll credit him for it and let him source it properly if he feels like it. The fact is, though, that it seems to work pretty well.
The general rule of thumb about caloric intake is this:
10-12xBW to WANE
13-15xBW to MAINTAIN
16-18xBW to GAIN
Spelled out in big letters for you – take your bodyweight and multiply it by the number that fits your goal (wane means lose weight, maintain means maintain, and gain means . . . you get the picture). That number that you get is an approximation of how many calories you should have as your starting point.
Well, why don’t I eat even less calories?
Because you’ll lose muscle. And you need muscle. So don’t burn muscle. Unless you’re very large (we’re talking 350-400 lbs here) you need all the muscle you can get. Yo-yo dieting happens because people eat to little – basically starve themselves – then lose lots of weight, try to start eating the same amount of food they used to, and since their metabolism is even slower now, they put the weight on twice as fast as they lost it. I’m pretty sure that’s not what you want. So eat enough food.
Part 2. So what do I eat?
Now that you’ve got your calorie numbers, it’s time to examine the other important part of fat-loss – the types of foods you eat. While calories in vs. calories out is the over-riding criteria, this is the big number 2. The different categories of food do different things, and those things are important. Keep in mind that, while I subscribe to the information presented, as do many other people who have successfully lost fat and retained muscle, some of the things are debated by many. As you continue through your fat-loss journey, you’ll learn more, and if you decided you disagree with me on something, I won’t hate you.
Protein: Number 1 on the list of stuff to eat is protein. Protein is the building block of life (as far as I’m concerned), and the average North American diet is sadly lacking in it. Protein is good for a number of different reasons.
For starters, it takes more energy to digest protein than anything else (called the thermic effect of food). Your body needs energy to digest food, and protein takes a lot. So when you eat protein, you’re boosting your metabolic rate just a bit more – always a good thing when trying to lose fat.
Second, it is extremely satisfying and filling. Think about the last time you had a steak. Pretty darned good, and it got you feeling pretty full by the end, eh? A big part of that was the protein. Making sure to get protein at every meal is a good way to make sure you feel full for a while afterwards.
Third, it helps build and maintain lean muscle mass, which is extremely important when trying to lose fat. Remember the reason why we say ‘lose fat’ instead of ‘lose weight’? It’s because muscle mass helps keep the metabolism running – the more muscle you lose, the lower your metabolism because your body needs to do less to keep you going, and isn’t going to want to lose anymore muscle.
In terms of fat-loss, when I am trying to shed fat I keep my protein intake at a minimum of a third of my daily caloric intake. A gram of protein is equal to 4 calories, so take your calorie number, divide by 3, then divide by 4 to get the number of grams of protein you want a day.
You’re going to hear a lot of people say that too high a protein intake will results in kidney problems. To anyone who says that, I say this: show me one study that proves that. If you drink enough water, a person with healthy kidney function has little to nothing to worry about. The studies that I have seen indicate that, given normal kidney function, adequate hydration and the recommended intake of calcium during the day, a healthy person has nothing to worry about. If a doctor tells you to avoid protein for the above reason, ask them to show you a study that shows the aforementioned problems occurring. If they have one – pass it along to me. I’d like to read it.
continued...
http://forums.menshealth.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/295109121/m/474106321
There seem to be quite a few folks asking for advice on weight/fat loss in here lately. I think there might be a few New Year's resolutions getting called onto the carpet for questioning right about now. Thought I would share what I consider to be the best post I've ever seen on the topic. This post was voted unanimously to become a permanent sticky in Men's Health Magazine Online Discussion Group. Whenever a newbie to that group floats in and needs advice, the old wise ones point them to this post. Here are a few excerpts. The full post can be found in the link provided.
[..]...................................
So, You Want To Lose Fat Do You?
http://forums.menshealth.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/295109121/m/474106321
Note the semantic difference there – you want to lose fat, not weight. Weight is a combination of a bunch of different things, most of which are very beneficial to keep around (muscle, bones, blood – you know, the good stuff). You want to lose fat, so keep that in mind.
Part 1. Calories
You’ve kept reading, which means that you’re my kind of person. So let’s talk numbers. First thing first – how much fat do you want to lose? If the number is bigger than 2lbs/week, then go back to the part about time, patience and forethought, and begin again. Trying to lose any more than 2lbs/week (without the use of pretty strong supplements/steroids) will result in either a)muscle loss (which is bad), b)a lowering of your body’s metabolic rate (which is bad), or c)both (which is really bad). If you’re starting from a big number (ie. your bodyfat percentage is above 15% and you need to lose a lot of fat) then 2 lbs a week is a good number to start from. Aiming for more will do the above (the bad stuff above). As your bodyfat % lowers and your weight gets lower, you’ll want to aim for smaller increments per week; it gets harder to lose fat the less you have.
You see, your body doesn’t want to give up the fat it’s got. Call your body crazy, but it has knowledge ingrained from a few millennia ago, when food was scarce and being fat and strong was a good way to ensure surviving both a saber-tooth tiger attack and a long cold winter without much food. With that in mind, the lower your bodyfat %, the more your body starts to rebel against your fat-loss goals. Now that you’ve got that number in mind, let’s talk about calories.
For starters, the obvious qualifier. No method is exact. They’re not going to describe the exact number of calories that your body needs to take in. What the following is a good starting point. We’ll get to how to fine tune it shortly.
The bottom line of fat loss is that calories in and calories out are the single over-riding factor. If you aren’t burning more calories per day than you’re taking in, then (barring exceptional genetics) you won’t lose much fat. After you get the nutritional part of the equation squared away, there are lots of neat things the body does that work in conjunction with the calories in vs. calories out principle, but the first thing to consider is still your daily caloric intake. There are a couple of ways to calculate your required daily intake; some are complicated, some are not.
[..]
Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)
Is the amount of calories your body (given normal metabolic conditions) burns in a day, given that you do nothing more than exist. No eating, no walking, no getting out of bed. These are your ‘existence’ calories. To calculate your BMR, use these formulas:
Men BMR = 66 + (6.3 x Body Weight in lbs) + (12.9 x Height in inches) - (6.8 x age)
Women BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilos) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age)
Now that you’ve got your BMR, you’ve got a good starting point for how your body (at your current weight) burns calories. Now it’s time to use that information and figure out how many calories you burn during a normal day. You know, when you crawl out of bed and actually do something. Take the BMR, and multiply it by the Activity Multiplier below that best describes your average day:
Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = 1.2 (little exercise, desk job)
Light Activity = 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Moderate Activity = 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)
Very Active = 1.725 (heavy exercise/sports 6-7 days/week)
Extreme Activity = 1.9 (heavy exercise/sports, physically demanding job)
Now, if you’re trying to decide where you fall – say you’re thinking you may be between light and moderate activity – then pick a number in between. Remember, this isn’t exact, so don’t stress too hard. So now you have a rough estimation of how many calories you use during the day, courtesy of the Harris Benedict method.
To figure out how many calories you want to take in every day, you need that first number from earlier, the one about lbs/week. If you want to lose 2lbs a week, you need to cut 2lbs worth of calories per week. A pound of fat is equivalent to about 3500 calories, so 2lbs is about a 7000 calorie deficit per week. Luckily, that divides nicely by the number of days in a week, so subtract 1000 cals from your Harris-Benedict number, and that’s what you need to take in. If you want to lose 1lb a week, subtract 500 cals a day. It’s that easy.
The super easy method is one that popeye (a mentor to many on the Men’s Health boards) has popularized. I have no idea where he got it from, so I’ll credit him for it and let him source it properly if he feels like it. The fact is, though, that it seems to work pretty well.
The general rule of thumb about caloric intake is this:
10-12xBW to WANE
13-15xBW to MAINTAIN
16-18xBW to GAIN
Spelled out in big letters for you – take your bodyweight and multiply it by the number that fits your goal (wane means lose weight, maintain means maintain, and gain means . . . you get the picture). That number that you get is an approximation of how many calories you should have as your starting point.
Well, why don’t I eat even less calories?
Because you’ll lose muscle. And you need muscle. So don’t burn muscle. Unless you’re very large (we’re talking 350-400 lbs here) you need all the muscle you can get. Yo-yo dieting happens because people eat to little – basically starve themselves – then lose lots of weight, try to start eating the same amount of food they used to, and since their metabolism is even slower now, they put the weight on twice as fast as they lost it. I’m pretty sure that’s not what you want. So eat enough food.
Part 2. So what do I eat?
Now that you’ve got your calorie numbers, it’s time to examine the other important part of fat-loss – the types of foods you eat. While calories in vs. calories out is the over-riding criteria, this is the big number 2. The different categories of food do different things, and those things are important. Keep in mind that, while I subscribe to the information presented, as do many other people who have successfully lost fat and retained muscle, some of the things are debated by many. As you continue through your fat-loss journey, you’ll learn more, and if you decided you disagree with me on something, I won’t hate you.
Protein: Number 1 on the list of stuff to eat is protein. Protein is the building block of life (as far as I’m concerned), and the average North American diet is sadly lacking in it. Protein is good for a number of different reasons.
For starters, it takes more energy to digest protein than anything else (called the thermic effect of food). Your body needs energy to digest food, and protein takes a lot. So when you eat protein, you’re boosting your metabolic rate just a bit more – always a good thing when trying to lose fat.
Second, it is extremely satisfying and filling. Think about the last time you had a steak. Pretty darned good, and it got you feeling pretty full by the end, eh? A big part of that was the protein. Making sure to get protein at every meal is a good way to make sure you feel full for a while afterwards.
Third, it helps build and maintain lean muscle mass, which is extremely important when trying to lose fat. Remember the reason why we say ‘lose fat’ instead of ‘lose weight’? It’s because muscle mass helps keep the metabolism running – the more muscle you lose, the lower your metabolism because your body needs to do less to keep you going, and isn’t going to want to lose anymore muscle.
In terms of fat-loss, when I am trying to shed fat I keep my protein intake at a minimum of a third of my daily caloric intake. A gram of protein is equal to 4 calories, so take your calorie number, divide by 3, then divide by 4 to get the number of grams of protein you want a day.
You’re going to hear a lot of people say that too high a protein intake will results in kidney problems. To anyone who says that, I say this: show me one study that proves that. If you drink enough water, a person with healthy kidney function has little to nothing to worry about. The studies that I have seen indicate that, given normal kidney function, adequate hydration and the recommended intake of calcium during the day, a healthy person has nothing to worry about. If a doctor tells you to avoid protein for the above reason, ask them to show you a study that shows the aforementioned problems occurring. If they have one – pass it along to me. I’d like to read it.
continued...
http://forums.menshealth.com/groupee/forums/a/tpc/f/295109121/m/474106321