Think losing weight is easy?
NOPE.COM.
It’s not. It’s hard. I won’t lie to you and sugar coat this (even though you’d like some sugary coated tips, wouldn’t you!). So, if you’re the kind of person who is after a silver bullet, cure-all weight loss tip, then this site is most certainly not for you.
If you’re the type of person who is can-do and wants to make a meaningful and positive change for good, then please read on.
Losing Fat
Losing fat comes down to a very simple equation. You MUST create a calorie deficit to burn body fat. However, you must not create too great a deficit, or else your thyroid can go a bit zany and slow your metabolism down, thus reducing the efficacy of your program! Remember, this is a long term war on your body fat, not a short term battle. Short term battles are never sustainable.
Please remember this, it’s critical.
Calories burnt > Calories in + Stored Calories, where
Calories burnt = Exercise Calories + Base Calorie Requirement (Base Metabolic Rate or BMR), and
Stored calories = calories from fat/glycogen/etc.
I have of course simplified this, but it’s about all you need to know.
That is, your exercise (burnt) and Base Metabolic Rate (BMR) calories MUST be greater than what you take in AND what you have stored as fat/glycogen.
A-ha! Your next question will be, “well, Tim, how do I know what my stored energy is?”
Easy. I gram of fat has 37kJ/9.25 Calories. Therefore 1 kilogram of fat has 37,000kJ/8800 Calories.
To give you an idea of the work involved to burn that sort of energy, when I did the Scott 24 Hour Mountainbike Race this year, I did around 10,000 Calories/42,000kJ in 6.5 hours of high intensity exercise – and remembering I am very fit, less fit people will burn less due to less lean muscle mass.
If you weigh 100kg and are pretty flabby, estimate a body fat percentage of 30-35%. That gives you 30-35kg of fat. The key thing to remember is most of this is nasty sub-cutaneous fat wrapped around your organs. This is the nasty stuff we need to melt away, asap.
To give you an idea of the level of work we require, and also to show you why quick crash diets will NEVER EVER work (EVER!) I’ll use me as an example:
Peak weight: 88kg (I’m 5′7″)
I’ve lost around 28kg of weight since starting around July 2005. I reckon most of that was fat. Let’s say it was. That is equivalent to:
- 1036000kJ (28kg x 37,000kJ/kg) = 1 MILLION KJ
- 256,666 Exercise calories
- 22,424 exercise minutes (11 calories/minute exercising @ MET=6 where MET6 is high intensity exercise)
- 373 hours
- 15 days NON STOP @ 100% fat burning. Since it’s not possible to burn fat at 100%, the real time taken is much longer.
The lesson? Losing fat fat is HARD and will take time. You need to view this as a lot of little victories.
Losing fat is best achieved via a combination of high intensity exercise, good eating (5-6 small serves a day) and weights.
Yes weights. If you’re a female don’t be scared. Weights won’t make you super buff. It’s to help build lean muscle mass which has a higher base energy requirement. Plus it helps strengthen your bones helping to ward off osteoperosis.
High intensity exercise forces the body to burn carbohydrates whilst exercising, then keeps burning loads of fat post-exercise. Your goal is to get your metabolism rocking and rolling and burning energy constantly. This helps melt fat away if you’re eating right and exercising (including load bearing weights).
I really recommend getting a heart rate monitor as it helps you (fairly) accurately measure calories burnt. Seeing those suckers go up all day and knowing it means fat loss is really a great psychological help.
So here’s what you need to know.
- Base Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is your base energy requirement for one day. This is your energy requirement to have a net loss of zero. Go here to calculate your BMR. Once you have that, we’re on the start line to start calorie counting.
- You need to keep an eye on what you eat. I mean that. No more
“I’ll just have one Tim Tam.” Think it’s going to stop at 1 delicious Tim Tam? Nope. Chop down the alcohol intake. - You MUST exercise. Daily. If you can get out and run or ride for 30 minutes daily, you’re going to crush this. Make it happen. Heart attacks and diabetes are not cool. Getting lean and ripped is super cool.The next part of this series focuses on how we make ourselves enjoy exercise (mindset) so we can effect change.
To summarise