While there are some people that can get in shape by just ‘cleaning up’ their diet, for most of us, this isn’t going to be the case. Yes, if you’ve got a lot of fat to lose, you can definitely start losing fat by simply exercising more and making better dietary choices. Foods that are traditionally seen as ‘clean’ are generally more nutrient dense and calorically sparse. So if you replace some of the higher-calorie foods you’re typically eating with more wholesome choices, yes, that caloric decrease is likely going to net you some fat loss … up to a point. Once you hit a certain point though, and this will likely differ from person to person, just making the right choices isn’t going to cut it anymore.
The key to fat loss is eating the right amount of calories for YOUR body. This is why a cookie cutter, one-size-fits-all nutritional strategy can’t possibly be optimal for everyone. Your program needs to be customized to your body for maximum results. This ties into another dieting mistake people often make, but suffice it to say, your energy intake, relative to your body’s energy requirements is the primary determinant of your fat-loss progress. You could be eating all the cleanest and healthiest foods available, but if you’re eating too much, you’re eating too much. Whether it’s from chicken breast or pizza, if your end-of-day calories come in higher than the calories required to maintain your body weight, you’re not going to lose fat. You need a caloric deficit, and you don’t have one. Along the same lines, if you’re eating too few calories for your body weight, you’re also going to experience less-than-optimal results, albeit for different reasons.
Consider two bodybuilders; one weighs 250 lbs. and the other weighs 200 lbs. It should be quite obvious that their nutritional requirements aren’t going to be the same, right? They each need to eat for their body weight … yes, body weight. Some people base caloric intake on lean body mass. This is another mistake. One of the prevailing thoughts many people have is that muscle is metabolically active tissue and body fat is simply dead weight. This however, is only partially true. While muscle is obviously a very metabolically active tissue, it’s not as metabolically active as many people think. You often hear the claim that each additional pound of muscle you add will boost metabolism by 50 calories per day. Now wouldn’t that be nice? 20 pounds of muscle later and you get to eat an additional 1000 calories per day. Sorry, not true. According to actual research on physiology, the actual number is 13 calories/kg/day, or put in a comparable figure, just under 6 calories/lb/day. Clearly a far cry from the 50 calories/lb/day claimed. Add to that the fact that fat is definitely not just dead weight; it too is metabolically active coming in at 4.5 calories/kg/day or just over 2 calories/lb/day. So there’s one reason to use total body weight in your caloric determination.
Another reason to use total body weight, and this would apply even if the above weren’t true, is that if you’re carrying around an extra 30 lbs. of fat, you’re lugging around that weight every day. That burns calories. Think about it. What if you carried around a back pack that weighed 30 pounds all day long, or took two 15-pound dumbbells and carried them up a flight of stairs? That would be more work and as a result, would burn more calories. In the end, that individual’s caloric requirements are simply higher.
Now back to the point of the mistake of not knowing how much you’re eating. The art of dieting isn’t in the initial nutritional strategy you’ve put together or are following, but rather, the changes that get made to it to ensure continued progress. When your initial set up fails to produce continued results, how do you know what to do with your calories if you don’t know how much you’re eating in the first place? If your plan is to decrease calories by another 10%, you can’t do that if you don’t know how many calories you’re eating. This is the key to fat-loss success – the ability to troubleshoot your diet, and to do that, you need to know how much you’re eating.
So how do you figure out the caloric value of food? Check out the USDA Nutrient Database at
www.usda.gov. This site has a calculator that will help you determine the caloric value and even the nutrient breakdown of just about every food source available in any amount.
Erik Ledin