What's up guys! In this post, I'd like to show you, how to lose weight consistently without starving. Most diets fail because of the low amount of calories you are allowed to consume, others fail because of its monotony. Eating rice, chicken and broccoli every single day is not that comfortable and may lead you to breaking your diet prematurely.
Let's get into the necessary knowledge of losing weight.
A nice analogy to the thermodynamics of your body is a simple fuel driven car.
Car equals your body, amount of fuel per route equals the calories you eat a day and your bodyfat/muscle is like gasoline canisters.
Imagine you need 50 litres of fuel per route (e.g. 2000 calories per day), but you fill up the tank of your car with 60 litres (you eat 2400 calories), thus actually the surplus (10 litres) go to the gasoline canisters, not into the tank (the 400 calories are stored as bodyfat/muscle). This way you tanked more than necessary and you can use the 10 litres as a reserve for another route.
As you can see, the body is very efficient related to energy, of course it is just a simple example and purely scientific, but the body works more or less in the same way.
Fact: We have to eat less calories than we burn per day to lose weight and more than we burn, to gain weight.
(To build muscle you have to consider the fact, that weight training and eating more protein than a usual guy would do is necessary)
Nevertheless we want to focus on losing bodyfat not muscle. Unfortunately it is impossible to lose pure bodyfat without losing any amount of muscle, but the ratio can be optimized pretty well by considering the following rules.
For maintaining muscle mass, you have to eat more protein and lift weights in the gym (girls don't worry you will never look like a bodybuilder unless you take steroids, so don't hesitate to hit the gym!).
As I have claimed, to lose weight, you have to eat less calories than you burn. I strongly suggest you, to orient yourself according to the following numbers, if you want to maximize your fatloss and minimize your muscle loss.
With the following formula you calculate your basal metabolic rate(= amount of calories you burn by doing nothing):
Imperial:
Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years)
Metric:
Women: BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) - (6.8 x age in years)
Once you have calculated your basal metabolic rate, you have to multiply it, by one of the following so called PAL Factors (physical activity level). You will receive the amount of calories you are approximately burning throughout the day:
Less than 1.2 - Hospital patient with limited physical mobility (Inactive)
1.4 - 1.5 - Little (if any) physical activity at work or in leisure time, e.g. typical UK or USA office worker - male or female (Sedentary)
1.6 - Moderate physical activity at work or leisure - female (Moderately Active)
1.7 - Moderate physical activity at work or leisure - male (Moderately Active)
1.8 - 2.0 Moderate physical activity at work, e.g. in construction, or some jobs in agriculture or the leisure industry.
Alternatively, office workers who work-out e.g. in gym for an hour per day. (Moderately Active)
2.1 - 2.2 Considerable physical activity at work, e.g. some military or outdoor occupations or energetic jobs in the leisure industry - such as fitness trainers who run alongside clients. Alternatively, office workers who take at least moderate exercise for two or more hours/day. (Very Active)
More than 2.2 Professional athlete or sports person e.g. football player (Extremely Active)
So now you should have your approximate amount of calories you burn throughout the day.
One pound of bodyfat is equal to 3500 calores (0.5kg bodyfat = 3500 calories), so to lose around one pound per week, you have to eat 3500 calories less throughout the week in comparison to your burned calories. Dividing 3500 by 7 equals to 500, thus you need to eat 500 calories less per day.
Further you need to adjust your macronutrients (protein, fat, carbohydrates=carbs) related to your bodyweight.
1g of fat is equal to 9 calories
1g of protein is equal to 4 calories
1g of carb is equal to 4 calories
Suggested:
1g of protein per pound of bodyweight (2g of protein per kg of bodyweight)
0.5g of fat per pound of bodyweight (1g of fat per kg of bodyweight)
remaining calories are filled up with carbs
Example:
bodyweight = 160lb (around 80kg)
calories = 2500 (after multiplying the basal metabolic rate with the PAL factor)
caloric goal = 2000 (deficit of 500 calories per day results in losing 1 lb per week)
160lb x 1g of protein = 160g of protein -> 160 x 4 calories = 640 calories
160lb x 0.5g of fat = 80g of fat -> 80 x 9 calories = 720 calories
2000calories - 640 calories - 720 calories = 640 calories / 4 calories per carb = 160g of carbs (= 1g of carb per lb)
As you can see, once you have calculated your caloric goal, deducing your macronutrients is pretty easy.
Now the only instructions you have to follow are:
Calculate your calories, deduce your macronutrients, hit the macronutrients every single day and weigh yourself once a week (keep it in a diary, pictures are also recommended).
If you don't lose any weight, reduce your caloric goal by 100 and recalculate your macronutrients accordingly.
The last point I want to mention in this post is tracking your macronutrients. If you want to lose weight, you have to be conscious about the fact, that it's easier to track your macronutrients, when you prepare your meals at home. Normally restaurants aren't always revealing their nutritional facts for the meals they are preparing, thus you are not able to track your macronutrients appropriately.
I strongly suggest you to use "myfitnesspal" for tracking, it's very popular because of the huge database (food categories and so on). I also suggest you to use a scale to weigh your food before consuming, to be on the safe side.
I hope, now you do understand more or less the process of losing weight.
I know this post is far from perfect, but I am not a native english speaker, so forgive me for my bad grammar!
I welcome any feedback and constructive critiscm, to improve this post.
Thanks for reading! Hopefully you gonna reach your dream weight!!!
Greets
Tuszy