Long Term Weight Loss and Weight Gain (Part 1 of 2)

It seems that everyone in the common era suffers from some sort of weight related problems. Some people (mostly men) want to gain weight and some people want to lose weight. A lot of us have tried everything from eating celery for every meal, HCG (I highly disagree with this method), Atkins, and almost anything else that we see in a fitness magazine. The problem is the fact that we are looking for a magic formula that will allow us to lose/gain as much weight as we dream of in as little as two weeks. Sorry, but this does not work effectively.


The truth is, dieting has been proven again and again in lab studies to not be enough to help ANYONE lose, and keep off, weight in the long term. The ONLY way to lose weight and keep it off is to increase muscle mass. This is only accomplished by resistance training of some sort or by living an active lifestyle. The fact of the matter is that we have been told many myths about weight gain and weight loss over the years. Drug companies around the world have fed us the baloney that you need a miracle pill to lose weight. To understand how to lose weight we first need to understand how it is that we gain unhealthy weight in the first place.


Gaining weight can be a very subtle or a very aggressive process. It takes 2500 Kcal (kilo-calories) to gain one pound of muscle, it takes 3500 Kcal to gain 1 pound of fat. This measurement has no time constraints nor window that it must be filled within to remain true. By this measure, you can see that your body will gain muscle before it gains fat from the food that you eat. That is, if you are working out properly. The way that this works is that the human body requires a certain amount of calories per day. I won't touch on the formula in this post but I will give an example of how weight gain can happen. Doctors call this example 'creeping obesity':


Example:


Amanda's caloric needs are 2100 kcal a day. She is an older woman and she is not very active any more. She eats relatively healthy and just snacks every now and then. On average she eats 2200 calories a day. Every year at her annual exam the doctor tells her that she has gained more weight, despite her efforts.


This is not uncommon and it is, in fact, to be expected. The average person is unaware of just how much maintaining the body is a science and not just a skill. With a little arithmetic, we can see just how much Amanda will gain over the course of a year with her current diet.


Amanda's caloric needs are 2100 kcal a day and yet she eats 2200 kcal every day. This puts her in a positive 100 kcal balance a day. If there are 365 days in a year then we will know that she consumes an excess of 36500 extra calories a year (365 x 100 = 36,500). You will then divide this number by 3500 and we will get the exact number of the amount of pounds that she will gain in a year (36500/3500 = 10.43 ). Amanda can gain 10 pounds a year by just a simple miscalculation!


This is a very rough example because it does not factor in the fact that her metabolism has slowed due to her age. By keeping a food log and staying within the parameters of your caloric needs you can avoid this easy dieting mistake. Sit down with your physician or trainer to discuss exactly what your caloric needs are and create a meal plan that will help you reach your goals.


In the next post, I will cover the science of both weight loss and weight gain, how to calculate your caloric needs, and how to create an effective meal plan for your fitness goals.


Till next time!

Cell Phones Kill Workouts

So you're going to the gym. You grab your keys, your Gatorade, an I-Pod, and your cell phone. Your all set. You drive to the gym and you are making good time to be able to get in a good workout and still make your hot date later this evening. You put on some Black Sabbath and prepare for hell. You're warming up and right as your about to start your routine you get a text message. Look, it's that date you were talking about. It's normally all down-hill from here. One text message leads to a whole conversation and no workout. You notice this and you have either decided to blow another ten or so minutes to warm back up or just jump right  into your routine. Most people choose the latter, which is potentially dangerous.

Does this sound familiar? Well most people go through the exact same thing every time that they go to the gym. The reason: people are way too 'plugged in' to focus on anything. This fear of missing a beat is a phobia that is causing shortcomings in all facets of life in the past 5 years. Everywhere you go, you will see someone slacking off rather than doing their job or workout because they are completely engrossed in their cellphones.

So how do you fix this problem? Well, firstly, leave your cell-phone in the car. People in the gym have several bad reasons to take their cell-phones with them instead of stashing it in the glove box, I'm going to eliminate those reasons.

1. "I might need it when I'm in there"- This is one of the weaker excuses, mainly because I have never known anyone that had to call his friend and ask him how to do bench presses.

2. "I'm waiting on an important call/text"- Unless it's business related or life threatening. I highly doubt that replying to this text, that more than likely will not come while you're in the gym, cannot wait an hour.

3. "My phone has a timer that I use to measure my rest period"- Seriously? Are we that obsessed that we have forgotten about stopwatches? Or are we too cheap to pay ten bucks?

4. "I log my workout with an app on my phone"- Log it in a notebook, plug it into your cell phone later.

5. "I don't want it to get stolen"- You remember the comment about leaving it in the glove box correct? If you don't like that idea, then leave it in a locker.

The world will not end if you don't contact them. Focus! This little change will make a big difference both in the gym, and in your life. You will start to see that your intensity in the gym will go up exponentially, which is what you want for big results.