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!
0 comments:
Post a Comment