Sakabatou

Sorry for abandoning this blog lately. I had some server problems and at the same time changed my lifestyle a bit, so blogging got a back seat. But I thought I'd talk a little bit about losing weight because it is something I've done recently. Over the last 12 weeks I lost 10 kg (about 22 lbs). Many people have asked me how I did it and I tend to give them a pretty lame answer: exercise and not eating too much. But the real answer is a little more complex. So if you are interested please continue reading.

I'll tell you a secret. Losing weight it really easy. In fact, it's so easy that you can often lose weight faster than is healthy for you. I think most people fail at losing weight because they follow bad advice that is accepted as gospel these days. I'll try to point out where I think the accepted wisdom is wrong as I go. First, though, let me reiterate. It's easy to get yourself in trouble losing weight. For some people it could be really dangerous to your health. So talk to your doctor and even better a registered dietitian. I will also recommend exercise. Obviously I can't know your personal health considerations, so make sure you see professionals before you start messing around.

Now for the good stuff. Here's the absolute secret to losing weight: calories in - calories out = weight change. This is always true. I know you've probably heard about all sorts of factors that affect weight loss. You probably think it's really complicated to find the right "balance" to get your body to burn that fat. But basically it's all BS (and most of it is really just designed to make you feel helpless so that you buy some product, book or service). The absolute reality is if you eat more than you burn you gain weight. If you burn more than you eat you lose weight.

This means that the old trick of counting calories is the best (only?) way to ensure that you lose weight. Don't worry, it's not that hard. I'll explain a few tricks later on. But now you may be thinking, "Yes, I get the concept, but I have a slow metabolism". Don't worry, slow or fast metabolism it doesn't make too much difference.

The average male uses about 2000 calories per day to keep their body going. If you're bigger, you're probably burning more. If you're smaller you're probably burning less. Women burn about 1600 calories a day. But you have to burn some calories. Even if your metabolism is slow, you *are* alive so you have to burn calories. It won't be so much that you can't lose weight.

Also, some people think, "I just retain fat -- it's in my genes". This may be true. But if you burn calories, it's got to come from somewhere: There are only 3 sources: blood sugar/fat (i.e., what you ate today), your muscles, and your fat. So unless you are telling me that you are losing muscle every time you exercise, I'm suspicious that retaining fat is materially affecting your ability to lose weight.

I'd like to borrow a quote from Arnold Schwarzenegger in one of his body building books. He comments that in body building genetics is a factor, but not an excuse. The same thing goes for losing weight. You may have complicating factors in losing weight. But it's not an excuse. You can lose weight in the normal way, without undo complication. Of course, be conscious of your health and consult a doctor if anything strange seems to happen, but otherwise losing weight in not difficult in principle.

To lose one pound of fat you need to burn 3500 calories. Now remember that your entire day's diet is only between 1600 and 2000 calories. So this will limit the speed at which you can lose weight. Also, your body will only lose so much weight in a given time. It will shut down before it burns everything from fat. So it's extremely unhealthy (i.e., it can kill you) to lose weight too quickly. Finally, your body will actually tend to burn muscle over fat in most situations, so if you lose weight too quickly, you will actually lose muscle rather than fat. And trust me, muscle is very difficult to get back.

So by necessity you have to limit the speed at which you lose weight. My rule of thumb is that the maximum speed I can lose weight is 2-3 lbs a week. In practice, I limit it to 1 kg (2.2 lbs) every week. This is a lot of fat! In a year we are talking about more than 100 lbs! Don't try to go faster. And, in fact, it's much better to go slower. If you don't want to lose much, take it easy. But let's say we want to go the maximum: 1 kg a week. That works out to 7700 calories a week that you have to account for, or 1100 calories a day.

Now, remember, I said that for men the average income is 2000 calories a day. So 1100 calories is more than half of that total. For women (1600 calories) it's huge. So if you are a smaller woman, don't try to lose weight so fast! You could kill yourself (and I'm not exaggerating). Even for a man, you aren't going to get there without doing some extra exercise.

For me, I don't think it's nutritionally safe to eat less than 1600 calories a day on average. So to get to my goal I need to burn an extra 700 calories a day in exercise. I'm going to tell you something. That's a hell of a lot of exercise. I like running. Running burns about 130 calories per mile (about 80 calories per km). That means I need to run over 5 miles a day (almost 10 km) to burn all that. But my experience tells me that doing endurance exercise actually raises your metabolism (you have to rebuild your body after exercise). So I can actually get away with running 3 miles (5 km) 6 days a week as long as I take opportunities to go for walks.

Running isn't for everyone, though. And in fact, it's best to pick a sport that you feel happy doing almost every day. There are many walking, cycling, swimming, soccer... it doesn't matter as long as you are burning the calories. There are several problems, though. The first is that many sports don't burn calories very quickly. Walking for instance burns slightly less calories than running. But the real problem is that it takes a long time to walk 5 km (possibly several hours depending on your pace). It takes me less than 30 minutes to run it.

The other problem is that when you start exercising you are unlikely to be able to go long enough to burn the calories required. For runners, I recommend they start off with running only 1 or 2 km (or as far as you can go if it's less than 1 km). Do it every day for 6 days a week and increase the distance by 10% every week. If you are starting from scratch it will take a few months to get up to 5 km per day. This means that for several months your can't lose weight at the maximum speed.

What's the answer? Don't lose weight so fast. I'm serious. It took a long time for you to get the fat. You'll have to accept that it will take some time to lose it. But if you are committed you will lose weight steadily and increase your pace as you learn more about yourself and your body. If you are eating 1600 calories and burning 2000, then you will lose about 0.8 lbs per week, or about 3 lbs per month. It's slow, but as your fitness improves you will be burning faster and faster.

Now I'm going to talk about dieting. Dieting is a little tricky because it's hard to know how many calories you're taking in. Your best friend are those labels on the food. For prepared food you can see the exact number of calories. For food you make yourself, you have to calculate it. You can actually buy software to help you do this. But you can also so some rough calculations in your head using the USDA Nutrient Database. I recommend writing down what you ate for a couple of days and then looking everything up. After you do it a few times you can start guessing pretty accurately how many calories your meals are. Note: you are probably going to want to buy a small food scale to weigh your foods for the first few days.

When you are calculating calories, don't forget to enter everything. Seemingly small things like salad dressing, or a cup of juice can have a huge impact on your calories (a serving of french dressing is 56 calories -- probably more than the whole salad). Which brings me to what to eat.

Many fad diets (and I plunge Atkins and the like firmly in this category) make a big deal about the balance of carbohydrates to protein to fat. I don't agree with this to any great extent. But there are some truths you must accept. More than about 30% calories from fat is bad for your heart. And (the real kicker) fat has 3 times the energy density of carbohydrates or protein. This means that you could eat 3 grams of carbs or protein for the calorie equivalent of 1 gram of fat. So if you want to eat more food, eat low fat. This is important.

I'm a bit hesitant to say why it's important... But it's the hardest part of losing weight: hunger. Generally speaking, when you don't have enough food, you become hungry. This seems obvious, but it has serious repercussions. First on the gaining weight side. Let's say you avoid being hungry. This means that you always have more than enough food. If you always have more than enough food, you are eating at least as much as you are burning. Which means that you are gaining weight.

On the other hand, if you are burning more than you are eating... Well... Not to elaborate the point, but you are hungry. Especially when I was losing a kg a week I was hungry all the time! And in fact, if you don't want to count calories, this is a great way to determine how much to eat: Eat only at meal times (3 times a day). No matter how hungry you are, don't snack. At meal times, eat until you are not hungry any more (in other words when the hunger pangs go away -- you won't be full). Stop eating. I find this is quite a close approximation to an ideal diet for losing weight. However, you should still count calories for a while to make sure you aren't eating too little. Like I said, it could be dangerous.

Hunger is slightly unpleasant. But it's not such a big deal. If you ignore hunger, it will go away eventually. About an hour later it will come back again. You can ignore hunger for a long time before it becomes a problem. In fact, it's so easy to ignore hunger than many people skip meals and the like. Don't do this. There are health reasons for this, but there's even a better reason: you'll be miserable. Eat 3 meals a day that are roughly equal size (as much as possible). This will keep your hunger to the minimum. It's also easier to get an idea of how much to eat at each meal (since it's always the same).

But there are some benefits to hunger. Which is a good thing. Remember when I said that if you avoid hunger, the inevitable result is gaining weight? That means, to eat a healthy amount (where your weight is stable), you have to be hungry a little bit every day. You need to get used to hunger, and even appreciate it.

Hunger is actually really nice. How enjoyable is it to eat good food when you are really, really hungry? How about when you are really really full? There's a scale here. Food is most enjoyable when you are hungry and becomes less enjoyable as you become more full. So if you are having trouble limiting your portions, please try to think of your next meal. You are trying to make it the best meal possible, so you don't want to eat too much in this one. Also, as you eat more, there are diminishing returns. That last bite is never so satisfying as the first. So stop, when you aren't hungry any more so as to keep your enjoyment level high.

I also find that I'm more awake and "lighter" feeling when I am a bit hungry. I'm also (surprisingly) happier. I suppose this is different for different people, but I think there is some universal truth here. I definitely find my mind works better and and more engaged if I'm just a little bit hungry. If I'm too hungry it's no good, though, so I still try to limit my hunger to some degree.

The biggest trick for limiting hunger is to eat "high volume food". Low fat food generally has more volume. But fat carries flavour (and is required in small quantities), so don't go crazy. Find your own balance. Another trick is not to waste your calories on drinks. Juice, beer, and soda all have about the same number of calories (yes, that sickly sweet soda has the same calories as your healthy seeming juice). Don't drink it. If you need something sweet, eat fruit (which has a lot more bulk and fiber and will fill you up without the calories). Really, get used to drinking only water (actually, in restaurants I drink unsweetened oolong tea, but only because I feel about guilty about not buying anything). Alcohol should actually be avoided altogether because it inhibits your ability to process fat (so you will be burning other things).

If you are losing weight really quickly, you will be very hungry all the time. Another trick I have is to drink a lot of water during the day. This gives my stomach something to do (and me something to occupy my brain). Be a bit careful, though, because it is possible to drink too much.

This post is already too long, so I will finish up with a small discussion about weighing yourself. Many very respectable dieting people say to avoid regular weighing. The rationale is that it's difficult to interpret the results and you may end up being overly disappointed and quit. I understand the rationale, but I disagree anyway. Measurement is very important. You can only control the things that you can measure. And we want to feel in control of our body.

I measure myself very often -- both by weighing and looking in the mirror. But I try not to have any serious expectations. Your weight will vary dramatically based on a number of factors, but the most important is hydration. You can be carrying as much as 5 lbs extra weight in water, so don't worry if your weight is going up and down from measurement to measurement. You are only looking for a trend.

I actually weight myself before and after each run. This tells me how much water I lost in sweating in the run. I then dutifully replace it by drinking (every pound is about a pint of water -- 500g is half a liter). Since I usually run at the same time each day, I find my weight doesn't vary too much. But I'm only really think about how much I've lost for the whole week. If I gain or lose a little bit every day or two, I don't worry about it. It's important to have confidence in yourself and realize that you have complete control over what's happening.

I'll leave it at that for now. I know it was a lot to get through, but if you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me.