bergussonWell like I said previously, its really more the maths. Why maths? Well in the end the simplicity comes from the numbers. Before we can start a weight loss regime we need to understand how many calories we can eat daily to stay at the same weight (maintainence). To do this we work out our TDEE! Sounds complex and boring doesn’t it, its really simple.
TDEE (Total Daily Energy expenditure) is essentially the calories needed to maintain your weight at your current or anticipated exercise. I would recommend the following calculator it takes a less than a minute and we use ot to work out your starting calories.
Enter sex, your age, age, height and weight a select from 6 levels of activity and boom.
So for me aged male, aged 47, 178 cm and currently around 80kg . Next, activity. Ill go the to the gym 4 or 5 times a and for the types of exercise I do I’m selecting moderate. If your beasting out 6 sessions at boot camp or fitting more cardio type exercise on top of your weights maybe consider Heavy exercise.
I put in my body fat but it’s a bit of guess right now as I cand find my calipers! But you don’t need that it’ll calculate anyway. My TDEE is set at 2582 that how many calories a I can eat a day without weight gain or loss (not accounting for natural fluctuation which ill drop a note on elsewhere).
We all have a TDEE we just don’t normally workout what it is and in order to sustain safe and steady weight loss you need to know!!
That’s the hard bit done now.. easy! Now to create my calorie deficit. A deficit of around but no higher than 20% is where you want to aim for. If you make this deficit too high you’re going to get very hungry very quickly, you wont have enough energy to do your workouts (or live your life) and in the end everything just gets increasingly harder from there so do not be tempted to eat less than this. Obviously if you set you deficit lower say 10% weight loss should still happen, just more slowly. So set this depending on what you are capable of sticking to in your mind.
For me at 20% I should be looking at around 2065 calories a day. Next up Macro’s. If this sounds like its getting too deep read on and make your mind up yourself
“What the hell is a macro”
So now we know how many calories we have each day we need to think about what do with them? How should I break my calories down? Well all foodstuffs are made of the basic macro nutrients (macros). These are:
- Fat (think energy storage)
- Carbohydrate (think energy)
- Protein (think strength).
On top of that each of these basic macros tend to specialize in the different vitamins and minerals ( micronutrients) we need to sustain a happy healthy body, if you cut one out or put it too low you’re very likely to be putting your health at risk in some surprising ways. Vegans for example have to be particularly careful about their protein sources (typically but of course not exclusively meat) and the levels vitamin B12 which can have some horrible effect from anemia to muscle weakness and even blindness!
You really need a balance of these macros, yes including FAT! Fat is an essential part of our diet supplying energy reserves and slower release into our systems. Cutting out fat can affect things like our hormones and has other nasty side effects. Of course we want to avoid saturated fat foods and try to fill up our allowance with unsaturated – healthy fat. I’ll cover this more in THE FOOD.
So no matter whether youre a vegan, veggie or meat lover you need consider a balanced diet and make sure you understand what’s needed to balance it out. Im the furthest thing from a nutritionist of course for serious advice on that front look for other sources like Ben Coomber and Body type Nutrition.
For my plan I will look at a macro split which is pretty high in protein which supports muscle building. So my target macro split will be made up of around 40% carb, 40%protein, 20% fat although ill play with that number a little as I go. Really protein is key here in terms of the % of your total diet it makes up, mixing up between carbs and fat for most of us wont make too much difference. Whatever keeps your hunger at bay for longer , some people find higher fats sustains them longer others like me are carb monkeys.
40% is pretty high and if youre not doing serious exercise or building strength you don’t need to go this high, but people often eat far less protein than we need. Protein is highly satiating it takes our bodies longer to break down and get the good stuff out, compared to quick energy release foods typically “simple carbs” like fruit and of course processed and refined foods like cakes or sweet sauces.
Protein is essential for muscle building not just for bodybuilders and increasingly important as we age.
All Macros aren’t created equally
1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 calories
1 gram of protein = 4 calories
1 gram of fat = 9 calories
There’s actually a 4th macro, Alcohol which is a non essential macronutrient, which effectively means they are useless or empty calories which provide zero sustenance but will still accrue themselves to your body fat – this knowledge still makes me cry.
1 gram of alcohol = 7 calories. Just let that news sink in…
All The above is important when we consider creating a meal plan, which in itself is essential when undertaking a serious effort to control your weight.
Another interesting point is the amount of calories it takes to produce 1lb of body fat (05.kg) It’s roughly 3500 calories. Speaking very broadly (as our bodies don’t quite work this way but it’s a great rule of thumb, you would have to over eat on your allowance (set by your TDEE) 3500 calories, so for me If I ate (or drank…) 3000 calories a day I could expect to gain 0.5kg weight that week. Or if I stuck to my cut of 20% but went out everty Saturday and had a Large dominoes (2240) and 5 pints of stella (227 x 5) – sounds like a fun night.. I’d have rendered a weeks worth of effort useless in one night!
Of course that’s an extreme but its an interesting illustration.
Of course theres so much more to tlak about but were trying to keep this simple and light .
So in summary we need to know:
- how much food we need to eat to maintain our weight
- Cut this by between 10 and 20%
- Consider a macro split around 45% carbs 25% fat 30% protein (if you are doing strength training increase that protein and reduce the other.
If macros seem a bit too much or overwhelming to consider, id suggest ignoring that bit to begin with and just focus on the calories, for many of us that will be hard enough!