Losing Fat
At Body Fat Test of So. CA, we've tested every body type under the sun. You name
it, we've seen it. As a dunk tank technician, one thing is overwhelmingly clear:
the common thread shared by the fittest of the fit is that they're extremely
active, everyday or almost everyday of the week, without exception, for long
periods of time.
They all spend an hour or more at least five or six days a week, strength
training, in classes, or doing aerobic exercise. And if they're not in the gym
lifting or spinning,
they're engaged in physical activities outdoors, and do it whenever they have
the chance. Whether it's cycling on the road, biking in the hills, swimming, surfing, hiking trails, joggin paths, training for marathons or
triathalons, they all exercise habitually.
The majority don't count calories and eat what and when they want, although
they're usually reasonably healthy choices. Their bodies have learned to use
food as fuel. They've freed themselves from nutrition labels and diets by
compensating with hard physical work. Learning to eat healthily is definitely an
integral step toward success, but above everything else, exercise and activity
will make the biggest difference in your health and fitness. Remember:
someone busier than you are is working out—right now.
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Your scale weight is a poor measurement of your fitness level. The scale cannot
tell you what your weight is made up of, or what changes your body may be
undergoing. For this reason, trying to achieve a "goal weight" is a poor
direction toward increased fitness. Without knowing what your weight is made
of, a predefined goal weight may not even be possible, or could be unhealthy.
Often times, relying on your weight to tell you how you’re doing will lead you
in the wrong direction!
Instead, focus on what how much of your weight is fat, and how much is
fat-free mass like muscle. Your goal should be to increase reducing fat mass
and increasing muscle. Muscle, after all, helps burn fat! If
you've lost 5 lbs, for example, you may think that's great. But what if you lost
all muscle? Your scale weight may give you a sense of accomplishment, but you've
in fact taken a step backward toward the pursuit of fat loss.
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When we get less energy than our body uses, weight loss occurs. Energy comes in
the form of calories. How much energy our bodies use on a daily basis is
referred to as our total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).
Thus, when we consume less calories than our TDEE, weight loss occurs. This
state is referred to as a caloric deficit. There are two ways to create a
caloric deficit:
- Eat less (decrease calories)
- Exercise more (increase TDEE)
As a general rule, a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories/week (or 500/day) will
eliminate 1 lb of body weight/week. This is a safe and attainable goal, and
should be accomplished through a combination of both diet and exercise.
But to be in a deficit, one must first know their TDEE. If you’re going to, for
example, eat 250 calories/day less and burn 250 calories/day through extra
exercise to create a deficit, how many calories per day are you going to eat?
You'll eat 250 calories/day less than your TDEE, but what's your TDEE? To find
out, you must first know your lean body mass (LBM).
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Your lean body mass, also referred to as fat-free mass, is the weight of your
body without fat. LBM includes muscle, bone, connective tissue, and organs.
These systems, along with how hard they work, are the foundation of your TDEE.
Since bone and organs have relatively fixed weights, your LBM will only
measurably change when you lose or gain muscle. An increase
or decrease in LBM means you've gained or lost muscle.
Knowing your LBM is the single most important piece of the puzzle when designing
an effective fat-loss strategy. Without it, you cannot know how much to eat or
exercise to create a safe and effective caloric deficit.
This is because fat, unlike LBM, burns virtually no calories. The muscle and
organs that constitute your LBM are what burn the calories you consume. Your
total weight, then (it includes fat!), cannot be used effectively to estimate
how many calories you should be consuming on a daily basis.
Many methods of estimating your body fat percentage can give you a ballpark idea
of what your LBM is, but in many cases, not a preicse one. No method other than hydrostatic weighing can determine precisely what your LBM is. See our page about hydrostatic weighing to compare methods.
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BMR is a measurement of how many calories your LBM requires to function, and
nothing more. If you laid in bed all day, the number of calories you'd burn
would be your BMR.
The Harris-Benedict equation was formulated in 1919, before hydrostatic weighing
was conceived, to estimate basal metabolic rate (BMR). Many health and fitness
practioners and experts to this day rely on this equation that uses only age,
gender, height, and weight. The problem with this is that it doesn't use LBM,
and LBM, as you've learned, is the most significant factor in determing how many
calories you burn! How can you calculate how many calories your LBM uses without
knowing your LBM? Accurately, you can't!
Thankfully, with the advent of body fat testing and the hydrostatic dunk tank,
new research by Katch-McArdle has developed a much more accurate formula for
determining BMR using LBM. Remember, your LBM is responsible for burning
virtually all calories.
To determine your BMR, you'll need to know your LBM and then apply the Katch-McArdle formula.
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So far you've learned that your LBM is what in your body (muscle, organs, etc.)
is that's responsible for burning virtually all calories. The amount of calories
your LBM burns is referred to as your BMR. Think of your BMR, then, as your base
metabolism that is determined by the amount of LBM you have.
As you've also learned, LBM will only change measurably by adding or losing
muscle. Therefore, to increase your base metabolism, focus on
increasing your muscle mass. A higher LBM means a higher BMR, or base
metabolism.
If you're a woman, don't worry about becoming too "bulky" or looking masculine.
Bulking up like some men can isn't something the biology of your body was
designed to do. Since muscle is LBM and requires calories to sustain, the fat
around your muscle will be burned to supply that muscle, lending to a firmer
appearance of your skin around your figure.
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If you were to be bedridden, knowing your BMR alone would be good enough to use as your TDEE. You could consume less than your BMR, creating a caloric deficit, and lose weight. But TDEE is your total daily energy expenditure, which includes physical activity through the day such as exercise.
The more physically active you are, the more calories you burn, and the higher your TDEE will be. Not only do you burn calories during exercise like cardio or weight lifting, but you continue to burn a higher number of calories than normal afterward because physical exersion increases your metabolism.
Technology may have changed over the last decade (hydrostatic tanks can calculate LBM), but human physiology hasn't. For that reason, some of the work by Harris and Benedict is still very useful. In particular, their research into how exercise and physical activity increase BMR has stood the stand of time and academic discourse.
Select your level of phsyical activity to determine TDEE. If you're on the fence
between two activity levels, chooose the lesser.
Your TDEE is
[not yet calculated] calories.
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Being in a caloric deficit causes weight loss, not necessarily fat
loss. Avoiding muslce loss while dieting is just as important as reducing fat
mass because losing muscle will decrease your metabolism. Unfortunately, it's
very difficult for most people to maintain (let alone increase!) their muscle
mass while in a caloric deficit. Two important activities are required to ensure
that muscle loss is minimized while in a deficit:
- Consuming sufficient or surplus protein
- Strength (weight) training
How much protein is "sufficient?" The higher your LBM,
the more protein you'll need. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein,
and what muscle tissue is made of. Amino acids are also vital for many other
bodily functions. Without sufficient protein, muscle will atrophy as its amino
acids are used by the body in lieu of dietary sources of protein. LBM muscle
decreases, and when that happens, so does one's metabolism.
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UNDER CONSTRUCTION