OK, there have been a lot of "I need to lose weight and tone up" threads since Jan 1 (go figure) so I thought I would start a thread with beginning fat loss in mind. Please note that this is an intro and many of you already know this info, so please keep in mind that some people come to this board with no knowledge of nutrition and this thread is for them. (I've been meaning to start this for over a year now).

First and foremost, you are making a very positive change in your life. Congrats. You feel physically feel better and be emotionally happier. Your insurance companies thank you as well. (although McDonalds may spite you for a lower share price).

Remember that weight loss and fat loss are different. Weight comes off and is added quickly thru water manipilation, food in the gut, etc. True fat loss is slower and since we all know that fat loss is the goal, we need to be patient. Not all weight loss is fat so dont get excited when you lose 7 lbs the first week and dont get discouraged when 5 lbs come back the next week. To set expectations, don’t count on seeing anything visible in the mirror for 3-4 weeks. It's up to you if you want to weigh in everyday to see shorter term progress, but remember that daily changes in weight can fluctuate wildly. just stay with your program, and you will see results. You didnt get fat overnight and you wont get ripped in a week. So please be patient.

So how do you lose fat?
First, you need to be in a caloric deficit. Your body needs to burn more cals than it takes in on a consistent basis. There are three ways to do this:
1. Eat less
2. Exercise more
3. A combination of 1 and 2

EAT LESS
Lets look at the most important factor here: eating less. This is the single most important factor for someone new to losing fat. You never have to exercise in your life but as long as you eat correctly, you can lose weight. You want to eat less than your maintenance cals (the cals your body uses to get thru everyday life as it maintains a constant weight). You can determine maintenance cals by charting your daily caloric intake and seeing at what level you remain at the same weight. Or you can estimate it by multiplying your bodyweight by 15.
To lose weight, you need to eat less than that. A 20% caloric deficit is a good place to start. That would equate to about 12 cals per pound bodyweight. For most people, the following formula can give them a good place to start in determining how many cals they need to eat in order to lose weight:

Bodyweight x 12 cals/lb

So if you weigh 180 lbs, a good starting point is 2160 cals. Some go for a larger deficit but if you haven’t dieted before, or if you have a strong psychological connection to food, then a slower start is better. later, you may want cut back to 8-10 cals/lb. Every body is different, so you may need to tweak your cals a bit. ***remember: as you lose weight, your maintenance cals will decrease so alter your cal intake periodically***

Now on to what "diet" works best. The short answer, it doesn’t really matter. All diets work. Atkins, Zone, South Bronx tapeworm, etc., they all create cal deficits and results can be seen. The problem is that people quickly go back to their old eating habits and the weight loss reverses. My advice is to always eat natural, unprocessed foods and lean meats but that cant be done for all people so you will have to use your discretion. But since we know your calorie requirements, lets start running some numbers.

First, lets set your macronutrient goals. Since many people exercise, protein is going to be very important. I generally recommend 1g/lb bodyweight. This means 180g (720 cals) for the 180 lb example. (protein provides 4 cals/gram) This amount help keep your muscle and prevents you from wasting away. For a beginner, you may seem some solid increases in muscle mass as well. Please note that an increase in muscle mass may keep your weight from going down but you may still be losing fat (see earlier comments on the difference between weight and fat).

Believe it or not, your body needs fat (so no need for Alli). A good place to start is to get 25% of cals from fat. Since fat provides 9 cals/gram, lets do the math for our example:
2160 cals x .25 = 540 cals
540 cals / 9 cals per g = 60g of fat needed daily

So the rest will come from carbs (preferably unprocessed foods and veggies). Since we need 2160 cals, and 720 are coming from protein and 540 are coming from fat, then we need 900 cals from carbs. That translates to 225 grams since carbs provide 4cals/gram.

To summarize:
1. Determine your weight
(180)
2. Multiply weight by 12 to determine daily caloric needs
(180 x 12 = 2160)
3. Multiple weight by 1 to determine number of grams of protein you need daily
(180 x 1 = 180 grams) (this also means 720 cals since each gram of protein has 4 cals)
4. Multiply daily caloric needs by 25% to determine fat intake
(2160 x 0.25 = 540 fat calories) (divide this number by 9 to determine how many grams of fat you need…60g in this case)
5. Get the rest of your cals from carbs.
(2160-720-540=900 cals) (divide this by 4 to get the number of grams…225g carbs)

The body knows what it is doing. It will know that you are cutting back on cals and will try to fight it. To reduce this metabolism slowdown, take 5 hours each week to eat some decent amount of foods, a free meal. While this meal is mostly psychological, it can also have some physiological benefits, especially if you are working out intensely (refill muscle glycogen). Once every 10-14 days, take a whole day or 2 off the reduced cal diet and refeed. Eat at above maintenance cals with the majority of cals coming from carbs, then protein. Some people choose to eat high fat meals and while this is fine for one meal, it is not in the best interest of your goals to binge out. Every 6 weeks or so, it is a good idea to stop dieting completely and eat maintenance cals for 5-7 days. just remember, the fatter you are, the less refeed you need (fatter individuals should wait 14 days). Dont fool yourself into thinking you need a refeed if you really dont. And a refeed is not an excuse to stuff your face with as much as you can.

Oh, and drink LOTS of water.

Now we can start exercising...

EXERCISE MORE

This is a very personal aspect of life. Some people run marathons, others run sprints. Some people love to lift weights while others wont step foot in a gym. The choice is yours and the options are endless. The bottom line is that you move around a lot and get some work done.

If you are new to running, get out there and run. Walk or stop if you need to rest and then get running again. Set goals. Hell, set goals for everything you do. There are lots of runners on this board that will be glad to help (I’m not one of them)

If you like lifting weights, incorporate full body routines 3 times a week to start. Again, start slowly and then build up. Cardio is great but can be time consuming. Look into HIIT and incorporate that into your program.

LADIES...unless you are taking anabolic/androgenic steroids, you will not bulk up by lifting weights.

FYI, there is no such thing as spot reduction when it comes to fat. A thousand crunches a day won't get rid of your spare tire if your diet isn't in check. Fat comes off in a genetic predetermined pattern, much like it was put on. For guys, the fat is generally added first to the ab area, and that is the last place it comes off. For women, its hips, thighs, and ass. Yes, it sucks, but then again, so does nature for doing this to civilized people. Damn my ancestors...

IF YOU ARE ALREADY LEAN...and want to lose some of that stubborn body fat, please search for the post on "stubborn body fat" where I quote Lyle McDonald's routine. This routine is for people that are already lean. If you arent sub 10% BF, then it wont be as helpful and other methods can work better.

A few words about supplements: other than protein powder and fish oils, which I consider food since they have calories, most supplements are useless. Don’t waste money on them. For questions on protein powders, check out this thread:
http://www.texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1086031&forum_id=48

(this is a work in progress so it will be updated but i had to get it out there or I never would post it)

[This message has been edited by Sr. Gomez (edited 2/19/2008 1:30p).]

[This message has been edited by Sr. Gomez (edited 2/27/2008 11:39a).]

staff...sticky.

I almost forgot the disclaimer:

be sure to see a competenet physician before starting any exercise plan. These are just recommendations so do your own research before trusting the advice of some random guy on the internet.

Sr.,

Is there an adjustment for your calories per pound at a higher body weight? It strikes me that the estimate becomes wildly inaccurate the further you move from your 180 lb example.

GREAT post.

What about how much of these calories should be consumed per meal? Eating less, more often?

Great post! Thanks.

[This message has been edited by I_bleed_maroon (edited 2/5/2008 7:35p).]

sticky

Definitely sticky material! Thanks for taking the time to write this!


[This message has been edited by AggieRD (edited 2/5/2008 11:52p).]

i have a random question that was posed to me at work today....it somewhat relates to this thread in that most people beginning weight loss might question this:

Let's say your goal for caloric intake is 1500 calories per day (for arguements sake, lets say this is a 20% caloric deficit as recommended by Gomez). Does the food you choose to eat (in order to make up 1500 calories) affect your body's weight loss?

for example, lets say you eat the following to reach 1500 calories:

breakfast: 1 breakfast taco = 400 calories
lunch: mcdonald's meal (we'll say you had a kids meal...) = 700 calories
dinner = wendy's chili 400 calories

so obviously this meal is full of saturated fat and tons of sodium. and in general not good foods, but it is only 1500 calories.

is your weight loss affected by eating this type of food? if your diet of 1500 calories was made up of unprocessed, fresh fruits and veggies, and lean proteins would you lose weight at a different rate?

[This message has been edited by rdag04 (edited 2/5/2008 8:48p).]

Phi, studies have shown that meal frequencies play no role in
metabolism. But for some, especially those new to cal restriction, more frequent meals satisfy hunger and keeps adherence to the diet easier. Its up to you.

Blue, please explain how the numbers for heavier individuals are wildly inaccurate. Sure everyone is different, but it takes a lot more calories to keep a 250lb person alive than it does for someone that is 150lbs. Maintenance cals are just estimates, the only way to know is to actually chart them yourself, as explained in the original post. If you need to adjust, then certainly do so.

Rdag, as long ad you are in a deficit, you'll lose weight. BUT, other aspects of your life can be affected,as well as performance and possibly muscle mass. Hell, you can lose weight by eating nothing but fat all day as long as you keep cals low but good luck ding HIIT or lifting intense weights. Each macronutrient has its use and that is why I promote a balanced diet of veggies, lean meats, and non processed carbs.
and then there is the whole thermic effect of food thing...

makes sense.

i honestly didn't know if it would affect rates of weightloss, but i did tell my co-worker that having such a diet (regardless of caloric intake) would probably result in high blood pressure and a free pass to a heart condition.

Wildly inaccurate was a poor choice of words on my part. Still, say you have a 350 lb. individual, your formula says that a 4200 calorie diet will produce weight loss. This seems high. I've always assumed that caloric needs are more tied to muscle mass than pure body weight.

It just seemed to me that there ought to be a weight at which your multiplying factor drops to 11 and then to 10 and so on. I was just wondering if you had come across anything like this.

EXCELLENT! I wanted to do something like this too.

For any new beginning reading this board or this post and you get down to this... please, PLEASE focus on what he said on the differences between weight and fat loss. This is extremely important not only for health reasons but phsychological effects and motivational efforts.

Blue, go back and read the paragraph on calories. It says that these are estimates and you may need to adjust. That is why the range I give is from 8-12 cals/lb for weight loss. Sure, fat is pretty inactive in the metabolic sense, but if a 350lb man goes for a walk, he is burning a hell of a lot more cals than a 150lb man. The extra weight he carries makes his work (and daily life) much more difficult. Maintenance cals depends on a lot of things: muscle mass, age, lifestyle, exercise, etc. That is why these are estimates. So would I want a 350 lb man to eat 4200 cals? My answer is: it depends on his activity level and how he responds.

Awesome ATHF reference.

Fair enough. I think that I came off more confrontational than I had intended. This thread is a great idea and I appreciate the effort that you are putting into it.

quote:

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1. Eat less
2. Exercise more
3. A combination of 1 and 2

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That's so crazy it just might work!

Seriously, your advice on here is always appreciated. Thanks for posting.

Can't wait for the intermediate / advanced versions. People might actually mistake me for someone who is in shape.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once"

For advanced...

http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/ultimatediet2.html

Thanks Sr., great info.

here is my story to help motivate others.

I gained about 100lbs in 6 years (freshman year through second year working after college), most of it was gained in first 4 years. My freshman 15 was closer to 35.

I changed my eating and exercise habits about 5 years ago after I peaked at 275 and hated seeing pictures of my fat face and got tired of being winded when doing light exercise (I once ran cross country). Also, the doc said my cholesterol was way too high for my age.

I went on my own modified south beach diet and basically started eating healthier less fatty foods. It was hard figuring out what to buy at the store but the internet recipe sites helped. I always had a list of healthier food to buy, and stuck to the list.

During work, normally around 2pm when I get sleepy, I would get up and walk around the building and stairs for 10 minutes. Also, I started walking/jogging ~2 miles twice a week after work.

By changing my eating and exercise habits I steadily lost weight over two years and got down to ~235, where I still am. It wasn't quick, but it worked.

I eat about 1900 to 2200 calories a day (mainly weekdays, weekends is a bit more). I try to eat fresh fruit and oatmeal for breakfast, low fat meal for lunch, and have a reasonable dinner. I also might have a low fat snack in between meals to keep me from pigging out at meal time. Drinking a crap load of water helped me in this regard also.

I now need to adjust the food intake and exercise again to get down to 225 or lower.

Good luck all.

Excellent post, Sr Gomez.

soooooo i have auqestion....if you start weight training whne you are pudgy, will you look more fat? or because you are gaining muscle, it'll start to burn the fat?

of course i would be doing cardio as well...

I'm probably not a good one to give advice here, but since I've just gotten the ok from my cardiologist (concerning some scary chest pains)- I'm ready to commit to myself to get into better shape.

I've done pretty well losing weight with Weight Watchers before. Something about being accountable to someone each week really helped me. One of the things they advocate is really looking at serving size. Our society as a whole has really upped what we consider to be a serving size. I looked at a package of Ramen noodles and it is actually 2 servings. A lot of "single serving" foods are actually 1.5 or 2 servings if you look on the nutritional info listing. We supersize everything. Just cutting back to a reasonable portion is a good way of cutting back alot of calories from your normal diet.

Also, their motto is nothing tastes as good as thin feels. My skinny husband thinks this is silly, but he's never faced the alternative.

You will not make yourself look fatter by lifting weights. Muscle weighs more, but it is smaller. Tone is a good thing.

Of course there are always the guys that are intimidated by it, but they are idiots.

quote:

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Phi, studies have shown that meal frequencies play no role in...

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just out of curiosity are these studies online anywhere to read?

definately a great thread! i agree that the key to weight loss is to adjust the rate your body burns and stores calories such that you find that healthy balance. but you left out a key part of the calorie equation: not all calories are used equally by the body.

technically, a calorie is simply the measure of potential heat energy of a food item.

although a serving of fatty food, a serving of protein-rich food, and a serving carbs might have the same caloric content, your body will process each food item differently, varying the way the calories are burned, stored, and how this affects the current stores of energy (fat) in your body.

the food you eat also affects how long you feel full, what to do with existing fat in your body. not only that, but the chemicals that accompany the food affect how your body's chemicals process the food, control your hunger levels, and make you "crave food".

eating 500 calories of refined carbs will spike your blood sugar as your body begins using insulin to help quickly process the carbs. These carbs are ready to be used for immediate fuel, and anything that is not used quickly is stored as fat. your blood sugar will spike, only to drop after an hour or so. and so the eating cycle begins!

I think the key to weight loss (on the diet side of the equation):

1) eat a large, well-balanced meal only when you are hungry

2) limit refined grains, carbs, and sugars (so as to avoid the blood sugar rollercoaster and eventual insulin resistance)

3) limit artificial sweeteners which trick your body into craving the real thing

4) when you do want to snack, make it a food that takes a while to eat, is healthy, and/or low in carbs. for example: cheese, celery w/ peanut butter, mixed nuts, trail mix (sugar free), oranges, banana, grapes, etc.

the fact is, if someone is hungry, they are going to eat. the solution is limiting how often you feel hungry, and having healthy food around that will keep you satiated when you do get hungry.

and now, my personal story: i lost 25 lbs after switching to a higher fat, low (refined) carb diet. i wasn't trying to lose weight - i just wanted to eat healthier. i added more animals fats to my diet (butter, whole milk yogurt, raw milk, various nuts, etc), and cut out all carb-centered snacks (granola bars, kudos, etc). and now, throughout my day at work, i'm fuller, for longer periods of time, with less cravings. i bring my lunch to work, and usually have a few snacks in my cubicles. maybe it's a block of cheese, or raisins and pecans, or some blackberries.

honestly, i think the best snack to stave off hunger is cheese. just 2 oz of cheese will completely kill off my hunger pains and satisfy me for up to 2 hours!

links:

Weight Loss Resulting from Increased Calorie Consumption of Almonds

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/83052.php

Not all Calories are Equal (Prevention Mag)

http://www.prevention.com/cda/article/not-all-calories-are-created-equal/fb7c68f271903110VgnVCM10000013281eac____/weight.loss/diets/other.popular.diets/low.carb.diets

i'd also recommend that you start taking note of how your body reacts to various foods 1-2 hours after you eat them. i could eat a big bowl of ceral w/ a lot of calories and be hungry an 30 minutes later.

but if i eat a peanut butter sandwhich with like 3 Tbsp of that awesome HEB fresh-pressed stuff, and a glass of milk, i wont be hungry for 4 hours! so now i know if i don't feel like making a large breakfast, or don't have time, that a quick PB sandwich will do the trick.

can someone with stars please post a link to the "Stubborn Fat" thread Gomez started on here?

Amber, are you already fairly lean? If not, then it might not be best for you.

quote:

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Getting rid of stubborn bodyfat - by Lyle McDonald

Without going into the brutally long and complicated mental computations that led me to this (and I'm still working on the overall scheme), here's my current thoughts on how to approach it.

First and foremost, this is one of the places where morning/pre-breakfast cardio is probably crucially important.

An hour or two before cardio, take 200 mg caffeine with 1-3 grams of L-tyrosine (NO ephedrine).

There are two segments to the cardio:

- The first segment is for mobilization, to get those stubborn fatty acids out of the fat cell.
- The second segment is the oxidation part, to burn them off in the muscle.

For the first segment of the cardio, use a machine that you don't normally use. So if you normally do the treadmill, do the first segment on the stairmaster or bike or something. Just make it different.

First segment:
warmup: 3-5 minutes
go hard: 5-10 minutes. I mean hard, as hard as you can stand for the entire time. This will NOT be fun on lowered blood glucose. I've considered putting intervals here but haven't found the data I need to make up my mind. If you do intervals, go something like 5X1' all out with a 1' break (10' total intervals)

Rest 5', just sit on your butt, drink water, try not to puke.

Go to your normal cardio machine. Do at least 30 minutes at moderate/high moderate intensity (below lactate threshold but decent intensity). I'd say 45' maximum here but I'm still making up my mind and looking at data.

Go home, and wait and hour before having a small protein meal (25-50 grams or so). No dietary fat. 2-3 hours later, go back to normal diet eating. Your daily calories shouldn't be any different than they were already, they are just distributed differently, you only have 100-200 immediately after cardio, and then the rest afterwards.

I'd do that maybe 3 days per week to start, and see what happens.

Why this works

To get stubborn fat mobilized, you have to overcome a fairly severe resistance in terms of both blood flow and lipolysis, this requires very high concentrations of catecholamines (adrenaline/noradrenaline). Sadly, jacking up levels of catecholamines (necessary for mobilization) limits burning in the muscle which is why you follow the high intensity with low intensity.

Basically, you jack up levels to get the fat mobilized, and then let them fall so that the fatty acid can be burned in the muscle.

I have a study showing that Ephedrine before intense activity lowers the catecholamine response, that's the reason for avoiding it. Studies also show a lower than normal catecholamine response as people adapt to a given type of cardio; doing a different machine will result in a higher catecholamine response than you'd other wise get.

The bigger problem with stubborn fat has to do with:

- Blood flow to the fat cells: which is typically very low, odds are your butt is cold to the touch compared to other areas of your body
- It's harder to mobilize: both because of impaired blood flow, and because of adrenoceptor issues.

Oral yohimbe (0.2 mg/kg) can be effective when used over the long term. Don't take it within 3-4 hours of taking ephedrine, and start with a half-dose to assess tolerance (some people get really freaky responses from it). IF you can find pharmaceutical yohimbine, it's far far better than the herbal version (and most of the herbal versions are crap, the only one I trust is Twinlab Yohimbe Fuel).

Taking the yohimbe with caffeine prior to morning cardio does seem to help with very stubborn fat.

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he updated it with this comment...

quote:

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I've been kicking around the idea of shortening the intervals. Instead of 30-60 seconds, 10-15 seconds with a longer rest (50-45 seconds) to avoid lactate accumulation. Singular guinea pig reported more tingling using shorter intervals.

Also, no need to wait an hour to eat afterwards.

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