Fitness and Exercise Blog

How much you consume vs. how much energy your burn is the most important concept for effective weight loss. There’s no getting around the 1st Law Of Thermodynamics; if you burn more energy than you take in, you will lose weight, if you burn less, energy will be stored. Beyond this, there are ways of making it even more efficient than purely calorie restriction. First I’ll cover the quantity of calories, then we’ll get into the quality and timing of calories.

As far as quantity goes, you burn about 10 times your body weight in calories just by being alive. If you actually get out of bed and move around, you’ll burn about your bodyweight times 13 or 14. To illustrate this; a 180 lb person, who is mostly sedentary (office job) would need to consume about 2340-2520 calories per day to stay the same weight (180*13 to 180*14). These numbers aren’t exact, but through experience I have found they work well. In order to lose weight, subtract 200-500 calories per day from your maintenance level. To gain weight (i.e. muscle) add 500 calories per day (and don’t forget to lift lots of heavy weights!)

Quality is the next consideration. If I were to just my maintenance level of calories per day of fast food, first, I’d be hungry still because fast food is very calorie dense. Secondly, I wouldn’t be very healthy and would be lacking in many nutrients due to the poor nutritional value of processed foods . Even if you are consuming the same total amount of calories, getting those calories from whole foods (fresh fruits, vegetables and lean meats) would be a lot healthier and lead to more effective weight loss. This will help your body get the vitamins and nutrients it needs and go a long way towards feeling satisfied. You pretty much can’t eat too many fruits and veggies.

The last consideration is timing. The last thing you want to do is have a lot of calories right before going to bed. When do we traditionally have dessert…oh yeah, at night! Japanese sumo wrestlers, known for their girth, deliberately don’t eat much during the day and have a huge meal at night in order to gain weight. So, if you skip breakfast, have a light lunch, then have a large evening meal followed by dessert you are eating like a sumo wrestler! When you consume a lot of calories at the end of the day…you don’t have any day left to burn them. As soon as you go to sleep, your metabolism slows way down and all the excess is going to get stored as fat.

The best time to have excess sugars or carbs (if you must) would be early in the day, so you have the rest of the day to burn them off. It is good to start the day with a breakfast that has a mix of protein, healthy fats (nuts, eggs), and perhaps a complex carb like whole grain bread. Have a sensible, balanced, lunch and dinner, with a healthy snack or two mixed in. A post-workout recovery meal is good, heavy on protein with some carbs like a protein shake made with yogurt. No matter what, don’t eat a lot of calories at night, or anything after around 8 pm.

When you get the quantity, quality, and timing of your calories correct, add in some effective exercise such as kettlebells, and this will make for a very effective weight loss program.

Like most of you, my fitness and nutrition program wet on the back-burner over the holidays. Between family, work, vacation, and all that great holiday food…I gained about 5lbs. So; from when I decided to lose some weight in early November, I first lost 10, then gained back 5.

This is not a problem, however, the alternative would have been to cram in workouts around much needed family time and be stressed trying to watch calories during holiday meals. I’d rather just enjoy my break and then make up for it later. It is a lot healthier psychologically as well, to not try and hold yourself to an unreasonable standard.

The hardest part is getting back into the routine of working out and watching what you eat after a break. Just force yourself to get through that 1st week back at it, then it will become routine again. I’m not talking anything drastic either. My workouts are 30-45 minutes, 2-3 times per week, that’s it! My diet plan is about 2100 calories per day (185lb male) and once a week I eat whatever I want (additional 500-1000 cals) for a day. This keeps my metabolism from slowing way down in response to the reduced calories. I’m not hungry all the time either. They key is eating nutritious foods, not fast food junk which has very little nutritional value and leaves your body craving more.

So, I eat eggs for breakfast, something like a sandwich for lunch, and a decent dinner with meat, a starch and vegetables. I usually have enough calories in my budget left over for a beer or a glass of wine. I don’t eat desserts unless it is my cheat day. It is two weeks after New Year’s day and I am already 2.5lbs ahead of where I was before the holidays. I have lost a total of about 13 lbs since the beginning of November, which is a little more than a pound per week which was my goal. Slow, steady, weight loss which is sustainable…I’m not expecting “Biggest Loser” style 10lb+ per week results. I have a life outside of living in a mansion with personal trainers….

I heard a great radio interview with Denise Austin (Fitness Celebrity) and she mentioned that she makes it a habit to do something fitness related for 30 minutes every day. First thing in the morning, she either does some Yoga, Pilates, cardio or strength training. She mentioned that starting out; you would just do 10 minutes and slowly add time. Anyone has 10 minutes per day for fitness. This is a great, and easy, alternative to trying to fit in two to four 30 min-1 hour long workouts which is the more traditional method.

This morning, I mixed it up with a “high octane cardio” workout which involves sets of kettlebell exercises followed by a “rest” period where you jog for a minute or two! I just grabbed 2 kettlebells, headed to my front yard, and made it up as I went along. I had fun, got a great 30 minute workout in and even finished up with some kettlebell juggling; 30 reps of 2 hand swing, flip, and catch (See the “Ultimate Tough Man Kit” which includes a KB juggling DVD! for more info).

The bottom line is to plan for, and expect to slide back a little, during busy times, vacations, or holidays. Don’t beat yourself up over it. This is a journey, not a sprint. Don’t just quit, get back into it by starting small and doing a little something each week. You will look, feel, and be, much better for it!

Well, I was down 4.5 lbs and even did well on Thanksgiving! I did a hard kettlebell workout in the morning so that the excess calories I ate would be put to good use building muscle. Also, I timed it with my overeating day for the week. The problem is, I also had after-hours duty at work and as an insurance adjuster during a winter storm…that is kinda high stress and many additional hours.

So…I haven’t been eating very healthy the last few days. That’s OK. Most people at this point feel like failures and give up (then balloon back up!). Weight loss and healthy living is a lifetime thing, sometimes it is going great, other times not so much. So, this week, I’ll get back in the swing of things with my diet and kettlebell exercises as things slow down some. No real harm, I’m still at a net loss from where I started. That’s progress, and continued progress is all that matters.

I decided to make today my “overeating” day for the week since there is a Thanksgiving potluck at Church. I mentioned before the importance of overeating once per week so your metabolism doesn’t go into a starvation mode and slow way down. It only makes sense to pair that up with when you know you will overeat anyway!

I didn’t stop there though…since I’m going to consume between 500-1000 calories over my diet allotment today, I also gave those calories something to do. Yesterday, I did a high volume kettlebell weight workout. This will allow me to use some of these extra cals. as recovery from the heavy lifting.

Thursday (Thanksgiving) will be my next overeating day, so you can be sure I am going to do more high volume, heavy weight kettlebell exercises that morning as well!

My progress so far is I am down 4lbs in a week. That probably isn’t 4lbs of fat though, and I don’t get too hung up on the exact weight. I just weigh myself 1X week and look for continued progress.

Okay, today was my 1st day on my diet. So, I’m supposed to be at 2158 cals. per day. Not an exact science either so 2100-2300 is OK. Anyway, the “Lose It” app will take any calories burned from exercise that day and add them to my total of what I can eat. I think what I’ll do on kettlebell exercise days is just have a protein shake recovery drink (~300 cals) and call it good.

As far as nutrition goes…here are some general guidelines: Avoid fried foods, sugars (I’m mainly talking about deserts and sugary drinks, there is some sugar in almost everything). High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) is particularly bad. Also, fatty meats esp. pork. Alcohol is also just empty calories (about 7 cals. per gram). This one is hard for me, especially because I love micro brews and the hops in beer tends to lead to extra belly fat on top of the extra cals. My plan is to have no beer except on my overeating day and no more than 2 drinks the rest of the week. Hard alcohol isn’t too bad at about 80-100 cals per 1.5oz. So my Rum and Coke Zero is a ~100 cal drink. The beer I like to drink would be 175-225 cals.

Foods to emphasize: fresh vegetables, fruits, lean meats, eggs, good fats like olive oil, coconut oil, nuts. It is important to also have 1 day per week where you eat as much as you want (within reason), about 500-1000 cals more than your diet amount. Don’t force feed, just eat what you like. This will keep your metabolism from going into “starvation” mode and slowing way down. A pound of fat is over 3,000 calories…so 500-1000 extra 1X per week isn’t gonna de-rail your progress anyway considering the 6 days of reduced intake plus exercise.

Today I was at about 2,000 calories total. I had too much fat (2 eggs and hashbrowns for breakfast just to get started, beef stroganoff for dinner). I was a little hungry all day, but not too bad. Not a workout day either, I did trot up 7 flights of stairs at work and did some exercises on 4 of the landings just to get moving though.

Nutrition is my weak point, I need to emphasize more fresh veggies…I always used to make up for poor nutrition with high intensity workouts. I’m looking for a better balance.

For way more outstanding info on nutrition and weight loss, I highly recommend you get The Truth About Abs by Mike Geary, it covers everything I’ve touched on here and waaaay more!

Well, life caught up with me between the twins, the wife, the 6 yo daughter, getting back to my job and other obligations. I haven’t workout out in 2 months and put on some weight. Now I’m feeling crappy and it is time to get back in shape (and I’ll bring you along for the ride if you want).

First, take stock of where I am, get some initial stats and slowly start a fitness routine. I was doing mostly bodyweight stuff before, now I’m gonna get back to the kettlebell. Last Sunday at my National Guard drill, I did my first workout in a long time. After a joint mobility warm up, I did a peripheral heart action circuit consisting of 2 different groups of 4 exercises. 1st group: Dumb bell chest press, ab wheel, pull ups, dumb bell step up to bench. 2nd group: Barbell snatch, knee raises, barbell squats, wood chopper w/ medicine ball. I did the first group of 4 exercises back to back (no rest between them), then rested for 30 sec. and repeated for 3 sets. Rest 1 minute, then switched to the second group and did the same thing.

Total workout time about 20 minutes for a full body strength, endurance and anaerobic cardio workout, I was trashed (and sore for a few days…) I followed that a few days later with an easy day of joint mobility and a few Turkish Get Ups and a set of 50 kettlebell swings. I ended the week by doing the Iron Core Kettlebell workout DVD with my 24kg kettlebell. It was kinda hard, which is sad, I used to do that with my 32kg bell.

As far as nutrition goes, I am just establishing my initial numbers and tracking calories for a week with no changes yet. My initial stats are 5’10″ tall, 197 lbs, and 16.9% body fat (ugh…). What’s important is consistency: I will measure myself on my bathroom scale at the same time (morning for me) wearing the same thing. Body fat was done with my digital calipers. It will do you no good to weigh yourself one day at home, then the next week at the gym, just be consistent so you know when you are making progress.

Finally, I computed my calorie target for when I start my diet. I calculated my basal metabolic rate (how many cals. you burn just being alive) by multiplying my body weight times 10. 197X10 = 1970 cals. Then times an activity factor which is usually 1.4 for sedentary people (office jobs etc.) I am using the pre-loaded formulas in the “Lose it” app for my iPhone which I wrote about here: http://fitnessexerciseblog.com/?p=66

Anyway, 1970X1.4 = 2,758 calories. This is an estimate of how many calories per day would maintain my current weight. In order to lose, I need to cut this obviously. The “Lose It” app spit out 2156 cals/day to lose 1 lb per week. If you don’t have the app, just subtract about 500 cals per day for your target. Men don’t go below 1600 cals per day, women stay above 1200.

I’ve been keeping track for 6 days now, I’ve been averaging roughly 2700-2900/day (hence, the weight gain). Though, just the act of keeping score will cause you to likely eat less on its own for psychological reasons. Stay tuned as I continue detailing my kettlebell exercises and go into more detail on how I’m going to tweak my diet plan.

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PS – Don’t just diet…add in a highly effective kettlebell workout!