I often get questions along the lines of “will this make me thin?” or “what do you think of this diet?” which make me believe that most folks don’t understand the basic mechanisms of our body. So I decided to devote today’s post to a review of the underlying equation of life and weight. Here it is folks, the theory of relativity for weight loss.
Calories In – Calories Out = Change In Weight.
If calories in are higher than calories out, you get a positive change in weight (you gain weight). If calories in are lower than calories out, you get a negative change in weight (you lose weight). That’s it, the basic equation.
A Bit More Detail
To understand how various things work, I’m going to expand the equation a bit into the following:
(Calories In * Digestive Efficiency) – (Metabolic Calories Out + Activity Calories Out) = Change in weight.
What does all this mean?
Calories In – This is an easy one. Calories in are what you consume. Eat a 300 calories candy bar and you’ve consumed 300 calories in.
Digestive Efficiency – Not exactly a scientific term but a good one nonetheless. This basically represents how many calories your body actually derives from those calories in. For example, some people are unable to digest certain foods. So they may consume 100 calories worth of that food but their bodies don’t really get the full 100 calories worth. For anyone thinking this is a good thing, spend some time with people who are lactose intolerant, they’ll set you straight.
Metabolic Calories Out – Your body uses a certain amount of calories per day just to stay alive. Basic living activities such as breathing, pumping blood and maintaining temperature all require calories. This is what goes under Metabolic Calories Out.
Activity Calorie Out – These are the calories you use on activities other than basic bodily functions. For example, walking, running, lifting weights, dancing, hiking, having sex. All of these activities require energy and that energy expenditure falls under activity calorie out.
So What?
So, now that we have our equation and our terms, what does this all mean? Well, the basic lesson here is that anytime someone tells you about something that could help you lose weight, you want to make sure you understand how it’s going to affect your body. That’s why it’s important to know this equation.
For Example:
Exercise - Well, that’s an easy one. We exercise which means we increase Activity Calories Out.
Eat More Vegetables – This one is a little less obvious. Vegetables are relatively low in calories. So if we eat the same volume of food but make more of that volume vegetables, we’ll eat less calories overall. That means less Calories In. Note that “eat more vegetables” isn’t really the secret. It’s “Eat Vegetables Instead Of Other Food With More Calories”. If you ate everything you did today and then just added vegetables, you’d actually gain weight since you increased Calories In. That’s the power of this little formula. Once you understand, you can make sense of a lot of these diet and health tips.
Eat More Frequent Meals – Why? Well, the theory is that our bodies spend calories more freely when they get food frequently. Our bodies will behave like people who get 10 dollars every day instead of 300 dollars at the end of the month and they’ll be more willing to spend that 10 dollars right now. Note that this only affects metabolic calories out. That is, by eating more frequent but smaller meals, our Metabolic Calories Out increase.
Calorie Restrictive Diets – These are the diets that tell you to cut down your calories in drastically. Sounds simple enough, lower calories in and you lose weight, right? Maybe, but what other parts of the equation could these diets affect? Well, as our bodies receive less calories, they also try to spend less calories. Bodies do this by lowering the amount of calories spent on basic life sustaining activities. For example, stay on a calorie restricted diet long enough and your body will shut off things like reproductive systems. It will also start cannibalizing calorie rich tissue like muscles. In other words, your body will compensate for the drastic decrease in Calories In by reducing Metabolic Calories Out.
Bad Ideas
As a general rule, there are a few bad things you can do:
Changes in digestive efficiency – This includes taking laxatives, forcing yourself to throw up and so on. Most of these fall into the realm of eating disorders and if you’re doing them, please seek help. As someone who’s struggled with healthy eating for many years, I can understand your pain, but this isn’t the way to solve the problem.
Artificial changes in your metabolic calories out – This includes things like smoking, most diet pills and other stimulants. Sure, they cause you to burn more calories but at what cost? Most of these things put a tremendous burden on your body and can cause many other health issues.
Drastic changes in calories in – Things like 500 calorie a day diets or week long fasts. These aren’t healthy for you and, in the long run, they are not conducive to weight loss. You’re just going to ruin your body by doing these.
Luckily, there are some good things you can focus on:
Increase in activity calories out – This is easy. Move more. Go out. Walk, exercise, dance, swim. Whatever it is, just keep moving.
Natural increases in metabolic calories out – This includes things like eating more frequent meals, lowering the thermostat at home (forcing your body to spend a few more calories on the proper temperature), building muscles (muscle tissue uses up a lot of calories) and so on. There are a variety of ways in which you can tell your body “speed it up!” that are natural and good for you.
Gradual and healthy changes in calories in – For example, removing sodas and coffee from the menu. Your body won’t notice the removal of most liquid calories so you can do this without sending your body into panic mode. Also, doing things like replacing high calorie foods with low calorie foods like vegetables is good. Your body will get the same volume of food but less calories overall. That means your body still believes it’s getting a good amount of food and so it won’t start enacting emergency measures.
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Just remember that basic equation and try to figure out how various behaviors fit within it. It will make you a smarter and more educated consumer of health activities.
Also, this was a VERY short and unscientific primer about the human metabolism. People should educate themselves about their bodies in more detail than this. It’s just as important as learning about your mortgage rate or how your car works. In fact, it’s probably a lot more important than either one of those. If you’re interested, I highly recommend YOU: The Owner’s Manual, Updated and Expanded Edition: An Insider’s Guide to the Body that Will Make You Healthier and Younger
