Calculating Fat Loss (Part 2)

I last left off talking about the importance of figuring out your activity level. I want to really hit at this again though to the point to where you can't scan over what your activity means to your fat loss. All of this by the way is going to be covered in the new edition of my book, so for those of you who grab it some of this my feel a little Deja Vu' when you read it.

Fat Loss is about taking stored energy from your body. You have to in a day, night or in sleep hit negative. If it takes X amount of calories a day to achieve what you need, you need to work from there and go down. Lets look at this very simply and might I add anally by using a how energy works through out the day. I am going to list out periods of time and what you burn in them. This is under the assumption of starting off a day at zero, this is for example purposes only.

Wake up-Arrive at Work (office)-During this period of time you have burned 300 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed 500 calories in food. You are currently in the positive by +200 calories.

Work-Lunch Break-During this period of time you have burned 450 calories in movement and in internal body function. Prior to eating lunch you are now in a negative burning zone and have pulled from your stores of energy (fat,glycogen, etc) in order to function properly. Roughly 250 calories of energy have been pulled from storage.
When you eat lunch you consume 500 calories.

Lunch-Leave work-During this period of time you have burned 500 calories in movement and in internal body function(studies show activity level after lunch is usually a bit higher even for office workers). You are pretty much running even now with what you ate to get to this point from lunch. Prior you had 250 negative calories still of energy burn. So far for the day you still have a solid negative -250.


HERE IS WHERE FAT LOSS IS USUALLY WON OR LOST.


Do you go home and eat another meal OR do you go to the gym? Here is a look at the two forks in the road.

Fork 1
Arrive at gym-Leave gym-During this period of time you have burned 450 calories in movement and in internal body function. Being that you were running even at the time of your arrival all 450 calories burned were drawn from stored energy, putting you at a negative total so far for the day at 650 calories.

Arrive home (eat meal)-Relax-During this period of time you have burned 400 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed a meal of 500 calories. Currently you are running 100 positive in energy so add that to the negative -650 and currently you are running negative -550.

Eat snack-Go to bed-During this period of time you have burned 200 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed a snack of 250 calories. Currently you are running +50 positive in energy.

For the day you end at a negative -500 calories of energy drawn.
In sleep you burn 300 more calories, bring you to a total of -800 by morning.
Morning marks a 0 point for you so you start all over again. IN no time at all you achieve weight loss (we are not talking necessary fat loss/water loss/glycogen loss).

That is Fork 1.

What about Fork 2? Lets go back to that drive home from work.

Arrive Home-Eat meal/relax-During this period of time you have burned 350 calories in movement and in internal body function (the caloric amount is a little less then when arriving home from gym as the workout would still charge your internal temperature a little more for post workout metabolic increase. You consumed a meal of 500 calories. Currently you are running 500 positive in energy so add that to the negative -250 and currently you are running a positive +250.

Eat snack-Go to bed-During this period of time you have burned 200 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed a snack of 250 calories. Currently you are running +50 positive in energy. Add to the previous positive of +250 and we arrive at +300.

For the day you end at a positive 300 calories of energy drawn. In sleep you burn 300 more calories, bring you to a total of 0 by morning. You have broke even.


So as you can see that slight change of driving to the gym takes you from maintaining your weight to losing it.

Now that you see what activity means to your fat loss we need to see how to rate it properly.