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The article below is an elementary break down on the basics of weight and nutrition for healthy individuals. It is not intended to diagnose or treat any illness or disability. Please direct all questions related to this matter to your proper dietitian or physician. I attempted to present only the basic concepts and structure to help others get a better grasp on why and how diets fundamentally work. I hope that this article will help others understand and apply these principles to obtain their goals.
ISSA Certified Trainer
There are many different diets on the market that claim they are the best for losing weight, gaining muscle or burning belly fat, and for the most part, they are all true. Almost all diets work because they follow the same basic principles. The only difference is in the way each diet achieves its goal. Some diets take an aggressive approach to fat loss, such as the ketogenic diet, which has faster results but requires more sacrifices. While others take a slower more lifestyle-friendly approach, such as weight watchers. The other diets, for the most part, fall somewhere in between these two approaches.
I know you have heard it before, but it is because it’s so “Basic” and it works.
If you eat fewer calories than your daily demand, then you will lose weight. The same logic holds if you want to gain weight; only inverse.
Eat more than your daily requirement, and you will gain weight. All diets stem from this in one way or another.
Usually, eating less or more carbohydrates will be the determining factor for weight loss or gain.
Increasing your daily demand (DD)is another principle of weight loss. If your diet never changed you could still lose weight by exercising more. When you exercise your body needs significantly more calories to maintain your body’s current state of weight. If your body does not receive the extra calories it needs you will lose weight.
Example.
Steves BMR is 2,000 calories. Steve consumed 2,000 calories but burned 300 calories on the treadmill earlier that day. Steve lost 300 calories.
2,000 + 300= 2,300 ( BMR + Exercise ~ DD )
2,300 – 2,000 = 300 (DD – calories consumed = calorie deficit for the day).
The reason you lose weight is that your body is an adaptive machine. If it requires 2,000 calories to maintain, and it does not receive it externally, it will cannibalize what already exists to meet that quota. So by manipulating the calories, you are consuming and the demand for the calories you need to intake, you can effectively lose or gain weight. Using these two principles together is the basis for all modern diets.
If you breakdown the first principle for losing weight (eat less), you will understand a little better of how it works within the body. The body predominantly uses carbohydrates as the fuels source for energy. Carbs can come from fruits, starches, grains, etc. When there is a lack of carbs for energy, the body will either slow the metabolism down or switch to a new fuel source. The process in which the body does this is known as the Krebs cycle. The body cannibalizes fat and sometimes muscle and other tissue to be used as fuel for the body.
How can I lose fat and not just weight?
By manipulating carbohydrate intake it is possible to put your body into a fat-burning mode, but that isn’t the only way. The body also switches to a fat-burning mode when a perceived physical exertion will be longer than roughly 10-20 minutes. For example, Marathon runners are almost entirely in fat-burning mode during their training and competition (thats why they usually have low body fat composition). Depending on how aggressive the approach muscle tissue can be used as fuel as well
Plateau is a terrible word used in the fitness and nutrition world to denote a stalling of progress. Earlier I had mentioned the body is an adaptive machine, and I meant it. After several weeks of a consistent diet, the body will adapt, and you will no longer lose fat. The body has recalculated the BMR with the new weight and determine that you need fewer calories now than before. Therefore, you need to decrease calories again or increase demand with exercise.
*A typical phenomenon is noticed after someone who has dieted several weeks and gets frustrated when they plateau and decide to go back to their old eating habits. They put on twice the weight they lost. The reason is that your body has adjusted your BMR and now you need less daily calories to maintain than you did when you first started your diet. For example, Let’s say Steve’s new BMR after weeks of dieting has dropped from 2,000 cal to 1,700 cal. If steve were to go back to eating his normal 2,500 calories a day that he was eating before, he would gain an additional 800 calories a day compared to the 500 he would have gained with the old BMR. As you can see, the calories can quickly add up, and this is a relatively low surplus of calories. Most people consume much more than that without realizing it.
Think of the muscle system as a large tank. We want the tank to be filled with glycogen (sugar) for energy, repair, and growth. In order to keep that tank full, there must be a steady supply of sugar to the muscles. Carbohydrates breakdown into sugars both simple and complex sugars. When you consume carbohydrates they are broken down and released as sugar into the bloodstream. Your pancreas then releases insulin to match up with sugar molecules and escort them to your muscle tank (in an attempt to regulate blood sugar levels). The body can only produce so much insulin at a time so if there are more sugar molecules than insulin escorts then the rest is for the most part, either burned up in the bloodstream or stored as fat. Same goes if the muscle tank is full, all excess sugar is then burned up in the bloodstream or stored as fat.
So gaining weight is the easy part (for most people) gaining muscle is harder. Keeping your tank full is only part of the requirements for gaining muscle. The other parts are resistance training (hypertrophy), rest and protein. In order to build muscle, the muscle fiber has to be torn down through resistance training. The sugar in the tank helps keep your muscles going during the trauma inflicted from weight training.
Another part is rest and its importance is underestimated. Growth only happens when the body is resting. During rest, the amino acids broken down from the protein consumed in your diet will be used to rebuild muscle fibers that will be bigger and stronger than before.
The amount of protein your body needs depends on what goals you want to achieve. Typically .8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight for maintenance and 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight for muscle growth.
For example, if Steve weighs 150 lbs and wants to gain muscle he would consume 225g of protein a day.
(150 x 1.5 = 225)
This is the hardest part of weight management. Being able to gain muscle while losing fat. They are at opposite spectrums of weight management so it take s a lot of discipline to pull it off. The catalyst for gaining and losing at the same time is carb cycling. Manipulating the intake of carbs to account for training and non-training days. Now depending on what ratio of fat loss to muscle gain you want will determine what days you are eating a surplus of carbs and what day will be more of a deficit. Also, the type of training and intensity will come into play to signal your body to keep and build muscle, especially on the lower carb days. For example, a simplified moderate fat loss and heavier moderate muscle gain could be 3 days low carb and 4 days higher carb in a standard training week
Almost all diets and weight loss/gain programs breakdown into two principles; “Eat Less / Eat More” and “Increase Demand”. By manipulating the food you eat and or the demand required it is possible to lose weight, lose fat, gain weight, gain muscle, or gain muscle & lose fat. This article covered only a fraction of a large amount of data and extensive studies that back up the science behind nutrition and weight management. I attempted to convey the basics of how it all works together to give you a better understanding of what you can do to achieve your goals. Knowing the basics and being able to actively manage your weight can take the guesswork out of diet and exercise.