It seems to make little sense: you’re exercising like always, maybe even more; you’re still eating healthy, maybe healthier than before; you bumped down your calorie intake, and yet still, your weight will not budge.
Mathematically, that doesn’t make sense — calories in, calories out, after all. And so in that sense, there has to be another factor screwing things up. This factor could very well be your metabolic rate.
Your metabolism could range from a 4 cylinder to a V12.
Here’s the thing: at base, the average healthy human being needs 1200 calories a day just to maintain proper bodily function — keep your heart beating, keep your kidneys filtering, keep your liver… livering. Whatever. You need energy to make the machine work, and the very base amount is what is known as Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR). The larger you are, the higher your RMR will be simply because that’s more cells and more circulation.
If you’re bedridden and do nothing all day, you still need to consume enough calories equal to your RMR or your body will start consuming itself to make up for the lack of energy to function. That’s how anorexics die — without energy to burn, over a prolonged period, the body starts leeching away the protein and essential fats from your muscles, organs, nervous system, you name it.
Your body fights this very, VERY hard. The first reaction to starvation is that your body slows down its metabolism as much as possible to conserve energy wherever it can. It doesn’t want to consume itself. Hence, the metabolic slowdown that can happen if your body feels it may be in danger of depleting its energy supply too quickly.
Your body takes this quite literally.
Now, take a look at your activity during the day and the additional calories burned just to do things like walk to your car or to stand at a stove and cook; that requires more than when you’re at rest. So, let’s say you don’t have a regular exercise routine and most of your activity comes from walking to your car, driving to work, take potty breaks, driving home, eating food, and watching TV. That minimal activity could be burning 800 extra calories on top of your RMR.
So using those numbers, to keep your weight steady, you’d need to eat 2000 calories a day. This is what is called Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). If you’ve got excess fat to burn, you can dip below that number to lose weight. To lose a pound of week, you’d want to cut back to 1500 calories a day NET (meaning either eat 500 fewer calories every day, or maybe burn 200 calories with exercise and eat 300 calories less).
But here’s where it gets tricky: over time, if you’re using a combo of exercise and reduced eating, you’re getting more fit. You’re able to do more, and you probably do more without realizing it. Plus, your increasingly toned muscles just love to eat up calories because they require more in order to keep repairing themselves after exercise and keep that nice tone. Hell, maybe now that you’re feeling more in shape, you’re actually doing more exercise than you originally planned, but you haven’t changed your caloric intake. Because of this, you’re regularly netting 1400 calories now instead of 1500.
Yet, the weight loss stopped.
TRAGEDY STRIKES
This is when you have to re-evaluate that BMR that you started your whole diet/exercise plan with. 1200 base to live, 800 calories to do your minimal crap. Well, now your minimal crap isn’t so minimal, plus you have hungry muscles to feed. Even with the effect of weight loss, let’s say now it takes 1000 calories to support your everyday lifestyle. To keep your weight steady, we’re talking about 2200 calories a day. And so if you want to burn a pound a week, cutting a net 500 calories via diet/exercise, you will want to intake a net 1700 calories every day.
It may not sound like much, but as you get closer to fit, a little goes a long way. When we’re talking about the difference between netting 1400 calories a day vs 1700 calories a day, we’re talking about another 2100 calories of additional energy every week on top of the planned 3500 that you are depriving your body. And remember that bit about your body being fickle, turning itself into a camel when it thinks it’s not getting enough energy to survive? Sometimes that’s all it takes for your body to start turning into a hoarder. Giving it a bit more fuel to burn can convince your body that it’s not in danger and your metabolism starts returning to normal.
What’s the lesson in all of this? If anything, it’s a reminder that this whole weight loss game gets awfully stupid and seemingly contradictory sometimes. The right thing to do isn’t necessarily what sounds like the logical thing to do. You have to look deeper than the surface to try and figure out why you’re not achieving your goals. And the answer just might be totally wacky.
SCIENCE!
This is my trap. 100%.
I’ve psychologically trained myself that calories=bad so I tend to shortchange myself–not always taking into account that I’ll be running for at least 60 minutes that day. Any tips for getting over that big psychological hurdle, or for avoiding the fear that eating “enough” calories will equate to eating “too many” calories?
For me, the best trick was tracking everything with an automatic calculation that subtracted my calories from the gross so all I pay attention to is the net. I have my calorie number goal with 150 calorie swing above or below for the day. If you’re trying to plan ahead, you would enter an estimated amount of calories burned and see where this leaves your net. By not focusing at all on your gross intake and only focusing on where the balance ends up for the day, it’s WAY easier to swallow the knowledge that if you’re working your ass off, it’s perfectly fine to eat 2000 calories.
As for the whole “calories are bad” part of your brain gone wonky, that’s a tough one to get over and I can’t say I haven’t had my issues with it as well. It’s almost like you have to try doing things the right way and get used to the fact that it works in order to pound it into your skull that, yes, this is the effective way to lose weight instead of fixating on caloric intake. Weight control is MUCH bigger than just how much you eat. Building a house takes more than just bricks.