Nutrition

The first step in nutrition is we are going to have to figure out how much food you really need before you start over eating. How we do this is by calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate. This is the amount of energy your body uses each day just to sustain life. (So if you just sat still all day doing nothing, this is the amount of energy your body will consume)

Basal Metabolic Rate Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + (4.35 x weight in pounds) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years)
Men: BMR = 66 + (6.23 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in year)

In example, if my BMR is 1700 calories and I sit around all day and ate only 1700 calories each day I will not change in weight. Eating only this amount will help to sustain my weight. *Now the hard part will be trying to only eat 1700 calories a day! Realistically I will be walking around all day at work in the laboratory, and I exercise for 1.5 hours every day. So my energy expenditure will be much higher than 1700.

A good estimate of your daily energy expenditure is the “Harris Benedict Formula”

If you have no to very little exercise, you will have a calorie expenditure of your BMR x 1.2
If you have a moderately active lifestyle you will have a calorie expenditure of your BMR x 1.55
If you have a very active life style you will have a calorie expenditure of your BMR x 1.725

I would say I have a moderately active lifestyle so my daily energy expenditure is about my BMR x 1.55 which is ~2635 calories. Now if you want to lose weight we will have to reduce your caloric intake (BUT not your nutritional intake!). And to further help promote weight loss we will need to increase your energy expenditure with exercise which will help to increase your net energy loss.

I can tell you right now that it is much easier and faster to lose weight by reducing your caloric intake then solely exercising! Our body has biochemistry that is very effective at spending energy, so for example a high intensity run for 30 minutes will only burn about 350 calories, while a big mac is already 576 calories! So by skipping a big mac for something healthier like a salad or fruit, you saved yourself a whole lot of running!

Nutrition and how we eat is very important! Our body’s biochemistry is very complex and we have a natural bio-rhythm called the “circadian rhythm”. I will explain this in future blogs to help educate you on how to eat and when to eat!


Extra Information for those interested:

To have accessibility to an abundant source of food whenever we desire is a relatively new phenomenon for any species on earth. As far back as the dinosaurs 360 million years ago, to as recent as the first Homo sapien that came into existence 130 000 years ago, food has always been scarce and difficult to find. In nature whenever animals find a source of food, they would be sure to devour the entire source and definitely overeat because one was never certain when their next meal would come.

For millions of years now all species have been living under these conditions and the only way for any individual to survive was to adapt to the conditions. Only those with biochemistry which functioned to store energy effectively (i.e. as lipid/fat molecules), and psychology that encouraged overeating and eating foods which were sweet, salty and fatty (which were rare in nature) could survive. Only those who could survive continue on to have children and as a result of this natural selection we humans as well as all other species on earth are programmed to overeat, with biochemistry designed to store as much energy as possible and spend energy as effectively as possible. Evolution takes millenniums to occur so we humans are still designed to live in conditions that are suitable to the past but since we live in today’s society of fast food and automatic door openers, obesity has become an epidemic in developing nations.

Calories are simply a measurement of energy. When we eat food we break down the food into energy. We can then use this energy for our daily activities and normal body/organ functions. However the extra energy is stored by our body as glycogen for short term energy storage, all excess energy is stored by our body as fat. To give an idea, 3500 calories is equivalent to 1 pound of fat.