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.
Read More for your Scientific Interest

Lifestyle

One of the most important factors in losing weight is to have a healthy lifestyle.
If you have been trying many times to lose weight but just haven’t had any luck, it is due to two major factors:

1) Your current lifestyle is causing you to be overweight. In order to lose weight in a healthy way we are going to completely change your lifestyle into a healthier one.
2) Your genes (DNA/Hereditary information) predispose your to a larger body size.

To lose weight we can’t change your genetic information, but we can change your lifestyle into a healthier one. Now if you have been overweight for over a period of 8 months, it's a good indication that your current lifestyle is not a healthy one. The science of weight loss is so simple! But never carried out by individuals trying to lose weight. There is two major components in weight loss:

1) Nutrition
2) Exercise

We need to modify these two components in your current lifestyle in order for you to lose weight because the current one is not working for you! Here is the basic outline of my plan for you to lose weight.

1) We modify your caloric intake and nutrition so it is more suited to your lifestyle. An individual can actually completely lose all their extra weight from nutrition alone, but exercise will help speed up the process and tone your body into a sexy figure. I will help you calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate and figure out how much you should be eating, and as well help you come up with a meal plan.

2) Exercise is important for those trying to lose fat and at the same time tone their body. Exercising will also speed up your weight loss process. I will focus most of my exercising on endurance training that will work your cardiovascular system and make you sweat hard!

3) Thirdly! I will help educate you on the science of your body to help explain what to look out for and what to be expecting along your journey towards losing weight. I will also give some tips and tricks to help ease you on your journey towards transforming your body into a slimmer, healthier and happier you.

I hope that when we are finished, I will leave you with a new healthy body, an educated mind and a happy spirit.


For Your Interest:

In today’s (modern industrialized) society humans occupy a lifestyle that consists of sleeping later at night, reduced sleep hours, frequent snacking on processed and fried food, and consuming meals (dinner) late at night. Humans from 40 millennia ago did not have lights to stay up late at night, access to vast amounts of food (and processed food) at any time of the day or the luxury to obtain food without any expenditure of energy. So what would happen if humans from the past were forced to live in today’s society? First of all they would have reduced energy expenditure because there is no need to exert energy to accomplish anything, everything is technology based and prepared for you. Second you would have increased caloric intake because there is an increase availability of food and humans from the past have a minds set to always eat because they don’t know when the next meal will come. Third they would have an offset circadian rhythm resulting in chronodisruption resulting in improper metabolism of food consumed. So it seems if our ancestors from 40 000 years ago were forced to live in our society today, they would suffer from increased body weight leading to obesity and accumulation of visceral fat. Not to mention further complications in metabolic function, premature aging, cancer, diseases, and psychological problems.

The one interesting thing I remember learning from my astrobiology course was that human biological evolution (the change in our genetic material over time) has ceased for the last 40 000 years. The Homo sapiens today are exactly the same as the Homo sapiens from 40 millennia ago. Even though biological evolution had ended, the cultural evolution of Homo sapiens continued to make changes as drastic as living in candle lit huts during the dark ages of the 4th century to staying up late dancing disco during the 1970’s. Now in the 21st century Homo sapiens are undergoing a new kind of evolution, a technological evolution that is changing human behaviour, psychology and as well lifestyle. We humans are designed to survive in the rugged conditions of the past, living relaxed sedentary lives in today’s technologically advanced civilization. All the complications that our ancestors of the past would have living in our society apply to us as well!

For individuals currently suffering from obesity, diabetes, high blood pressure, hypertension and metabolic impairments, there is a strong possibility that your illness is caused by the reasons I have mentioned above. You are not going to be able to cure your sickness with medicine and drugs, those only help to alleviate your symptoms. What you need is to remove the source of your illness which is most likely the current lifestyle you are leading. As I help to modify your lifestyle into a healthier one, I hope to not only help you reduce your waistline, but relieve you from many other diseases associated with obesity and improve your cardiovascular fitness as a secondary effect.
Read More for your Scientific Interest