Fat Burning – Measuring Caloric Intake

Recently, fitness experts have been more impressed with those who maintain fat loss than those who lose incredible amounts of weight over a short period. Since the goal is long term improvement - not a short-term fix with a big, fat rebound - this makes all the sense in the world.

These so-called “maintainers” – those who were able to keep the fat off over a 2 to 5 year period – all had several things in common. Experts cite these four as the most relevant to fat burning and long-term fat removal:

1. Increased activity: formal exercise, sports, physical work or recreational activity.

2. Resistance training - weights or machines - at least three times weekly.

3. Careful caloric and body fat monitoring: Weighing and fat measurement, food intake, calories burned from exercise and lowered fat intake via a healthy diet.

4. A positive “can do” attitude.

This article is dedicated to caloric and body fat monitoring – one of the most complicated parts of any fat burning program.

Although the fat burning equation itself is simple (calories eaten - calories burned = fat loss), the details can be a bear.

Modern exercise equipment can estimate calories burned and fairly accurate tables exist to calculate the caloric cost for most exercises, so that part is fairly simple.

The hard part is calculating the calories you eat and monitoring your fat loss. Here’s where you need to be organized and really meticulous to get good results.

Like exercise programs, healthy diets also tend to improve in stages. Rarely to individuals start out measuring their body fat down to the gram and counting every calorie.

Most of us start by changing what we eat first rather than the overall number of calories. This is relatively easy because your body has been adapted over millions of years to eat a certain number of calories – if available – and eating less provokes strong hunger pangs.

The problem is that your body is set to eat more – even if just a little – rather than less calories. People would quickly starve to death otherwise, wouldn’t they? Better to err on the side of plenty. Plus, millions of years of feast or famine have led the body to take advantage of “fat times”. This adaptation – in the past – could mean the difference between survival and starvation. Today – especially in wealthy countries – it means people can get very fat.

Even just a couple hundred extra calories a day creates almost a pound of fat a month. That means 12 lbs. per year or 120 lbs in ten years. Before you know it, you’re in the Chub Club. Even if you cut that to 25 extra calories per day – the same calories found in half an apple, for example - you’d still be 50 lbs. overweight after 20 years. Whoa!

So even if you eat healthier, you still need to know how many calories you are getting. Without that crucial information, you may just end up being in better shape and feeling better, but looking almost the same. Worse, over time, as your body adapts to your exercise program, you may actually slide backwards. Once this happens, you might give up – all that work for nothing, you may think.

It’s not for nothing, it’s just a reminder that as you advance in your exercise program and eating habits, you must also step up to the next level of calorie control - that is if you really want to change the way you look.

First off, get over the idea that you can guesstimate effectively. It’s just too easy to eat too much – or equally as bad – too little. You need to stay in a very narrow range for good results. Too few calories will put your body into a starvation mode which lowers your metabolism, burns fewer calories and defeats efforts to burn fat. Too many, well… you already know the answer to that one, don’t you?

Optimum fat loss is around a pound per week or even less. Some experts say a pound a month is better. The seriously overweight can often lose more than that with no ill effects, but once you reach a certain fat percentage, your body begins to resist with a will.

A pound of fat is 3,500 calories. To lose this much fat you need to either reduce your caloric intake or burn it off during exercise. Indeed, a combination of the two is really the best approach.

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