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THE BASICS OF FAT LOSS
Introduction:
If you’ve been trying to lose weight for any amount of time, then without a doubt you’ll have met get fit quick schemes, how to lose belly fat and ‘special’ supplements that will burn the fat away, in this article we will give you the simple science backed steps and guides on how to lose weight.
HOW FAT LOSS OCCURS
The essence of fat loss solely occurs when the number of calories you consume is consistently under the number of calories you expend.
Calorie expenditure is composed using three major components:
1.Resting metabolic rate (RMR) – This is the number of calories your body requires to maintain normality such as breathing and other body functions.
2.Thermic effect of food (TEF) – This refers to the calories used to digest and metabolize food.
3.Thermic effect of activity (TEF) – These are calories used during exercise. It’s important to note that this can also include non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) which accounts for other movements such as fidgeting and walking.
Compiling these three components will give us what’s called our TDEE (total daily energy expenditure). This is mainly referred to as your “maintenance calories”. Using this useful tool, we can conclude how many calories we need to subtract from our diet to find optimum results. A general rule is to not go 500 calories below maintenance. Another good rule is to not lose more than 0.7% of your total body mass each week.
Your TDEE is how many calories your body uses on average, in 1 day. If you consistently eat more calories than this number, you will gain weight. If you consistently eat fewer calories than this number, you will lose weight. And of course, if you eat at or around this number of calories, you will maintain your current weight.
In order to lose fat, you have to consistently eat lower calories than your TDEE. ‘Consistently’ being the keyword here.
FACTORS OF FAT LOSS
Here are some factors to take into account that affect the rate at which you lose weight and unfortunately many of them are out of your control.
Starting Point
It’s important to understand that your starting weight will have a significant impact on your weight loss journey. Regarding this, it’s essential to set realistic expectations on how fast and how much weight you’ll lose.
For instance, if you are dieting from a position of 20%+ body fat then you should expect to lose a lot of weight reasonably quickly in the first few weeks and then proceed to see the amount of weight steadily tailor off into a more consistent pattern. There are a few reasons for this. from losing water weight to metabolic adaptations causing your body to lose weight quickly.
As previously mentioned, a healthy fast-paced diet will have you losing 0.7% of total body weight a week, in doing so, it is important not to compare the amount of weight you lose but rather the percentage, for instance, someone weighing 120kg lost 0.7%, which is equal to 0.84kg over someone weighing 80kg losing 0.56kg a week.
Gender
Due to the fact that women have a higher fat-to-muscle ratio than men, women tend to have a 5 – 10% lower resting metabolic rate. This means that generally, women tend to burn 5 – 10% fewer calories at rest. For instance, an 8-week study of over 2,000 participants who partook in an 800 calorie a day diet concluded that 16% of men lost more weight than their female counterparts.
Age
One of the biggest impacts on weight loss is age. The older we get the more our body alters and with these changes, our calories need to decrease. One study concluded that adults over 70 had a decreased RMR between 20 – 25% compared to young adults.