WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION · Calories and Profit Margins 5 4. The Incredible Machine 7 5. High Intensity...

Never enter into action with doubt; regardless of the validity of your doubts, for your execution will be tainted

1

WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION

By John (Giannis) Papadimitropoulos

Mechanical Engineer

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. The Hype and Hyperbole 2

2. My Story 3

3. Calories and Profit Margins 5

4. The Incredible Machine 7

5. High Intensity Exercise 10

6. A Strategy with no finale: Caloric Restriction 15

7. Strategies with a Happy Ending 16

Addendum: My data and experience 19


2

WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION

By John (Giannis) Papadimitropoulos

Mechanical Engineer

1. The Hype and Hyperbole

Much is written, much exaggeration and half-truth, a 60B industry revolving around weight

loss. In essence this industry is intrinsically in a conflict of interest, if people become slim,

then it would have no reason to exist. Further compounding the issue is the supposed

sensitivity and PC of our times.

Many things are thrown around as solutions; fad diets come and go promising easy weight

loss. After trying this and that frustration sets in, in which case people give up and set

themselves up on the cycle of yo-yo dieting or even worse resign themselves to eating

almost nothing which can lead to anorexia.

It was impossible for me to understand anorexia nervosa until I had to diet the wrong way

for a few years, by eating almost nothing one can definitely lose weight, and after going

through the hunger compounded by the criticism and BS discovering fasting may seem like a

godsend.

Why is it so hard for so many people to lose weight? Doctors “solve” extreme obesity by

obstructing the intake of food surgically, even this extreme tactic however, doesn’t always

lead to permanent weight loss. The problem of weight loss is an energy problem and as

such it is best tackled by an engineer.

That is what we will do in the following pages. We will analyze the mechanisms of weight

loss and gain (keeping things as simple as necessary but not any simpler) based on the laws

of physics (not statistical means from one study or the other) and then check our

conclusions and hypothesis with what we observe and what has been recorded in the

literature.


3

2. My Story

Until I was in my 5th year of college (22 yrs old) I ate freely and never considered my weight.

People thought differently back then in the 80’s, if you were fat, basically you were just fat,

your body was like that but few people were seriously overweight. I was thin, I didn’t get any

compliments that I watched what I ate (I didn’t) or exercised, etc, etc I just was thin like

other people were stocky or heavy.

At times I know now that I definitely ate more than I needed or expended, for significant

periods of time with no ill effects. If I were to do the same today I would gain weight. Then

during my last year of college I fell victim of my own (academic) success, since I’d taken the

classes the previous year my schedule was very lax and I was bored out of my mind and of

course more inactive (as I didn’t have to attend class).

Now, 250-300 less hours of class/year and another 300 hours less of homework is not much

less activity but it was enough that I put on 15-20 lbs from 210 to about 230 lbs. As hard as I

tried the summer after graduation with exercise and diet the fat didn’t come off, I hardly

made a dent.

Once my weight was destabilized it continued to rise slowly up to 250 lbs until I went on the

Atkins diet and got back down to 210 lbs in 2000. I couldn’t stay on the Atkins forever so

when I stopped, during a stressful period of my life I gained the weight back, in 2002 I went

on a starvation diet and lost it all again, down to 210 (my correct weight) but gained it back

immediately and stayed at that weight for a few years while being able to eat pretty freely.

At about 250lbs (BMI=32.5 / BDFT=30%) I carried my weight OK so I could do most of the

things I liked like 12 hr motorcycle rides which also helped to keep me at that weight

because I did something almost every weekend even if it was mostly driving. It is important,

that I was able to eat a good deal during that period in relation to latter periods just by being

a little active with supposedly low intensity activities on the weekends (I wonder how many

calories you’d be burning if you ride over a mountain when it’s -5C).

However, as things progressively got worse with the economy and gas more expensive, my

weekend escapades became fewer. During the Autumn of 2007 I decided I was eating too

much meat so I changed to more fast food carbs !!! (instead of pork, sausage and the like).

Instead of ordering the gyro souvlaki I went for the pizza or the pasta on the rationale that it

was better for the heart. Making a choice that if I had to eat fast food I would chose the

lesser of the two evils. Eating these kinds of meals 2-3 times a week, I very quickly put on 40

lbs extra for a total of 290 lbs.

Seeing my weight get out of hand, the spring of 2008 I went on a not so good but meticulous

1200 Kcal/day diet and lost 35 lbs and since then I’ve been doing the same every spring I

lose 20 lbs and gain about 10 lbs in the winter (even though I’m careful I still gain some

back). In this way I achieved 230 lbs in 2010 but now I have

a) More knowledge

b) An epiphany


4

I’ve finally put the pieces together in a way that makes sense and wish to share it

with you.


5

3. Calories and Profit Margins

But isn’t it just about calories in vs calories out? This is like saying a basketball game is just

about baskets scored or a business is just about making money. How do we get there,

consistently and repeatedly and for an extended period of time so as to produce results on

our body? That is the question. First understand the math of what we are dealing with and

how fluctuations affect it, we are dealing with a difference, deficit, I’ll call it ΔΕ. If ΔΕ<0 you’ll

lose weight.

Let Ef be the energy from food per day and

Em be your basic metabolic rate

Ea be the energy you expend for your daily activities

Now ΔΕ = Εf-Em-Ea,

Now let’s assume that Ef=1500 Kcal/day, Em = 1200 Kcal/day and Ea=800 and you have a

500 Kcal deficit (if you’re able to be that accurate). Now let’s assume that you eat ONE big

cookie of 500 Kcal more the next day, you raised your food consumption by 33% but your

deficit is now 0%.

Or let’s put it another way, you don’t experience the deficit in calories, you experience the

total calories you intake Ef, if your deficit is 1/3 your caloric intake so if you eat 33% more

calories you won’t lose any weight. This deficit is in effect a margin between two fluctuating

variables and small changes can eliminate it, this is a reality of the math behind it.

When the financial crisis hit, I was the first to close up shop, I was still making money, but I

understood how sensitive profit margins can be, even in a business such as mine in which

the general public (and the politicians) think that all gross is profit (I sell my services). In

truth I was operating below 50% after office expenses and taxes. If the government raised

taxes 10% (which it did and then some) and my customers stiffed me on my fees another

10% (which they did) I would be down to 30% and it wouldn’t be worth my time. In truth,

even people who sell their own work from an office are barely breaking even or are in the

red.

What’s important to understand is that always ΔΕ is much smaller than Ef, Em, Ea and when

your body wants to store fat it “attacks” on all fronts (we’ll explain that later) making you

hungry Ef +, lowering metabolism Em - , and making you tired and lethargic Ea-. Because ΔΕ

is much smaller than the total calories exchanged during the day a small change, especially a

combination –such as when on vacation, can turn a negative deficit into a positive.

Life is unstable, and you will not excess on exercise and deprive yourself of food, rather the

opposite and often together. Is it applicable to maintain a 500 Kcal deficit? Probably not,

even more difficult would be to maintain equilibrium even if all the figures are correct.

Further compounding the problem is that you can’t even measure weight loss with any


6

accuracy until you’ve lost 2-3% of your weight because it could be just water (although

dumping water is a good indication that you’re beginning to lose weight).

So let’s see how this 1lb a week thing goes, you adjust your intake and exercise to a 500

deficit, if you’re very meticulous in 3-4 wks you’ll know if it’s working, if it’s not working you

won’t know why. Your life changes at least every 3months in regards to weight loss and gain

(seasons) and we have a “control loop” of 4 wks/2% deviation response. It’s not fast enough.

Also much of the data regarding daily caloric needs is wrong and misleading. For an accurate

estimation go to this site http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html and just

calculate your BMR (basal metabolic rate) the multipliers are just rough guides, you’ll need

to count up your activities by an activity calculator.

Given this it seems impossible to maintain a stable weight but this is contradictory to

evidence, what gives? Well if your caloric intake exceeds your caloric needs your body can

put on weight, given that, this is extremely easy to do and not everyone has a problem with

his/her weight we can ascertain that this does not always happen. The excess energy can

simply be dumped. Things aren’t hopeless; sometimes we don’t store excess calories.

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html


7

4. The Incredible Machine

Let’s look at our bodies from an energy perspective …

The Energy Flow

The Catabolic State: When we are utilizing our fuel reserves (fat and glycogen - we store a

form of sugar, glycogen, in the liver and muscles which we can utilize as fuel). Without

getting into the role of hormones such as insulin, which we will see later this is the basic

energy structure and the body will basically do what is required to

a) Keep you alive (BMR)

b) Do the required work (but it doesn’t have to like it !!)

When your liver reserves are depleted your blood glucose drops and your brain function

diminishes or you might feel faint. This is “the wall” after a few minutes you’ll get a second

wind and be able to continue exercising cause you’re body has switched over to burning

almost exclusively fat and ketones’ for fuel.

The last boxes are “work produced”. Since calories are an energy unit, for every 1 calorie you

produce in mechanical work (movement) you consume about 4.5 (about 23% efficiency).

This is extremely useful because output CAN be measured. Furthermore because the

chemical processes in our cells are known, we know (no statistical guestimation here) that

the anaerobic process is 9 times less efficient than the aerobic*, so for every calorie one

produces anaerobically, one “consumes” or renders useless for the body 40 !!. Think of it as

an automobile running 9X rich. 800% of the fuel is wasted and the other 100% is burned at

23% efficiency, so in the end it’s 900/23=39.13, let’s say 40.

FOOD EXCESS ENERGY

FAT CELLS

(INFINITE CAPACITY) BLOOD (GLUCOSE, FAT, KETONES)

LIVER

800-1200 Kcal

ANAEROBIC WORK X40

AEROBIC WORK X4.5

BASIC METABOLIC RATE


8

So anaerobic activity burns calories 9X as fast for the same work, researchers have also

found this … The group that exercised anaerobically lost weight 9X as fast.

http://www.superskinnyme.com/hiit-workout.html . Read the part where it says that the

people on HITT lost 9X more and forget the misleading stuff about complex physiological

responses, afterburners!! and the like. It’s just your body restocking your liver glycogen by

oxidizing fat.

There is some controversy over whether glycogenesis is possible, I won’t get into it, suffice

to say that after exercising intensely and exhausting your capacity to do so, you don’t have

to eat carbs to recharge your system, you don’t have to eat anything, just rest, so the energy

you burned during your workout or exertion could only have come from one place

ultimately … your fat stores.

Think about how it would be if your anaerobic system was not linked to your fat stores, if

you were to fast you would lose 60-70% of your muscle capacity (strength) you would hardly

be able to get up. This is not observed nor would humans have survived to the present day if

it were so.

So we can then establish that anaerobic exertion burns energy at an immense rate (I can

show that it may be up to 500X more than we can aerobically) and contributes to the overall

energy balance. So where’s the catch? You can’t do it for a long time, and it can’t be

measured directly by oxygen consumption so it’s hard to know, from a medical standpoint

how much energy is consumed. However we can make accurate guesses using the principles

of mechanics.

The Anabolic State: Is when your body is storing energy for fuel from food, the diagram

looks differently. There is also the energy required to repair and grow muscle and other

tissue but that isn’t important for our purposes here.

FOOD EXCESS ENERGY

FAT CELLS

(INFINITE CAPACITY) BLOOD (GLUCOSE, FAT, KETONES)

LIVER

800-1200 Kcal

ANAEROBIC WORK X40

AEROBIC WORK X4.5

+ BMR

BASIC METABOLIC RATE

http://www.superskinnyme.com/hiit-workout.html


9

Controlling the Energy Flow

In this state we are storing fat. These states and the energy flows are regulated by

hormones, which in turn are regulated by your blood glucose level which in turn is

“regulated” by the foods you eat. When you hear about glycemic diets, glycemic index diets,

etc, we are talking about this. Your body thinks you’ve eaten a lot of energy when your

blood glucose becomes high as foods are digested and it releases hormones (mainly insulin)

to store energy. When insulin is released the fat cells begin storing energy as fat, then you

are left without energy and want to eat again. This is why simple carbohydrates such as

sugars, refined flour and the like lead to weight gain.

Why does it matter if it’s all about energy deficit? Cause switching energy sources and states

can be difficult. Our body has a few different energy sources, but just like an engine

changing fuel it may sputter a bit when changing (runner’s wall). This is why fasting or very

low calorie dieting becomes appealing and perhaps leads to anorexia. With all the

misinformation, a fundamental misunderstanding of the issue can lead to so much

frustration that people resign themselves to simply not eating, because they know that if

they eat they WILL get fat and the tragic thing is that they are, in a way, right.

People who become fat over respond to high blood sugar, storing it as fat, then we feel tired

and hungry and eat again. I’ve noticed, since tracking my calories, that hunger and cravings

are much higher when consuming simple carbs such as bread and sugar and ultimately I do

consume more calories.

If you have a thyroid issue a slow metabolism is not your problem. It’s a simple matter of

logistics, say if an average 70kg person’s metabolism is 1500 Kcal and yours is 20 % down at

1200 Kcal. You’re both active and he expends 3000, you 2700, so you’d just eat 10% what’s

the big deal. It’s not that simple though and it has to do with how our body controls the

energy flow through insulin and other hormones making one unable and unwilling to be

active and pressuring one to eat more. The culprit is that your body wants to store fat when

you feed it simple refined carbs, especially a big portion in one sitting .

* 1 Glucose + 2 (NADH or ATP) --> 4 ATP + 2 NADH (anaerobic = + 4 ATP/NADH) 1 Glucose + O2--> 36 ATP (aerobic), 36/4=9


10

5. High Intensity Exercise

A brief explanation of anaerobic and aerobic exertion: aerobic exertion is when your muscles

use oxygen to convert fuel to movement, anaerobic is when they don’t use oxygen. After a

certain level of strength/power the utilization of fuel/energy becomes anaerobic. We cannot

maintain anaerobic, high intensity exercise for long periods of time. Fully anaerobic exertion

can only be maintained for a few minutes at most.

To give you a ballpark number of the energy involved in high intensity exercise I will use my

body and a simple exercise, the standing jump. At max my standing jump is about 0.5-0.6 m,

since I crouch to launch we should add another 0.2 m to the height my mass travels. So let

h=0.75m, mass=110Kg, the total output energy comes out to about ¼ Kcal. Now ¼ Kcal

doesn’t seem like much but, if you multiply by 40 it comes out to 10 Kcal/jump.

In practice every full, standing jump to a height of 0.5m may consume even more Kcal

because the mechanical efficiency should be extremely low. It would be 10Kcal/nmech. To put

this in perspective I would have to walk at a very quick pace for a minute to burn the same

amount of calories. If one does the physics (I’ll spare you) you’ll see that the launch time (for

the standing jump) is about 0.1 sec giving a Kcal/h rate of 10*36000=360.000 Kcal/h !!!*

which is of course unsustainable but still 600 X greater than walking fast aerobically.

*this rate includes –mostly- waste chemical energy that will then be flushed out of the body, it’s not all

work and heat, remember the analogy of the car running so rich that all the fuel goes out the exhaust,

but for us, this energy will come from our fat stores.

Nobody can exert the power required for a full standing jump 10X a second for more than a

few seconds, but we have an order of magnitude that shows that even a small exertion can

amount to significant energy loss. For example taking the walking to the jumping

comparison further it would seem that 30 full power standing jumps could equate to 30 min

of walking very fast or more.

Ok, but what has been observed? There is much misinformation, one study showed that

subjects on a HITT program lost 9X as much weight, I will say my own personal observation

of myself. Before I started boxing (HITT exercise) I thought my metabolism was unnaturally

slow (and it would be slowed down be diets) to the extent I had my thyroid checked, after I

began boxing class for 3 hrs/wk I was able to eat 60% more without gaining weight and I

thought it had “corrected” my metabolism.

It’s not until I tracked my data with the help of http://fatsecret.com/ that I saw that my

metabolism hadn’t sped up at all, in reality 3hrs boxing/wk allowed me to consume about

60% more calories, mostly because of the exertion during the class itself as explained above.

There was the fact that as I became more fit, I became more active, but not to a degree that

would explain such a big difference.

This was my epiphany, all the stuff about metabolism, it’s really a load of BS. Idling burns too

few calories to play the leading role in a long term fat loss strategy, fewer than most

calculators estimate. What has been accurate for me and is the latest and greatest is the

Mifflin - St Jeor equation for basic metabolic rate; since you’re a sub sample of the

http://fatsecret.com/


11

population by virtue of reading this book (weight troubles you) subtract 5-10% and you’re

good to go.

http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

If you take some of the calculators at face value (like I did) and use (the calculators use)

1Kcal/hr/Kg you could be off by 20-30% or more than 500 Kcal/day !

“The Anaerobic Split”

Here I would like to coin a concept, “the anaerobic split” to describe the state in which some

of the work done by our bodies is produced anaerobically. A percentage of the total output

is produced in the muscles without oxidation at 9X worse efficiency which is why it’s of great

importance to be able to estimate this. We have established that your liver will convert fat

into the sugars needed for this process so ultimately it affects the energy balance positively.

But how much work and for how long can typically be done by the anaerobic system, can it

be significant for weight loss? Thankfully professional cyclist have done much research on

the subject, the following are power profiles for cyclists of various abilities, giving the power

output they can maintain for 5s, 1 min, 5 min and 20 min at which point it’s pretty close to

“indefinite” or full time power (FTP)…


12

Below are the average Watts/Kg for differently conditioned cyclist and different time

intervals.

5 s 1 min 5 min 20 min

24.04 11.50 7.60 6.50

23.69 11.35 7.47 6.29

23.35 11.21 7.34 6.17 World class

23.00 11.06 7.21 6.06

22.66 10.92 7.07 5.95

22.31 10.77 6.94 5.84

21.97 10.62 6.81 5.72

21.62 10.48 6.68 5.61 Pro Rider

21.28 10.33 6.55 5.50

20.93 10.19 6.42 5.38

20.59 10.04 6.29 5.27

20.24 9.89 6.16 5.16

19.90 9.75 6.02 5.04 International Rider

19.55 9.60 5.89 4.93

19.20 9.46 5.76 4.82

18.86 9.31 5.63 4.71

18.51 9.16 5.50 4.59

18.17 9.02 5.37 4.48 CWG Rider

17.82 8.87 5.24 4.37

17.48 8.73 5.10 4.25

17.13 8.58 4.97 4.14

16.79 8.44 4.84 4.03

16.44 8.29 4.71 3.91 Jersey Rider

16.10 8.14 4.58 3.80

15.75 8.00 4.45 3.69

15.40 7.85 4.32 3.58

15.06 7.71 4.18 3.46

14.71 7.56 4.05 3.35 Intermediate Rider

14.37 7.41 3.92 3.24

14.02 7.27 3.79 3.12

13.68 7.12 3.66 3.01

13.33 6.98 3.53 2.90

12.99 6.83 3.40 2.78 New Rider

12.64 6.68 3.27 2.67

12.30 6.54 3.13 2.56

11.95 6.39 3.00 2.45

11.61 6.25 2.87 2.33

11.26 6.10 2.74 2.22 Untrained

10.91 5.95 2.61 2.11

10.57 5.81 2.48 1.99

This chart was created by Doctor Andrew Coggan. We can assume that the 20 min power is 88%* aerobic and then derive what percentage of the work the anaerobic system is performing. It’s the same for all fitness levels and for 5min the anaerobic system performs about 30% of the work and for 1 min about 68 %. Assuming a 72 Kg individual with 2.22 W/Kg of 20min power output we can have the following chart …


13

Kcal/hr -NET TTL P Time

TTL E 22% 2,5%

O2 WO O2 TTL W min Kcal O2

WO-O2

0 0 0 0 100%

547 591 1204 159 20 401 88% 12%

547 1478 2611 200 5 218 70% 30%

547 10234 10781 438 1 180 32% 68%

* 88% aerobic is a good assumption based on the fact that the body has the ability to clear some lactic acid and this way the figures turn out a steady and realistic total anaerobic energy expenditure at exhaustion

So let’s assume that our rider is moving along on a flat road at 160 W which would give him a speed of about 29 Km/h (18mph) on a perfect, well oiled and maintained bicycle without any wind, road imperfections, accelerations/decelerations. Let’s say he encounters a slight hill of 3%. His speed begins to drop and instinctively he pushes himself harder, let’s say to where he is putting out 200 W (just 20% more). Now he is burning 3X as many calories and doing 20 km/h (12.5 mph) up our hill.

In the real world, it’s even worse from an energy standpoint for the unfit cyclist, that can’t produce a good amount of power aerobically. When they hit a hill they go 80% anaerobic and bonk in 30 sec and it’s game over. But from a fat burning perspective we can see that even say 2 min up the hill at 30% anaerobic would be like riding 6 min on the flat. This is quite tolerable from experience and gets more tolerable with practice; one doesn’t have to go all the way to the point where his/her muscles are burning with lactic acid.

The other interesting thing is that the total energy on the 5 min and 1 min is about the same. If you were to go 70% anaerobic 24 sec would equate to 6 min on the flat. This is the domain of “explosive” sports like boxing, basketball and the like. Short bursts of anaerobic exertion can amount to a lot of calories.

Let’s put this in perspective, how much is 177 Kcal for a 72 Kg guy, well according to the compendium of activities walking at a normal pace burns calories at a rate of about 3-4 Kcal/hr/Kg, so he’d have to walk for about 40-45 min to burn the same calories as 1 !! min going hard with a punching bag or producing 0.5 Hp. This is what the physics and the biology indicates.

The last columns are the METS (metabolic equivalent), one METS is 1 Kcal/hr per Kg of body weight by convention and “supposedly” equal to the energy one expends at rest. This is inaccurate, especially for overweight individuals. Overweight and heavy individuals would probably expend about 0.7-0.8 Kcal/hr/Kg. This is important because it skews the numbers more in favor of activity (25% more).

Here’s how it works, you exercise at 10 METS intensity, that means that you’re burning 10X more calories than if a healthy, slim average you was sitting quietly. But you aren’t slim or average so when you are sitting you are not expending 1 METS but about 0.7 to 0.8 METS, 25% less, which means that when you are active you burn up to 10/0.7 = 14X the calories in relation to rest. Your METS level is higher; you get a bigger benefit from physical activity in


14

relation to rest by virtue of being overweight. This has been addressed in the latest METS publication but not all online calculators take account of it.

Let’s look at what is possible for an untrained individual by the cycling profiles …

The blue line is the percentage that is aerobic, the red line the aerobic expenditure and the solid black line the total energy expenditure as Kcal/hr/Kg (METS). As you can see for 1 min one can attain a caloric expenditure of 140 Kcal/hr/Kg and as we explained it is significant even though it can be maintained for a short period of time.

In reality up to about 70-80 W the black and dotted red line would coincide as there would be zero anaerobic component (depending on the type of exercise) and from then on the lines would diverge as a percentage of the total energy expenditure became anaerobic.

The “afterburn” and oxygen debt: So where does the oxygen for this extra energy come from; believe it or not, it comes after the exercise. This is well documented by cyclists and my own experience. This is why ones pulse stays elevated after strenuous exercise.

We must be careful of what we say, exercise does not raise metabolism like a switch, rather some of the “damage” done during the exercise is repaired after the exercise causing the HR and oxygen consumption and ultimately fat loss. But one way or the other you have to have had expended the energy or done the “damage” during the exercise.

This means that you can’t do 5 min of exercise and expect your metabolism to be elevated the whole day. On the other hand if you go on a 24 hr marathon in 115 deg heat you may expect your metabolism to be raised for more than a whole week after the event because of the oxygen debt and damage to tissue that must be repaired.

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

0.0

20.0

40.0

60.0

80.0

100.0

120.0

140.0

160.0

150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500

Output (W) vs METS ext anaerobic zone 72 Kg cyclist 2,2 w/Kg FTP (calculated)

https://sites.google.com/site/compendiumofphysicalactivities/corrected-mets


15

6. A strategy with no finale: Caloric Restriction

Have any of you seen the studies that have been published regarding weight loss, we’re discussing studies on which the average weight loss is 3-4%, I could lose that in water on a 3 hour bicycle ride if I don’t take care to hydrate properly. I mean that’s really insignificant weight loss. The only thing that works is stomach bypass surgery, i.e. almost starvation and anorexia.

I know people (women) who are eating no more than about 1000 Kcal a day to maintain their weight. Since they’re not exercising they’re not particularly slim, just weak looking. The truth is that if they eat they will gain weight, ultimately abnormal weight.

My own experience is similar, I hit a “wall” at about 230 lbs, my body would not release the fat stores, my metabolism dropped (my body temp was 2 deg C less than normal) and I felt fine (in regards to hunger) eating almost nothing but making very little progress in weight loss. I was lethargic and sleepy – the definition of starvation mode, I went so far as to have my thyroid checked. Our bodies are incredible machines at conserving energy.

This is the end result of starvation dieting, you will be at a low weight but your body will be constantly fighting back, wanting to make you fat again which means you will either eat very little and feel awful, lethargic, depressed or give in, get fat and start the cycle again. You have to be constantly starving your body to maintain a low weight.

Caloric restriction is appealing because if someone is 400-500lbs it’s easier and more effective to prescribe Caloric Restriction because he/she already needs to eat a whole lot to maintain that mass and can’t exercise. When that person though gets down to 200 lbs they’ll probably be lethargic and have to eat half as much as a normal person just to maintain their weight.

Caloric Restriction is a self-limiting strategy in that the more you employ it and the lighter you become the less effective it becomes.


16

7. Strategies with a happy ending

The inspiration to write these pages came from Allen Carr’s book, “The Easyway to Stop Smoking”, I never thought a book could make so much difference. The thing is confusion and doubt can render a good strategy ineffective. Although the previous pages did get quite technical at times the point is to convince you with argument that unless you introduce significant physical activity you will always struggle with your weight. Caloric Restriction does not get easier, physical activity does get easier and enjoyable.

The other thing that must be dealt with is insulin response by limiting or eliminating simple carbs and sugars, especially during the time you ‘ll be dieting to lose weight.

What I feel we have established so far:

1. Your metabolism may be lower than you think, furthermore if you are lethargic, depressed, starving, sleeping all day and have lost weight (your fat stores are hungry) it will be even lower.

2. Simple carbs and sugar drive insulin response driving fat storage and energy instability

3. What matters 95% is how much exercise and of what intensity you do (quantity) not when, what type, etc.

4. Exercise can burn more Kcal than one may be lead to believe by the literature 5. High Intensity exercise can consume significant Kcal even in short bursts

Indications

1. If you are active your body may be more apt to “dump” excess energy. 2. Exercise “trains and strengthens” the catabolic processes giving you easier

access to your fat stores which can encourage activity in the absence of food as opposed to sleepiness, lethargy.

From the above we can speculate on what works and what doesn’t and why:

The Atkins/ No Carb Diet: Works in the same way as fasting, no insulin response to store fat, the body burns fat but you’ve countered the mechanism through which fat is stored. Perhaps it is not healthy though to be on the Atkins forever.

Starving/ Caloric Restriction: Most Fad Diets follow this pattern and it’s basically which is easier to implement and eat less calories on for a longer time. Obviously starving or eating very few calories works to lose weight. The problem isn’t so much that you’ll lose muscle or this or that, it’s that you’ll reach your goal weight after a long struggle depleted physically and emotionally and ... the war has just begun cause your body remembers the old weight and wants to rebound. You may find that maintaining your weight is even harder with the cravings more severe when you are eating a bit more than when you are eating less.

In my own experience for a few years I was at around 250 lbs, happy, energetic, able to eat freely. I went up to to around 280-290 then quickly lost the weight to around 250 lbs again but from 250 to 230 took 3 years of constant vigilance and struggle to the point that I stopped doing the things I liked because I was always too tired. Even when you’re not losing weight, there is pressure to gain what you’ve lost.


17

The disease of inactivity: In the realm of human behavior, everything is relative, 30 min of walking may seem like a “lot” of activity today but for someone who lived 50 years ago he would think you are joking. Unless you have an emotional eating problem, in which case I can’t help you, the root of the problem is inactivity even more so than bad carbs.

It’s easier to prescribe eating 500 Kcal less than walking for an hour BUT eating 500 Kcal less will make you less active and in the end taking this route you will find yourself lethargic and depressed having to eat less and less to lose weight. This is a path that can also lead to a series of health issues. On the other activity will become easier and easier.

Your main goal should be to train as to be able to maintain significant levels of intense exercise. With proper training improvement will come sooner than you think. If you are able – for example – to go on a 40 mile bicycle ride, even once per week you’ll probably never have to worry about your weight again. I can speculate on your thoughts: “No durrr!!! – if I run a marathon every weekend I’m not gonna be fat, I don’t wanna run a marathon every weekend.” Activity works positively on both sides of the equation by training your body to utilize fat stores and restoring healthy metabolic balance; caloric restriction inevitably restricts caloric expenditure.

My attempt was to communicate and construct proof (based on the current level of knowledge) of what was indicated from my own personal experience, that this is the best option for most people. Take up cycling, windsurfing, skiing, karate, boxing something to do a few hours per week, eat to train, my own performance greatly improved when I switched to fish and rice instead of bread and meat, and do it right, especially in the beginning.

In the end it’s easier than starving yourself and doing 15 min of cardio every day at the gym for years and years. Given the above it should be easy to construct the “ideal” healthy diet and exercise plan; and don’t leave things to chance, get a food scale and also track your weight but remember that weight can fluctuate and if you’re exercising hard you could be gaining muscle weight.

Everyone can do whatever is easiest and most practical for them but I will propose what I see as optimum.

The Optimum Diet / Exercise

Exchange bread, sugar and simple carbs for brown rice and try to eat fish instead of meat. Don’t eat fruit that are very sweet during the weight loss phase. Don’t eat more than 0.4 g / lb of fat. Ideally you’d like to be 60% Complex Carbs, 25% Protein, 15% Fat so you can train hard. Eat vegetables and basically follow good common sense but remember that the most important thing isn’t the vitamins but the nutrient ratios on a day to day basis.

You want complex slow release carbs with fiber so that you’re always and steadily burning a percentage of carbs and a percentage of fat, aim for 30% Carbs, meaning that Carbs make up 30% of your daily caloric needs. This is the ratio that limits your caloric intake. Don’t go so low that you can’t train well, the first objective is to develop your capacity to train and exercise hard.

Now if carbs are 60% of your food intake then 0.6*Ef=0.3(Em+Ea)=> Ef=(Em+Ea)/2

Where Ef, energy from food and Em and Ea energy required for metabolism and activities


18

(Notice the higher the ratio of carbs in your food and the lower the percentage of carbs you can burn the less food you can eat and still exercise efficiently). Aerobic exercise increases your capacity to burn a higher ratio of fat. Keep in mind that with this diet it’s the ratio of energy from carbs to the total energy required that’s of importance and will determine your food intake.

You can do all this automatically at http://fatsecret.com/ and it will make your training that much easier to get the nutrient ratios right so it’s worth the time. Get it right and you can eat less than half your caloric expenditure and not feel a single twinge of hunger.

Ideally you would chose cycling or swimming due to the low impact. Cycling allows an even higher caloric expenditure than swimming and there is a great deal of good quality information by professional and amateur cyclists about how to basically work your body as a motor and thus burn a huge amount of energy. You would do it in the REAL WORLD and in a way that is ENJOYABLE so that there are bursts of spontaneous high intensity.

Improve in your selected sport or activity and increase your capacity to undertake that activity. Once you develop the required fitness you don’t have to be as strict. At some point you will hopefully realize that you are keeping the weight off while enjoying yourself. Best of luck.

Disclaimer

None of the information presented here is to be taken as medical advice and I am not a licensed medical professional. I’ m a mechanical engineer who took an interest in the energy dynamics of the human body. Consult your doctor before beginning an exercise program.

http://fatsecret.com/


19

Addendum; my data and experience

My data on the “optimum diet” is from my own experience, I mentioned that I was able to eat about 60% more calories by boxing 3 hrs/wk. This is of course an estimate, but, during the summer I tracked my caloric consumption and expenditure more accurately using fatsecret.com. Bear in mind that fatsecret.com does not use the Mifflin-St Jeor equations for BMR but rather a standard 1 Kcal/hr/Kg so I had to correct for that.

After correcting via the Mifflin-St. Jeor equations and measuring caloric consumption with a scale and estimating expenditure via exercise I was able to get the following data: Kg vs Days

The blue circles are the projected fat loss and the red squares the actual. Between days 15-20 I was on vacation and allowed myself to eat bread and soda. Thus my body compensated (even though I was quite active) and pushed me to eat more so as not to release fat stores. This manifests as a retention of water and a jump in weight. In the end, the weight loss tracks expectations.

To calculate the data I often logged exercise time at 20 METS (boxing, cycling) although it is not all-out effort and could be maintained for about an hour. For example when I started cycling a hilly 22 Km route my pulse rate was about 140-160 bpm for about 1hr 20-25min to complete the course.

This would put me at about 10-11 METS but given the anaerobic component it was probably more. But let’s say 10 METS from pulse rate. So 10 METSX120 Kg X 1.5 hr = 1800 Kcal = 1800/7,7 = 233 gr of fat. After training for two months I could complete the course in 55 min – 1 hr. Question: how many Kcal am I burning now? It can’t be less than 1800 Kcal. A good (conservative) estimation would be 1.5X or 2700 Kcal or in the order of 22 METS.

After such an exercise session, my heart rate will remain elevated to 90-100 bmp for around 4-6 hours and then gradually decrease to a resting rate at about 24-36 hrs. This is the result of the oxygen debt.

In practice, by using the above logic, using the Mifflin St Jeor equations for BMR and weighing and measuring my food consumption, my figures work out very well (weight loss tracks estimations). Even with the above high estimates there are still indications that I am underestimating strenuous exercise of the type mentioned above.

0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

7.00

0 5 10 15 20 25 30


20

In my personal experience I didn’t have the same effects with long hours of moderate intensity exercise (3 hr/ 12 mi walk for example) although by some estimations (compendium of physical activities) the caloric consumption should be similar. After an hour or two of cycling at high intensity I could literally see physical changes to the deposits of adipose tissue on my body in the 24-48 hrs after the exercise.

Here is the fat loss for the fall of 2012

Again we can see a very good correlation and a jump in weight as weight loss stops and the body moves out of the catabolic mode and retains water. In both cases the weight loss while the diet was strictly applied was 4Kg/15d, or about 2Kg/week. Again my bicycle rides have been logged at over 15 Kcal/hr/Kg (METS).

Notice on day 9 after two long rides (big drops of the blue circles) the real weight loss is higher than estimated. This is an indication that even though I have been estimating my exercise at such a high level of intensity I’m not off.

0.00

1.00

2.00

3.00

4.00

5.00

6.00

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION · Calories and Profit Margins 5 4. The Incredible Machine 7 5. High Intensity...

Documents

Transcript of WEIGHT LOSS SOLUTION · Calories and Profit Margins 5 4. The Incredible Machine 7 5. High Intensity...