Here’s some more numbers to crunch to convince you that slow is better. It takes 3500
burned calories to lose one pound of fat. (I mention losing fat because I hope you do
not want to lose muscle when you diet. Muscle is built with proper, planned
nutrition. Muscle is lost with frivolous eating and get-skinny-quick diets.)
Now, let’s say Sheryl wants to lose 10 pounds of fat. She’d need to burn an extra
35,000 calories (3500 calories multiplied by 10 pounds of fat). The key word here is
extra. Say Sheryl consumes 2,000 calories a day and this maintains her weight of 150
pounds.
She maintains this weight while burning calories for survival and performing her
daily tasks in addition to burning 300 calories on a treadmill each day.
If Sheryl wanted to loose 10 pounds of fat in two weeks, given the scenario above,
she’d have to burn an extra 2,500 calories a day (35,000 calories divided over 14
days). She could do this by exercising 8.3 additional hours every day for two weeks
while still only consuming 2,000 calories each day. The Math: 8.3 hours times 300
calories burned per hour equals 2,500 extra calories burned.
And even though these number work on paper, they do not work in reality. Here’s
why:
1. The body’s metabolism will change if you suddenly start expending a whopping extra
2500 calories each day and may even store more fat.
2. The human body can only lose at most two pounds a week without causing bodily
damage or negatively altering the metabolism.
3. The fat loss equation is not perfect. Even professional bodybuilders must
sacrifice some muscle when scaling down their body fat percentage.
4. You will not exercise 9 hours a day. People already complain about doing 30
minutes of exercise daily.
If you want results, make a sensible number plan. The point is plan for what you can
and will do. If you are not planning this way, you are self-deceiving and setting
yourself up for failure.
Personal trainer and professional figure competitor Lisa Darelli says give yourself
“Three months, three days a week, and six meals a day” if you want to see changes in
your body.
If Sheryl wanted to sensibly lose weight, she would map out what she is willing to do
and how she is willing to do it. Sheryl decides the following:
She will reduce her caloric intake by 100 calories a day. She will burn 500 calories
a day while exercising instead of 300 calories.
This will create a daily calorie deficit of 300 calories for Sheryl. (Sheryl is
eating 100 less calories and expending 200 more calories, therefore 300 extra
calories are burned).
Remember, burning only 300 calories a day on the treadmill allowed Sheryl just to
“maintain” her weight, so she has to up her calorie expenditure to lose the extra
weight.
Since Sheryl wants to lose ten pounds of fat, that is, create a calorie deficit of
35,000 calories, it will take her 175 days (35,000 calories divided by 200 extra
calories burned per day), about 6 months, to lose 10 pounds of fat. I can hear
everyone scream, “THAT’S TOO LONG!”
Remember, this is what Sheryl is realistically willing to do to lose weight. She could have lied to herself and said, “I’ll only eat 1500 calories a day and burn 800 calories at the gym.” That’s about two hours a day at the gym and little food to live on. Sheryl might become too cranky and too exhausted to follow through on this diet. Sheryl would then blame the diet and not her illogical expectations. If you want to “get” this dieting thing, decide what you can and will realistically do keep the weight off.
If Sheryl wanted, she could burn an extra 600 calories a day, instead of 300, and this would allow her to reach her goal in half the time– three months.
It is much easier planning your time backward rather than projecting forward. Always overestimate the time needed to complete your project.
Chin-Ning Chu, Do Less, Achieve More
Of course, I’ve simplified calories here, and Sheryl would need to plan her meals well to make sure this worked. But that is essentially how calorie deficits and losing weight works.
You decide what you are reasonably willing to do to create a calorie deficit that will result in weight loss. Once the ideal weight is achieved, you stay with your diet. You do not abandon it.