Creating a food log
31 August 2005If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
If you want to lose body fat fast, if you want to hang onto hard-earned muscle in the face of declining calories, youll need to weigh food portions. The only way its physiologically possible to lose stored body fat is to tip the energy balance equation into a negative status (oxidize more calories than you consume) for a protracted period of time. If you want it all, if you want to retain muscle while losing body fat youll need to come to grips with weighing food portions and eating with a degree of precision that boggles the mind. How else can you calculate caloric intake to the finite degree required to pull off this metabolic double play? Protein is needed to retain muscle; muscle tissue is made up of protein and in order to spare muscle while in NEB (negative energy balance) protein must be bolstered while other nutrients are systematically pared down. Most bodybuilders will (at minimum) maintain 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight at all times. This is a fairly low figure used amongst competitive bodybuilders. Lets do the math and reverse-engineer a hypothetical game plan: a gram of protein contains 4-calories, a gram of carbohydrate contains 4-calories while a gram of fat contains 9-calories. The idea is oxidize body fat in slow-roast fashion. Ever baked a ham in the oven, long and slow? After 3-4 hours the 12-pound ham emerges from the oven weighing 9-pounds as the intracellular and intramuscular fat has been melted off and out of the ham via a slow, steady application of heat.
We use the same procedure to melt fat off and out of human muscle: we raise the bodys temperature via exercise and activity and this requires calories. If we are precise, we can bake off the body fat while not shrinking the muscle. Professional bodybuilders, the worlds finest dieters, can reduce from 15% body fat to 3% body fat by taking 12-weeks and slowly, methodically reducing calories while keeping protein intake level. For example: a bodybuilder weighing 241 and carrying 15% body fat at the start of the procedure is carrying 37-pounds of body fat and 204-pounds of lean body mass. In order to maintain his muscle he needs (at a minimum) 200-grams of protein per day, each and every day, seven days a week. Since a gram of protein contains 4-calories he knows he needs to eat 800-calories a day in lean protein. He would likely start the pre-competition diet phase eating 15-calories per pound of body weight and at 240 this works out to 3,600 calories per day. Extract the 800-calories devoted to protein and that leaves 2,800 calories to be derived from fibrous carbs (negligible) starchy carbs (considerable) and fat (little if any from saturated fat, a fair amount from good fat). Each week, in order to oxidize body fat while retaining muscle, the bodybuilder maintains his 800-calorie/200-grams derived from protein. He reduces the remaining 2,800 calories obtained from other food sources in a systematic fashion. At the end of our hypothetical process, total calories might be reduced to from 3,600 to 1800-2000 calories - yet the 800-calories designated for muscle sparing protein would remain constant.
Activity, particularly cardiovascular exercise, would be dramatically increased to create a deeper negative energy balance inroad. At the end of the process the athlete is living on lean protein, fibrous carbs (that contain barely any calories as they are voluminous instead of dense) and a small amount of starch and good fat. By using the long, slow, downward glide path we spoke of yesterday, the muscle is retained and the body fat is mobilized and oxidized to cover the caloric shortfall created by increased activity. The reason crash dieters end up looking roughly the same after losing lots of bodyweight as they did before the process commenced is they ignore the physiological reality of catabolism and end up losing more muscle (cannibalized by the body) than fat; they succeed in replicating their old fat self. Optimally we want to lose fat, not muscle. How can you create the degree of precision needed to accomplish this incredible feat other than be incredibly exacting and totally aware of your exact caloric intake? To preserve muscle and burn fat you need be aware of the caloric content of what you are eating. Next well talk about the specifics of weighing food, the pitfalls and how to do it expeditiously if you are inclined to try this precise and meticulous approach.
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