Fun and Fitness: Negative caloric balance key to weight loss
If I've harped about it once I've harped about it a million times. Losing weight all comes down to a negative caloric balance. In other words, you need to be expending more calories than your body requires to maintain your current weight. We can get into the mathematical logistics all over again, but let's keep it simple, if you're not losing weight, than you're either not burning off enough calories, or you're consuming more calories than you need, or a combination of both!
New challenges can arise for those who successfully lose weight. Lets take a 170lb woman who does a one-hour aerobics class three days a week. Her energy expenditure may be 10.4 calories x 60 min x three days. That works out to a total of 1872 calories a week. After a number of weeks, this lady now weighs 130 pounds and continues with the same exercise program. However now her energy expenditure works out to be 7.9 calories x 60 min x 3 days. She is now only burning off 1422 calories a week. That's a difference of 450 calories a week. To put things more into perspective, one pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. You may be thinking why this may be. I'll discuss a few of the important reasons this is the case.
A heavier individual will burn more calories than a lighter individual even though they may be working at the same intensity. An obese mother can potentially burn off more calories than her child. This is because a heavier individual needs to exert more energy to do the same level of work compared to that of a smaller individual. In turn, the heavier individual expends more calories. As we lose weight, we decrease the amount of energy that we expend. We also become more efficient in the activities we do which further results in less energy expenditure. There's also a great variance in energy expenditure among common activities. Volleyball and baseball would be on the lower end of the list, whereas tennis and cycling will be on the higher end of energy expenditure.
It's important to also keep in mind that as we age, we require fewer calories. As we age and become busier, our activity levels tend to decrease. Unfortunately, people's activity levels generally decrease before their dietary intake decreases. Combine all of this with an aging decline in metabolism and you got yourself a strong scenario for some serious weight gain.
So if you're getting frustrated and starting to plateau in your weight loss efforts, remember to take into account what I've just went over. There is many other factors including genetics and such, but I would end up needing the entire Interrobang to cover them all. Feel free to contact me or ask any of our friendly staff at Fitness 101 if you have any specific questions.
New challenges can arise for those who successfully lose weight. Lets take a 170lb woman who does a one-hour aerobics class three days a week. Her energy expenditure may be 10.4 calories x 60 min x three days. That works out to a total of 1872 calories a week. After a number of weeks, this lady now weighs 130 pounds and continues with the same exercise program. However now her energy expenditure works out to be 7.9 calories x 60 min x 3 days. She is now only burning off 1422 calories a week. That's a difference of 450 calories a week. To put things more into perspective, one pound of fat is equivalent to 3500 calories. You may be thinking why this may be. I'll discuss a few of the important reasons this is the case.
A heavier individual will burn more calories than a lighter individual even though they may be working at the same intensity. An obese mother can potentially burn off more calories than her child. This is because a heavier individual needs to exert more energy to do the same level of work compared to that of a smaller individual. In turn, the heavier individual expends more calories. As we lose weight, we decrease the amount of energy that we expend. We also become more efficient in the activities we do which further results in less energy expenditure. There's also a great variance in energy expenditure among common activities. Volleyball and baseball would be on the lower end of the list, whereas tennis and cycling will be on the higher end of energy expenditure.
It's important to also keep in mind that as we age, we require fewer calories. As we age and become busier, our activity levels tend to decrease. Unfortunately, people's activity levels generally decrease before their dietary intake decreases. Combine all of this with an aging decline in metabolism and you got yourself a strong scenario for some serious weight gain.
So if you're getting frustrated and starting to plateau in your weight loss efforts, remember to take into account what I've just went over. There is many other factors including genetics and such, but I would end up needing the entire Interrobang to cover them all. Feel free to contact me or ask any of our friendly staff at Fitness 101 if you have any specific questions.
