Energy Expenditure Part 2: Your Maintenance Calories

Energy Expenditure Part 2: Your Maintenance Calories

Dec 7, 2018 | Exercise, Nutrition

Introduction

This is the second and last part of my blog series on energy expenditure. In part 1, we looked into how the human body expends energy. The topics discussed in part 1 are critical for having a proper understanding of human energy balance. So if you haven’t yet, I highly suggest you read part 1 of the blog series first. (Click here to read part 1)

In this article, we will look into how you can determine your average daily energy expenditure and fat loss calories.

Your Daily Energy Expenditure

Now that you know how your body burns calories, it’s easy to see why online calorie calculators are not 100% accurate. A formula that takes a few general factors into account (e.g. weight, age, height etc.) cannot predict something as variable as your daily energy expenditure with 100% accuracy.

But even though calorie calculators are not 100% accurate, they do provide a good starting point. Instead of just maintaining a random number of calories, you at least get close to your “maintenance calories” (number of calories you burn per day) when using calorie calculators.

I would see using a calorie calculator as only step 1 in figuring out your maintenance calories. Based on how you progress with your calculated maintenance calories, you have to adjust your calorie intake.

I’ll take you through all the necessary steps of figuring out your maintenance calories one-by-one with myself as the test subject.

Step 1: Estimate Your Energy Expenditure

The Mifflin-St. Jeor equation is one of the most recent energy expenditure formulas. Because of this, it’s also considered one of the most accurate formulas. I’ve tried embedding a calorie calculator in this post, but it became a mess. So instead, please visit the link below to get an estimate of your maintenance calories based on the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation.

Visit this link to get a TDEE estimate

(Only look at the number of calories required to maintain weight, not the weight loss calories. I’ll cover those in a second.)

Let’s take me as an example. Once I’ve filled in the form, it says I need to consume around 2900 calories to maintain my weight. See the picture below.

maintenance calories

Note: With 5 strength training sessions, several in-person PT sessions, and 1 recreational football game per week, my activity is high. For most people, the activity will be lower.

Step 2: Track BW Development For 2 Weeks

Now that we have an estimate of your maintenance calories, we could go straight into eating below this calorie level and probably expect some fat loss. But if you are specifically interested in figuring out your average daily energy expenditure, it usually can’t hurt to “test” your calculated maintenance calories for about 2 weeks and see whether you’ll truly maintain your body weight.

For me, this would mean maintaining ~2900 calories per day for about 2 weeks and tracking my body weight (BW) development. I suggest weighing yourself every morning right after you wake up and visited the bathroom. You take all your weigh-ins of the week and calculate a weekly average. Then compare your weekly average body weight of week 1 and week 2.

I did this once before at the start of 2018 and I gained about 0.4 lbs. in my weekly average. Check the screenshot from my body weight log below.

maintenance calories

My calorie intake was within 2800-3000 calories on all the days. During your 2-week “test” period, I also suggest you do not deviate from your daily calorie target with more than 100 kcals up or down to get a good gauge of how your estimated maintenance calories affects your body weight.

Step 3: Adjust Calories Based on BW Change

If your average weekly BW has remained mostly the same (<0.3 lb. BW change), your calculated maintenance calories are close enough to your daily energy expenditure. If there is a significant change in BW between your two averages (>0.3 lb. BW change), you generally need to make calorie adjustments.

As a simple rule of thumb: Per 0.5 lb. change in BW, adjust your calories by 10%. This could be up or down. In my example, I gained about 0.4 lbs. in my weekly average BW measurement. For simplicity’s sake, we can round this up to a 0.5 lb. change. So I will need to lower my calories by 10% per day to maintain my body weight.

2900-2900*10% = 2610 = adjusted new maintenance calories

This is pretty accurate. From experience, once I eat around 2600-2700 calories, I maintain my body weight.

If you follow the exact same 3 steps described above, you will be able to get a good idea of how many calories you expend per day on average.

Setting Calories For Fat Loss

maintenance calories

Once you know how many calories you expend on an average day. You need to eat below this calorie level to lose fat (a.k.a. be in a calorie deficit). But how large should your calorie deficit be?

One research review done to provide evidence-based nutrition recommendations for natural bodybuilders suggests that losing about 0.5-1% of total body weight per week is most effective for preserving muscle while losing fat at a good pace. An exception here is overweight or obese individuals. Weight loss rates up to 1.5-2% per week can be effective for these populations since they have more total fat to lose.

Losing 0.5-1% of total BW in a week can generally be achieved by maintaining a daily calorie deficit of 20-25%. For obese populations that have more fat to lose research shows that a more aggressive calorie deficit (up to even a 40% daily calorie deficit) is also effective for muscle preservation and fat loss.

Calculating Fat Loss Calories Example

Now that you know how many calories you burn per day on average and have a good idea of your desired calorie deficit, we can calculate your fat loss calories.

Let’s continue with me as the example again. I maintain my body weight at 2600 calories. To lose fat effectively, I need a 20-25% calorie deficit. This comes down to the following:

2600*0.75 = 1950 = 25% calorie deficit

2600*0.8 = 2080 = 20% calorie deficit

Effective daily calorie range: 1900-2100

Summary + Fat Loss Checklist

To sum up, if you want to figure out your average daily energy expenditure, you need to go through these 3 steps:

  1. Estimate your maintenance calories with the use of a calorie calculator
  2. Eat at your estimated maintenance calories for 2 weeks while tracking your BW
  3. Adjust your maintenance calories based on your BW development

Once you’ve done this, you have a good idea of how many calories you burn on an average day and you can set your calorie deficit for fat loss.

Your calorie intake is the most important variable when it comes to fat loss. So once you’ve got this right, you are well on your way to lose fat. But, of course, effective fat loss is more than just tracking calories. To provide you with a complete overview of the key points you need to consider in your fat loss phase, I’ve designed a free 4-step fat loss checklist. Fill in your email below and I’ll send to you!

The TRUTH About Meal Frequency

The TRUTH About Meal Frequency

Nov 8, 2016 | Nutrition

We all know someone that is super strict about how many meals he/she eats per day, but has no control over the number of calories those meals contain. This is a classic case of “missing the forest for the trees.” In this article, I will show you why meal frequency does not deserve as much attention as many people think and what you should focus on instead.

Meal frequency, Energy Balance and Fat Loss

The energy balance describes the relationship between “energy in” (calories consumed) and “energy out” (calories burned).

  • If the number of calories consumed is higher than the number of calories burned, you gain fat (positive energy balance).
  • If the number of calories consumed is lower than the number of calories burned, you burn fat (negative energy balance).

The scientific law of thermodynamics shows that energy can’t be destroyed, only transformed. So a surplus of energy has to be stored (fat gain) and an energy deficit needs to be ”compensated” by internal reserves (fat loss).

This is relevant because no matter how many meals you consume a day, the energy balance eventually dictates whether you will lose or gain fat. Research is very clear on this:

  • A study by the University of Ottawa compared consuming 3 meals with 6 meals a day while matching total caloric and macronutrient intake. They found no difference in terms of fat loss.
  • An extensive research review done by French scientists found no significant difference in weight loss when consuming 1 to up to 17(!) meals a day while matching total caloric intake.

As you can see, meal frequency doesn’t seem to affect fat loss whatsoever.

meal frequency

How about your metabolism?

Contrary to common belief, consuming multiple small meals a day does not boost your metabolism, and consuming a couple of big meals a day does not harm it. Multiple studies show that meal frequency has no significant effect on your metabolism and total daily energy expenditure.

Also, not eating for a while won’t make you go into “survival mode.” Research shows that your metabolism starts slowing down after approximately 60 hours of fasting. I don’t think anyone reading this will ever fast for 60 hours straight.

Meal Frequency, Intermittent Fasting, and Muscle Growth

For decades, bodybuilders have been telling us to spread protein requirements equally throughout the day. To do this, you will need to consume multiple smaller meals (typically 6). This claim is understandable since muscle protein synthesis is an energy demanding process. Muscle protein synthesis basically is the ”muscle-building process”.

There’s research showing that consuming protein frequently is more effective than having just a few protein servings. The problem with many of these studies is that total protein intake is not matched between the groups.

Those who consume protein more frequently tend to consume more protein in a day compared to those who only have protein in a few meals.

That likely is part of the reason why we tend to find greater muscle growth when higher protein feeding frequencies are used. Up to a certain point, higher protein intakes simply make you gain more muscle.

But when protein intakes are matched, a 2013 meta-analysis led by Dr. Brad Schoenfeld shows that how much protein you consume is far more important than when you consume it. Here’s a quote out of this research paper:

Perceived hypertrophic benefits seen in protein timing studies appear to be the result of an increased consumption of protein as opposed to temporal factors. In our reduced model, the amount of protein consumed was highly and significantly associated with hypertrophic gains. (Schoenfeld et al. 2013)

meal frequency

Research regarding intermittent fasting also shows that a high meal frequency is not a necessity to build muscle. Individuals who do intermittent fasting consume no calories for the bigger part of the day and reach their nutritional needs in 4-10 hours.

Not eating for 14-20 hours may sound horrible for muscle growth, but there’s evidence showing it’s similar to eating regularly throughout the day, as long as total caloric and macronutrient intake is matched, of course.

What about fasted training?

Muscle breakdown increases during fasted training. The fact that you get a great anabolic response after breaking your fast, may offset the increased breakdown during training. This would help explain why intermittent fasting has been shown to preserve muscle as effectively as eating regularly throughout the day.

As far as workout performance goes, it depends per person. There’s research showing that fasted training has no significant effect on workout performance, but your personal experience may be different.

The Bottom Line on Meal Frequency

Hopefully, this post has made it clear that meal frequency has a negligible effect on fat loss, metabolic adaptations, and muscle growth. As long as you reach your nutritional needs for a given day, meal frequency won’t make or break your progress.

Therefore, how many meals you should consume per day mostly depends on your personal preference. Pick a meal frequency that is most enjoyable for you and you can stick with it.

Subscribe for more helpful articles!

If you found this post helpful, then I encourage you to subscribe to my mailing list. I will send weekly science-based fitness information right to your inbox.

 

Is A Low-Carb Diet Most Effective For Fat Loss?

Is A Low-Carb Diet Most Effective For Fat Loss?

Oct 5, 2016 | Nutrition

Low-carb diets have gained great popularity the past several years. Even though I’m skeptical about any diet that has the word ”low” in it, many have achieved great results from this way of eating. So it seems like low-carb dieting really works.

That said, hundreds of diets work. The question is, whether it’s superior to other forms of dieting or not. Giving up carbs is not easy for many of us. So if we all decide to go low-carb, then there needs to be an additional benefit.

By using the currently available scientific research on this matter, we will draw an objective conclusion on whether or not low-carb dieting is the most effective way to burn fat.

Insulin, Your Worst Enemy?

Low-carb diets supposedly work better for fat loss because you are keeping your insulin levels most of the time.

Insulin is a hormone that is released after consuming carbohydrates and protein. Among other things, this hormone is responsible for nutrient partitioning. Meaning, insulin transfers the needed nutrients to tissues (including fat tissue) after food consumption.

Once insulin is released, your body’s ability to burn fat is suppressed and you will most likely store body fat.

Before you start throwing out all of your chicken and rice, you need to understand that your body is not in constant “fat-burning” or “fat-gaining” mode. It constantly switches from gaining fat after you feed it to burning it when it’s needed.

This graph by Weightology showcases this quite well.

low-carb

To clear all potential confusion regarding this graph, read the simple example below.

You consume 800 calories at 3 PM and it gets absorbed in 4 hours (rough estimate). Your body will gain a part of it as fat because in those 4 hours your energy needs are not 800 calories, but more around 400 calories if you burn 2500 calories per day (2500*24/4=417). During periods of fasting (which can be as small as a couple of hours), your body will start burning fat because at that time there’s no external energy source (food) available.

If throughout the day you burn more fat than you gain, you’ve lost fat (and vice versa, of course). This is simply achieved by maintaining a caloric deficit. This forces your body to burn more fat than it gains OVERTIME.

Low-carb diets minimize insulin spikes

During a low-carb diet, you primarily eat fat. Research shows that high-fat food sources don’t trigger a significant insulin response. Since insulin is seen as the only hormone that triggers fat gain by many, it seems logical to think that you won’t be able to gain much fat if you keep carbs and protein low. After all, lower insulin levels equal less fat gain, right?

Not really.

First of all, research shows that your body is capable of gaining fat when insulin levels are low. If this wasn’t the case, you could eat unlimited amounts of dietary fat and stay lean. Fat gain due to excess dietary fat occurs through an enzyme known as ”Acylation Stimulating Protein”.

Second of all, fat breakdown also gets suppressed after eating dietary fat, just like when you get an insulin spike. In both cases, this happens due to the suppression of the enzyme ”hormone-sensitive lipase”.

low-carb

And last but not least, research by the Scottish Agricultural College shows that higher insulin responses do not have to equal more fat gain over time. Fat accumulation is not a response to insulin spikes from carbohydrate consumption, it’s a response to systematically eating at a caloric surplus.

So, for healthy individuals, insulin is not something you should constantly worry about. Spiking insulin by consuming carbs or protein will not make you a “fat-gaining machine.”

Comparing Low-Carb To Its Alternatives

In theory, it doesn’t seem like the theoretical ”fat-reducing” benefits of low-carb diets hold much truth. But what matters most are the eventual results you achieve from low-carb diets. That’s what we’ll be looking into now.

By looking at low-carb research, we see that many studies find low-carb diets to be effective for weight loss. This is quite logical since low-carb diets deplete muscle glycogen (glucose stored in muscles).

This, in turn, will make you a few pounds lighter. It’s safe to say that this kind of weight loss is not what you are shooting for. Actually, weight loss, in general, shouldn’t be your number one concern.

Most of us want to improve body composition (less fat and more muscle). So ”more weight loss” doesn’t equal a better end result, more fat loss and muscle preservation does.

low-carb

Why not all studies are useful

We know through a large body of evidence that a high protein intake is beneficial during any fat loss phase. This enables you to preserve more muscle and burn more fat over time. So protein has to be relatively high for optimal results, regardless of whether you go low- or high-carb. In this article, I show you how much protein you should eat per day.

The studies that suggest the ”supremacy” of low-carb diets, didn’t take the importance of protein intake into consideration. In this study, a low-carb, high-protein diet was compared to a high-carb, low-protein diet. The low-carb group did better, but was this because of the low-carb or the high-protein intake?

To answer this question, we need to turn to studies that equate protein intake between groups.

A multitude of experimental studies have been done and they show that when calories and protein are matched there is no significant difference in fat loss between low-carb and low-fat diets.

Here are a few more examples:

  1. Research by the Harvard School of Public Health, found no significant difference between low, moderate and high-carb diets.
  2. Research by the University of Arizona, found no significant difference between a low- and high-carb diet.
  3. Research by the Arizona State University, also found no significant difference between a low- and high-carb diet.

Basically, a low-carb diet is generally beneficial for fat loss due to an increase in protein intake. So as long you consume sufficient protein and are in a caloric deficit, it doesn’t seem like your carb and fat intake matter all too much for fat loss, which is great because it allows flexibility.

So, Is Low-Carb Useless?

While writing this article, I have assumed that you are in relatively good health, train often, and are not severely obese. If that’s true, it’s highly unlikely that you will achieve inferior results by eating carbs.

But some people genuinely find it easier to get lean by using a low-carb approach. If you are one of them, you should feel free to maintain a low-carb diet, as long as it consists of mostly nutrient-dense foods.

For example, in this study, some volunteers lost more fat with a high-carb approach, whereas some volunteers lost more fat with a low-carb approach. On average, low-carb dieting doesn’t deliver superior or inferior results, but you might find that this is different in your case.

When insulin resistance comes into play

If you’ve been severely overeating on carbs (or in general) for the last couple of years, research shows that there is a great possibility that you are experiencing issues with the metabolization of carbohydrates.

If you can relate to this, research shows you can benefit from reducing your carbohydrate intake. This likely has much to do with the fact that severely obese individuals often are insulin resistant.

Final Words

Whether you choose to maintain a high-, moderate- or low-carb diet, you will be able to achieve great fat loss results if you are in a caloric deficit and consume sufficient amounts of protein.

If you want to learn more about how you can determine your macronutrient needs and how to approach your fat loss phase, I recommend you check out my free “Fat Loss Checklist.” I will send it to your email if you fill in the form below.