Hello all this is my first time posting to Reddit! I have a B.S and M.S in Exercise Science. I wanted to share a few thoughts of mine and I hope what I share can help anyone reading. I have gained extremely valuable and practical knowledge from my mentors in my Masters Program. They are leading research in the Exercise Science field and doing all they can to get the right knowledge to the general public. That is what I intend on doing with this post and potentially future posts.This post I wanted to focus on my weight loss over the past 6 weeks and the strategies that helped me lose the weight I did.
I have lost 18 pounds over this time and although I do not have the BF measurements to back up this claim, I do believe I have also lost a significant amount of fat mass. I started at 203 pounds and am now sitting at 185.
I ate 2100 calories a day for the first three weeks and then dropped to 1850 for the last 3 weeks. Where did I get these numbers?
Something I have come to realize and appreciate about the process of weight loss is just how accurate and precise we can get in estimating our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) and then using that number to structure a weight loss program. TDEE is the amount of energy, or calories that someone burns a day. The majority of our TDEE comes from our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) or Resting Metabolic Rate, which is the calories burned a day at rest. I was fortunate enough to have access to a PNOE device which can be used to perform Indirect calorimetry and measure the heat we produce from production of carbon dioxide and nitrogen waste or from oxygen consumption. This number gives us our RMR. From this device I got an RMR of 1900 calories. However, most do not have access to this kind of equipment so what else can you do? There are a number of equations that are used to estimate RMR, there is the;
- Mifflin–St.Joer
- RMR = 9.99 (weight) + 6.25 (height) − 4.92 (age) + 166 (sex) − 161 [sex: men, 1; women, 0]
- Cunningham
- RMR = 500 + 22 (LBM)
- Harris–Benedict
- Men:
- RMR = 13.75 (weight) + 5 (height) − 6.76 (age) + 66.47
-
Women:
- RMR = 9.56 (weight) + 1.85 (height) − 4.96 (age) + 655.1
When I calculated my RMR using all of these equations and then averaged it, I got 1959 calories, pretty dang close to what was measured using indirect calorimetry! So now I had my RMR; about 1900 calories, that is the portion of the TDEE equation that has the greatest impact, so you want to be as precise as possible with this number.
The next part of the equation is your NEAT, or Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis. This is a coefficient of your daily activity, not from exercising. The coefficients are as follows,
SEDENTARY: 0.2
VERY LOW ACTIVITY: 0.5
LOW ACTIVITY: 0.6
MODERATE ACTIVITY: 1.0
HIGH ACTIVITY: 1.5
VERY HIGH ACTIVITY: 1.8
I think it is safe to assume a coefficient of “sedentary” or .2. Either way, this stresses the importance of continuous monitoring of body weight and calorie intake in order to adjust calories as needed. When my RMR was multiplied by .2, I got 380 calories, then you add that back into your RMR to get 2,200 calories burned a day from my RMR and NEAT.
Next is we calculate the Thermic Effect of Food or TEF. which is essentially the energetic cost of digesting and absorbing the food you eat. Although different for each macronutrient, particularly for protein, this value tends to be ~10 % of the calories you consume on a daily basis. 2,200 calories multiplied by TEF of 10% is 220. Now I add that into my RMR and NEAT calculation to get 2,440 calories. The final part of the equation is energy expenditure from exercise. Since my goal was weight loss I did not factor this into my equation.
Now I know how many calories my body burns a day, 2440 calories, I know in order to lose weight I need to eat less than that. A 300 calorie deficit was what I decided to try at the start and as you can see I consistently lost weight eating at that amount. I lost 10 pounds very quickly and I do have thoughts on why but I will save that for another post.
This being my first post I had honestly no idea how to write this but I want to be clear on my intention. I believe in spreading valuable information that can hopefully be used to better someone's life. I believe the knowledge I have gained on the topics of exercise and nutrition is so powerful and it saddens me to see misinformation out there. I am young and new to the field, but I hope to continue learning from people a hell of a lot smarter than I am and then sharing that information with people everywhere!
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