Weight Loss, Part 3: Lift the weight to avoid carrying the weight

If you’ve been following along at home, so far we’ve talked about getting the data and creating the initial plan for weight loss.  Now it’s time to talk about weight training.

Cardio exercise is fabulous for burning calories while we’re doing it.  It boosts our mood, improves our endurance, and helps our brains and bodies function better.  What it doesn’t do as much is change our body composition.  We talk about body composition mostly in terms of body fat percentage.  That number is way more important than straight body weight in terms of how fit and healthy we are.  If our body fat percentage is too low, we’re in trouble, but that’s not a problem that most of us have.  When it is too high, we put ourselves at risk for all kinds of nasty chronic diseases.

It is entirely possible for two people to have the exact same height and weight and be totally different sizes because of differences in body composition.  The person with the lower body fat percentage will appear thinner, will likely wear smaller clothes, and will probably appear more “toned.”  This is because muscle tissue is denser than fatty tissue—it is heavier in weight and smaller in volume than fat.  What I am saying here is that those of us who want to lose weight for aesthetic reasons should put a priority on muscle tissue as well as overall weight loss.  If we aren’t focusing on how we look, we still want to put a priority on weight training and muscle building for several reasons, including ensuring long-term bone density and amping up our metabolisms.

I like folks to build an exercise habit with cardio first because it provides a healthy base for weight training, but that doesn’t mean stopping with cardio.  Weight training makes a huge difference in how bodies work and feel and it will ensure continuing success in weight loss.

Weight Loss, Part 2: It's about the deficit

Yesterday, I talked about getting the data as a first step toward weight loss.  The next step is creating a plan.

For most of us, a healthy rate of weight loss is one to two pounds per week.  Again, for most of us, this translates into a daily calorie deficit of about 500 calories—we need to burn 500 calories more than we eat.  This deficit can be created by eating less, moving more, or some combination of the two.  (Please note:  deficits that are a lot greater than 500 calories per day tend to mess with metabolism, interfere with getting essential nutrients, and create crabbiness.  Certain medically supervised diets do have larger deficits, but that is why they are medically supervised.  Don’t try this at home!)

My preference is for the combination approach.  I like to see people focus on getting in the habit of doing cardio while cutting out the garbage calories.  Most of the weight loss is going to come from the dietary changes, but the cardio is going to help to keep mood positive while using calories.  However, just because it’s my preference does not mean that it is the right choice for any particular human.  Some of us find the whole idea of changing what we eat so stressful that we can’t change anything else at the same time.  Others of us may find that we need the spur of success from cardio before we can attack the food issues.

Tomorrow, I’ll talk about what weight lifting does to the whole equation.

Weight Loss, Part 1: Getting the Data

Many people become interested in fitness because they want to lose weight.  For about two thirds of us in the American population, this is a useful and worthy goal because that’s about how many of us are overweight.

The best approaches to weight loss are holistic (yes, I’m from Berkeley and I’m allowed to use that word).  We want to address what and how much we eat, as well as how much and what kind of exercise we get; we also probably need to figure out how to be motivated to keep going when things get tough, how to deal with setbacks, and what to do about our friends and family, whether they are supportive or not.

There are many places we can start the journey, but I think the first thing to do is get some information.  We can’t change what we don’t see.  That means logging what we eat and what we do.  The low-tech among us can play with pens and paper.  Those of us who like gizmos can use any number of devices and apps.  No matter what, the first goal is just to see where we are.

This is harder than it sounds.  How big was that cookie?  Did I use two or three cups of greens?  Did I walk for ten minutes or twelve?  How fast was I going?  We are terrible at remembering what we eat—like those two pieces of bread we snarfed down while waiting for our pasta or that handful of pretzels we swiped from our kid in the car on the way home from school.  Most of us underrepresent what we are eating and overrepresent the amount of exercise we get.  It’s like we know we need the benefit of the doubt, except in this case we don’t.

We can do two kinds on analysis on the data we get, quantitative and qualitative.  The quantitative stuff is a lot easier with technology than with pencil and paper because the gadgets’ brains do the math for us.  What we are looking to see is what our energy balance is.  If we eat more calories than we burn, we gain weight.  If we eat and burn the same amount, we stay the same.  If we eat fewer calories than we use, we lose weight.  When we do the math, we figure out what our situation is, although if we’ve already decided it is time to lose weight, we probably know the answer without even checking the numbers.

Qualitative data includes things like when we tend to snack—energy low in the afternoon anyone?  We might notice that we can pass on the candy with no problem, but the chips work like extremely seductive kryptonite.  We may find that we feel better on days with a big breakfast or even no breakfast.  We want to know what works for us.

Armed with all this information, we can make an initial plan.  Which I will write about in the next post!