Let's Learn About Lard Loss

As I've mentioned before, "weight loss" is really simple in theory. You just expend more calories than you take in. Since I'm really going for it this week, I thought I'd explain with some examples.

First, it's helpful to know your caloric needs for the day. This is basically your Basal/Resting metabolic rate (how many calories you burn just sitting there) times a multiplier for activity level. Here's an easy calculator to give you an idea.

I've done many calculators like this. I usually get something like 3600-4200 calories. For the sake of the math, I'll go with 3700.

So, here are my caloric intakes over the last few days:

SUNDAY: 2100
MONDAY: 2580
TUESDAY: 3275
WEDNESDAY: 2735

Total Intake: 10690
Total Needed: 14800

Total deficit: 4110
Total deficit in fat pounds: 1.174 lbs. 

Notice, that's a caloric deficit of like 28%. I'm cutting well over a quarter of my "break even" calories per day.


Now some of you are looking at a day of 3200 calories and thinking, what a PIG! Believe me, my body was not feeling like a pig. First of all, on Tuesday when I took in that amount of calories, I also burned around 1225 through exercise. The only way you can sustain that kind of exercise is by fueling your body. In fact, I've noticed my energy level dropping as the week goes on. I'm cutting back more than usual on the calories and I can feel my body have less energy. When I ran yesterday and today, I  felt especially tired. That's unusual for me. I'm not sure how I'll survive my long jog on Saturday yet. In any case, I need to even reel in the caloric intake further if I want to make it to 5 pounds. Saturday will be big. The amount of calories I burn doing 9 miles is a lot. I lose a half of pound of fat at least.

Is anyone noticing how difficult it is to lose more than 2 pounds a week? To burn 5 pounds of FAT in a week, you have to have to be at a 17500 calorie deficit. My entire weekly calorie needs are around 25900. That includes all the calories needed to jog 25-30 miles in that week! If I want to create a deficit of 17500 calories, I have to cut my intake by TWO-THIRDS! That's mild starvation. Instead, I'm going to try to increase the exercise while moderately reducing calories. We'll see how I do.

Again, when you hear of 5+ pounds lost in a week, remember this. The only way you get that is through extreme calorie deficits. Think hours and hours of exercise a day with little to eat. OR, through water and muscle loss. Either one is NOT pretty.