Krankjorum Means Business

January is well on its way. Hordes of folks have decided to better themselves until at least February, which is luckily only a few more weeks away. To better yourself, you need to lose fat. Maybe work on your self-esteem issues, too. But first and foremost, you need to lose fat. It is a surefire way out of your troubles.

Fat loss may stall at times, though. To whit, I have collected a few pointers to help find what aspect of your dieting sucks.

Remember stalls are not to be confused with the average rate of fat loss, which is mind-numblingly slow to start with. But if nothing’s changed by the time you re-read this in April, something’s off. 

1. Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics refer, among other things, to conservation of energy. All you need to understand  is that energy cannot be created out of nothing. It enters your body in the form of a curious substance we call food. If your energy intake is at maintenance with or exceeds your energy output, you will not lose anything, bar water weight.

Calories are little buggers we use to measure energy obtained from cheeseburger. Depressingly, you may need to learn to count calories to get an idea of how much energy you actually consume versus how much less would be a good idea to eat in order to lose fat. The number varies for everyone depending on sex, weight, height, activity level and a few others besides.

Calorie counting is frustratingly easy to get wrong. Most anyone outside lab conditions can come up with is an estimate using different calculators available online. If it doesn’t seem to work after you’ve given it a reasonable try – several weeks - this doesn’t mean you are a thermodynamic wonder. It means you are not consuming less energy than you expend, whichever way that may be achieved.

2. Water weight/bloat
If your weight swings like a raging bipolar, weigh yourself once a month, not weekly, daily, or per the hour, to determine a long-term trend. Shifts in fluid retention skew things greatly, both in the mirror, on the scales and tape measure. This adds to your already sky-high stress levels and hysteria, which make you retain even more water. Hooray. 

Unaccounted bloat from huge swings in sodium, food intolerances, boozing (my favourite), allergies et cetera are further aggravated by the good old menstrual cycle that adds extra insult to injury. Squishy and fat overnight? Bloat.

3. Your numbers aren’t static
When you lose mass, your maintenance goes down ever so slightly. A smaller body takes less energy to operate. Eating the same amount of calories you started with 10 kilos ago is no longer valid. If you lose large amounts of weight, you need to eat less to account for the loss. It is also not realistic to assume you burn the exact same amount of calories every day either. Life doesn’t work that way.

4. Bathroom
Do number one and number two before hitting the scales. Preferably, weigh yourself in the morning upon waking up. But go to the bathroom first. Maybe a little magic will occur.

5. Activity
Eating less food in itself tends to make people lethargic so they spend less energy with everyday activities. Add to that most aren’t as active as they’d fancy. You are not as active as you’d fancy. Going to the gym 2-3 days a week for 30 minutes means nothing if all else you do is walk 50 metres to a bus stop to sit at a desk in the office before you head home to sit on front of the TV all evening, or lie in bed all day (as I tend to do). You are not ‘moderately active’. You are sedentary.

6. Exercise
Contrary to popular belief, weight training doesn’t burn a buttload of calories and create a massive afterburn, baby. Bodypart splits where you spend 45 minutes in the gym pumping that bicep burn even less. Cardiovascular exercise may burn more, but much like people overestimate their activity, they overestimate their training intensity and calories burned. Walking on a treadmill for 15 minutes? Go watch TV.

7. Fatness
Normal, non ‘athletic’-looking women are way in the upper 20s or low 30s in terms of bodyfat percentage. Yup, up to one-third of your total bodyweight is fat. This is because your body hates you. 

On the other hand, the fatter you are, the easier it is to lose it. Most daily calories are spent by merely existing and larger individuals burn more due to their sheer mass. This means the best way to lose fat is to be heavy and sit on your behind all day. Isn’t that wonderful?

8. Tracking calories
If you decide to count calories, you weigh everything at all times. Read that twice. Every single day except when you had a handful of cheese yesterday and, oh, Monday but that doesn’t count.

9. Small calorie deficits
Good for sanity maybe but if you do not weigh everything at all times, you’re screwed. Sorry. Say you cut 200 calories from your supposed maintenance. How much in a tall glass of milk? 12 almonds? Several healthy servings of broccoli? A slice of pizza?

10. Cheat days
Fancy term people use to pig out once a week. You don’t need weekly cheat days where you eat everything in sight to rev up your metabolism. Your body does not need an extra 2,000 calories to scorch fat burning into unprecedented heights after a few days of feeling hungry that shut down all its metabolic activity, otherwise known as death.

11. Thermodynamics revisited
Thermodynamics refer, among other things, to conservation of energy. All you need to understand  is that energy cannot be created out of nothing. It enters your body in the form of a curious substance we call food. If your energy intake is at maintenance with or exceeds your energy output, you will not lose anything, bar water weight.