Weight loss, exercise, and diet are all interrelated in a very fundamental way. There as many diets out there as there are calories in an avocado, and every one of them is based on the same basic premise: energy balance.
The fundamental ethos of the energy balance view is that if your energy intake exceeds your energy use, then you will gain weight, and conversely, if your energy use exceeds your energy intake, then you will lose weight. Simple, isn’t it? Perhaps not as simple as it seems, however, since there is a body that disputes this theory of weight loss to some extent, and you can read about that later. However, there is an overwhelming body of evidence to support this equation for the vast majority of people.
To put this in popular terms, equating energy with calories, the equation is basically saying that if you want to lose weight you must burn up more calories than you eat.
- To put some figures to these terms, you will save 150 calories if you:
- Eat canned tuna in water rather than in oil.
- Drink water rather than soda or pop at a meal
- Use vinegar rather than salad dressing
- Drink a daiquiri rather than a pina colada
You will burn 150 calories if you:
- Walk two miles
- Mow the lawn for 30 minutes
- Play pool for an hour
- Dance for half an hour
They say that fishing doesn’t give you exercise, but you also lose 150 calories if you fish for 35-40 minutes.
These are just some fun figures, but they do indicate how easy it is to reduce your energy intake and increase your energy usage, and so manage weight loss through diet and exercise. However, it is important to keep in mind that you use up energy in three different ways.
Your Metabolism
Your metabolic rate is the energy you use while at rest, such as while sleeping. Even when sleeping, you are using energy through breathing, the heartbeat and blood circulation and digestion. Energy is used in each of these in the contraction of muscle cells, and is only part of your metabolism.
You also burn up calories when your liver detoxifies your blood, and carries out the thousands of chemical reactions of life, and when your body cells are generating energy from the carbohydrates in your food they are simultaneously expending it.
A benefit of using exercise to build muscle tissue is that muscles increase your metabolic rate, and so you burn up more energy while at rest (50-70 calories per pound per day).
Your Way of Life
The amount of energy you expend during the course of your normal day will have a significant effect on how much you must eat or exercise when losing weight. Thus, those involved in manual work such gardening or the construction industry will use up more energy each day that the more sedentary secretary or writer, and can consequently either eat more or exercise less during their weight loss program. Fundamentally, this means that when assessing the balance of energy specifically for you, you must take into account every way in which you use up energy, not just the extra exercise you carry out over and above your natural metabolism. This is where your physician can be a great resource for you, particularly before starting a diet and exercise program.
Exercise
One purpose of exercise is to burn the energy generated by your body from the carbohydrates in your diet. However, it also offers a secondary advantage: if you lose weight through exercise rather than through diet you add bulk to your muscle tissue. This is where the energy balance is important for those that exercise frequently, such as athletes and bodybuilders.
Athletes have to balance their energy intake and usage the same as anyone else. That means that they have to eat more. Did they not do so, then they would lose body weight, first from their fatty tissues and when that was used up, from their muscle tissues. Because their objective is to build up muscle tissue then they have to eat more carbohydrates to provide the energy that will eventually be converted to muscles.
Conclusions
The energy equation explains why those that over-diet, or suffer from eating disorders, tend to lose their muscle tissue after all the fat has been used up. Your body needs energy for its metabolism, and so will rob that from the muscles if there are no fat reserves left. Part of the energy balance, then, is consuming sufficient energy to provide what is needed for your metabolism without it robbing your body of tissue.
You then need to consume sufficient to provide what is needed for your daily life: anything extra has either to be used up in exercise or will add to your body weight, either in fat in the event of little exercise, or in muscle tissue in the event of hard work. Weight loss, exercise and diet are in a fine balance. On which side of it are you?
Additional Weight Loss Resources
Please note that prices are set by separate companies, not 20BMI.com, and may change at any time. Disclosure: 20BMI.com may be compensated by the below vendor(s).
Purchase the Energy Balance Diet: Lose Weight, Control Your Cravings and Even Out Your Energy, by Joshua Rosenthal and Tom Monte on Amazon.com (approximate cost $40).
Resources on 20BMI.com:
Nutrition for Weight Loss on 20BMI.com
Metabolism on 20BMI.com
Photograph Credit
Leite, D., Four-Rocks-Balance.jpg, 3/20/2006 via WikiMedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 2.5
Additional References
Berardi, J., A New View on Energy Balance. IronMagazine.com 2009-07-02 (This reference disputes the pure energy balance theory, but instead suggests that under certain training conditions, athletes can upset it.)
Kashubura, K., The Energy Balance Equation. Suite101.com 2008-01-12
McDonald, L., Meal Frequency and Energy Balance Body Recomposition 2008-11 (date approximate)
National Institute for Health, Information about Energy Balance, Teacher’s Guide. NIH. Not dated.
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