HERE YE HERE YE. THIS ARTICLE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. EXPECT BAD GRAMM(E)R AND BROKEN LINKS. TO KNOW WHEN THIS POST GETS UPDATED, JOIN MY WEEKLY EMAIL COLUMN. shit. when i was a teenager, i was convinced. the answer was shit. what happens when you lose body fat? where does it go? obviously, it [...]
HERE YE HERE YE. THIS ARTICLE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. EXPECT BAD GRAMM(E)R AND BROKEN LINKS. TO KNOW WHEN THIS POST GETS UPDATED, JOIN MY WEEKLY EMAIL COLUMN.
shit. when i was a teenager, i was convinced. the answer was shit. what happens when you lose body fat? where does it go? obviously, it slides out of your intestines, alongside your shit. made sense to me, at the time. doesn't anymore, which is a shame. ignorance is freedom.
since those shitspiracy theory days, i've learned about energy balance. i know that body fat gets incinerated through a confusing chemical process (that i still can't fathom). i mean, c'mon. some of the molecules are excreted through your breath? you exhale body fat?
you don't understand that shit, either.
fortunately, we (i) don't have to understand chemical transmogrification. we (i) just have to accept that weight fluctuations are dictated by a rather simple relationship between energy intake and energy output.
- Output > Intake = Deficit / Weight loss
- Intake > Output = Surplus / Weight gain
wanna gain weight? eat more and move less. wanna lose weight? eat less and move more. of course, don't forget — “weight” doesn't distinguish between muscle mass and fat mass. i'm being selfishly superficial here because i wrote about energy balance before, specifically about how “eat less and move more” is nothing but badvice (click here to read about the latter).
regardless, you still need to respect your energy intake and your energy output. if you wanna hax0r energy balance for your own good, you have to figure out how much energy your body uses on a daily basis, and how much energy you eat on a daily basis.
Estimating energy
so that's what people do. they figure out how much energy their body uses, and then they figure out how much energy they eat. at least, they think they do.
don't get me wrong. they get numbers. but they're usually wrong. not accurate. no bueno. 'tis problematic because, if you think you're eating 2000 calories per day, but you're actually eating 3000 calories per day, then — you do the math. no, not the actual math. the mental math.
you can get totally accurate values for your energy intake and your energy output. but you can't. italics are my best friend. confusion is my god.
what i'm saying: using convenient (traditional) methods, you aren't going to get accurate values for your energy intake and your energy output. It's not gonna happen. This is the bad news.
The good news is that having inaccurate values isn't a kill shot. You can overcome inaccuracy.easily. You just need the right mindset and the right approach. most people have neither. and, to make matters worse, most people think their values are robust enough to be used by the Weights and Measures Division — this is a kill shot.
Looking ahead
I gave you the punchline. using convenient (traditional) methods, you won't end up with accurate values for your calorie intake or your calorie output. if you don't approach this conundrum with a certain mindset, you're going to go mad.
If you wanna skip to the implications, then just click here. If your seat belt is on, if you got some free time, and if your brain likes BDSM, your eyes may continue to trend in the x-axis.
Part 1
Output LOL
Here is the mayhem that comes alongside trying to calculate your daily energy output
Finding daily expenditure
I'm trying to figure out my daily energy output. In other words, I'm trying to figure out how many calories my body uses every day. This is often referred to as total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).
Where do I begin?
If I didn't have the Internet, I'd need to go to the library and use the Dewey Decimal System to find a physiology text. But I do have the Internet, so I go to Google and search ‘metabolic rate calculator' because, in this story, I don't know about the aforementioned TDEE junk (yet).
Basal metabolic rate
Google shows me hundreds of different calculators. Some of them estimate my basal metabolic rate (BMR), which, I find out, is the amount of energy I’d need to rest in bed all day.
I do more than rest in bed, but let's assume I play A Link to the Past in my Sleep Number bed 24/7. Some caretaker comes around and wipes my ass after I shit my pants. (Coffee in the morning has its consequences.)
I find three different BMR calculators on three different websites. I gave each website the same three pieces of information (height, weight, age) and here's what happens:
- active.com: 2123 calories per day
- calculator.net: 1998 calories per day
- bmrcalculator.org: 2000 calories per day
How can each calculator poop out a different result despite being fed the same information? Gah. Oh well. The variance between each result isn't huge. I'm fine. Right?
Total daily energy expenditure
I have my BMR. Or, at least, what I believe to be my BMR. But I know that my BMR is just the beginning. I know my daily metabolic rate isn't my BMR unless my day consists solely of soiling myself and slaying Ganon. I want to get a more accurate estimate of my daily metabolic rate, so I do some digging.
I find out that my physical activity is a factor; if I move around more, I'll use more energy. I also find out that my body composition is a factor; muscle is more metabolically active than fat, which means a 200 pound person with 10% body fat will have a higher metabolic rate than a 200 pound person with 30% body fat.
Total daily energy expenditure
I don't want to ignore these things, which leads me to a total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) calculator. Google takes me to tdeecalculator.net. I punch in my activity level and body fat percentage. I’m told that my TDEE is a whopping 3691 calories per day.
lolwut
Not long ago, I was working with a 2000 calorie per day BMR. Now I'm being told I can pile drive 3691 calories into my mouth every day. In other words, I can eat six more Snickers® bars (per day) than I originally thought I could.
Illusory control
Considering my BMR is the amount of calories I'd burn if I were decomposing in a nursing home, I decide to use my TDEE estimation for energy balance purposes. Because, hubris. And because, uhhh, I'm not dying. (I mean, I am dying. We're all dying.)
End of story. See you later. I'm going to go buy some Snickers®. Just kidding. Couldn't you see I was leading you down the wrong path on purpose to set up a plot twist? This is my signature move. Get used to it.
Here's the deal…
Although many things do, indeed, influence our metabolic rates, more often than not, accounting for every known variable gives us an illusion of control more than actual control.
Body composition
Your body composition does influence your metabolic rate. Muscle tissue is more metabolically active than fat tissue. But, chances are, the body fat percentage you think you have is wrong — a product of another flawed process.
Home body fat measurement tools like bioelectric impedance scales are stupid. They’re too sensitive to hydration. You can measure your body fat at 8:00AM, get a result, drink five glasses of water, measure your body fat at 8:05AM, and then get a totally different result.
In general, most ways to measure body fat in the comfort of your own home are bogus. Body fat calipers also have big error in untrained hands. Unless you're getting results via hydrostatic weighing, BodPod, or DEXA, the body fat percentage you think you have is (likely) wrong.
Physical activity
Physical activity also influences your metabolic rate. But, often times, defining your physical activity is a crap shoot. For instance, the TDEE calculator mentioned above gives five different activity categories:
- Sedentary (office job)
- Light exercise (1-2 days/week)
- Moderate exercise (3-5 days/week)
- Heavy exercise (6-7 days/week)
- Athlete (2x/day)
But these categories don’t even define the type of exercise being done. Are you jogging? Sprinting? Strength training? Mopping the floor? Painting the ceiling?
And, to make matters worse, us humans suffer from all sorts of cognitive biases that make us overestimate just how active we really are. Meaning, I'm going to report (I did report) that I exercise vigorously, when, really, REALLY, REALLY, I probably only exercise moderately.
Equation error
Even if you account for the errors in the input variables, there's inherent error in the equations themselves. This is why three different calculators spit out three different BMR estimates.
The equations these calculators are built on averages. But there's a chance you deviate from average. For instance, those that have lost weight tend to have a lower metabolic rate than those at the same weight that haven't lost weight. So if you weigh 250 pounds and get down to 200 pounds at 15% body fat, you'll likely have a lower metabolic rate than someone that's 200 pound at 15% body fat “naturally.”
And this is just the start of the mayhem. The situation gets hairier than an Italian man's arms. There's also the uncomfortable moist world of your metabolism being an adaptive entity. Click here to learn more about that.
Vacuum sealed rooms
I was estimated to have a TDEE of 3,691 calories. I got this estimate after I plugged in values or both body composition and physical activity, neither of which were 100% accurate. In other words, I was using estimates to get an estimate.
If using estimates in order to estimate something sounds like a recipe for estimation error, that's because it is. Might as well draw a number from a hat in order to find out who should draw a number from a hat.
The likelihood of my TDEE being 3,691 calories isn't great, which begs the question: if calculating your daily metabolic rate through this conventional track is bunk, is there a track that isn't bunk? What's the better way?
Locked in rooms
The only way to know your true metabolic rate is to lock yourself into a vacuum sealed room that's able to measure all of the heat that escapes from your body. You don’t have access to one of these rooms. Gaining access to one of these rooms is useless unless you also plan on abandoning your life and living inside for a few days.
I don't know about you, but I'd rather spend my holiday time drinking hazy New England IPAs and eating Havarti cheese, numbing myself to the absurdity of the world, rather than being locked away in a vacuum sealed torture chamber in the name of metabolic enlightenment.
Estimation conclusion
Suffice to say, there is no good way for peon to get solid estimation. in other words, most of us using flaccid estimation.
ANY QUANTIFICATION YOU HAVE OF YOUR METABOLIC RATE IS A BABY BORN FROM A SOUPY ESTIMATION ORGY.
But as I said in the intro, this isn't a kill shot. Using an estimation is fine, as long as you treat it as an estimation. I'll show you how to do this soon.
Part 2
Input LOL
Here is the mayhem that comes alongside trying to calculate your daily energy input
Estimating calorie output
Time look a the flip side: measuring energy intake. The classic way to measure energy intake is by counting calories. In other words, you find out how many calories are in standard measurement of the food, and then you measure how much of the food you eat.
You can find out how many calories a food contains via nutrition facts. The nutrition facts'll say: one serving of this food contains so-and-so calories. (Click this link to visit a webpage by the FDA about nutrition labels if you're unfamiliar with them.)
The “one serving” detail is important because one “package” isn't always one “serving.” One bottle of Mountain Dew, for instance, is sometimes 2.5 servings. You have to read the fine print.
A lot of prepackaged foods have nutrition facts listed on the package itself, which makes it easier to track calorie intake. Fresh foods are (usually) trickier; apples don't have labels. But Google is a powerful tool.
You can find the nutrition facts for just about any food online. For instance, nutritionvalue.org tells me there are 58 calories in 100 grams of a Granny Smith apple. Problem solved.
Bacon problem
You find out there are 120 calories in three raw strips of bacon. This is what the bacon package says. So you put three strips of bacon in a pan. You cook 'em up.
When you take the cooked bacon out of the pan, there are two teaspoons of grease remaining in the pan. This grease came out of the bacon. This grease has calories, right? It's fat. Soooo, how many calories did you cook out of the bacon?
Good question.
I don't know the answer.
Calories absorbed
The amount of calories listed on the package of food isn't always the amount of calories we eat, for a few reasons. The first one being explained above: shit can change during the cooking process.
To take it one step further, amount of calories we eat isn't always amount of calories we absorb. for instance, it takes some macros more energy to break down. this known as thermic effect of food (TEF). For instance, it takes more energy to break down proteins than it does fats. So eating 100 calories of fats yields more energy than eating 100 calories of proteins.
also, food preparation can impact how many calories our body absorbs. Cooking (and processing) makes foods easier to absorb, which means we expend less energy in order to digest them. According to Daniel Lieberman in his book, The Story of the Human Body, cooked potatoes yield roughly twice as many calories as compared to raw potatoes
Raw potatoes are harder to digest and require more energy to break down. Its like the difference between hammering down a brick wall and blowing over a tepee. And if you expend less energy during digestion, that means there's more energy left over for your body to (potentially) absorb.
Estimation conclusion
I could go on. There are more reasons why counting calories and measuring food intake is a crap shoot. But you get the point. We'd arrive at the same place regardless of the route.
Getting a SPOT ON estimate of your calorie intake isn't as easy as weighing and measuring food. Granted, the more meticulous you are trying to track your intake, the more accurate estimate you'll prolly have. but it's still probably not a rock solid estimation.
ANY QUANTIFICATION YOU HAVE OF YOUR CALORIE INTAKE IS ANOTHER BABY BORN FROM A SOUPY ESTIMATION ORGY.
but just like with energy intake, this isn't a kill shot. just have to embrace and hug the estimation for what it is: an estimate.
Part 3
Embracing Estimates
Using estimates and embracing trial and error
Don't get deterred
Everyone cites energy balance as the grand master ruler of weight management and body composition. but putting the principles of energy balance into play isn't easy. it's impossible for us to get accurate values for each variable involved — it's not practical.
calculating energy output is flawed. most metabolic rate calculators are shit. you have to use estimates to get an estimate. and, also, your metabolic rate is never static. even if you know your metabolic rate on Monday, it'll change a bit on Tuesday. you aren't static.
likewise, calculating energy input is flawed. the amount of calories we eat isn't always the amount of calories we absorb. the amount of calories we have when we begin cooking isn't always the amount of calories we have when we finish cooking.
and yet…
you still need to do both of these things. you need to estimate your output and input using these flawed methods.
Why you need to use estimates
Despite the flaws, estimating your input and your output is the only hand you have to play with the cards you've been dealt. And you need to play the hand. because the alternative is shit. a vague cloudy estimation better than no estimation and going without a head (I wrote about why here).
and, really, problem isn't with using vague and cloudy estimation. the problem is pretending you DON'T have an estimation. a lot of people approach this as if they are holding the law in their hands, which turns things into one shitty game of cops and robbers. You do the work, you have the numbers in front of you, you go HAM, and things don't work as expected.
What's wrong? Why isn't this working? I'm eating less than I'm burning. Why can't I lose weight? Must be my genetics. I knew I wasn't built for this.
But that's not the case. You're just getting duped by the world; you weren't equipped with the proper expectations and mindset, which is that (a) everything is a shitty imperfect estimate, and (b) we know less than we think we do.
Here's the answer
The answer to the imperfection isn't to get more specific and detailed in an attempt to gain control over the situation. That just screws things up.
The answer is to zoom out. To go broad. To not be as anal with calorie counting at first, because there is error all over the place anyways. To embrace trial and error. To use real feedback to guide the process.
You might now be wondering… How? How do you take the last paragraph and put it into practice?
Ah, yes.
See: Noobtrition.