Avoid these five common weight loss mistakes
Mistake #1: Not changing your calorie plan as you lose
weight. The fallacy of the “1200 calorie diet” plans and the
like.
Most people fix their calorie intake to a given number and
expect to lose weight at the same constant rate over a period of
weeks. Hence, dieters look for 1000 calorie or 1800 calorie diet
plans on the internet. The fixed calorie diet plans don’t work.
If you burn 3000 calories a day at the start of a diet, after a
week or two of losing some weight, you are no longer burning
3000 calories. Now you might be burning 2800 calories. If you
fix your calorie intake in the face of a decreasing calorie
expenditure, your weight loss will slow down more and more as
you lose weight.
If you want to lose weight at a constant rate, you must
repeatedly:
- decrease your calorie intake to
accommodate the calorie expenditure drop - increase your
calorie output by exercising more - do both
I would like to note that you must set realistic slow weight
loss goals. If you go for fast weight loss you would not be able
to sustain it for a long period unless you go extreme in the
calorie reduction and exercise a lot. For people who have to
lose more than 20 pounds (10kgs), the goal should be a loss of
no more than 2 pounds or 1 kg per week. People who need to lose
just a bit of weight should go for weight loss of 1 pound or
half a kilogram per week.
Why does my calorie expenditure drop as I lose weight? The most
important factors are:
- You weight less. A smaller
body burns less calories both at rest and while active - You may involuntarily burn fewer calories. Dieters
often lack energy and move less - Calorie restriction
suppresses the metabolic rate - You have less body fat,
which may further suppress your metabolic rate
These major factors contribute to an ever-decreasing energy
expenditure as one loses weight. The more a dieter cuts
calories, the bigger the calorie expenditure drop. The leaner
the dieter, the greater the calorie expenditure drop.
Now you must understand that if you want to succeed in losing
weight, you have to make changes in your nutrition plan. I
recommend burning more calories, because being more active
facilitates smaller calorie restriction and milder calorie
expenditure drop.
It is very difficult to estimate the rate of the metabolic drop.
Here is the general rule: the bigger you are, the smaller the
rate of the metabolic drop. The more weight you lose, the more
you have to cut calories or increase exercise. If you are
overweight you might need to cut just 10 more calories for every
lost pound, while if you are lean you might have to cut 60
calories for every pound lost. I picked these numbers just as an
example.
Mistake #2: Overreporting the “extra” calorie expenditure of
exercise
Most people count the calories they spend exercising as “extra”
calories. There is a difference between calories burned while
exercising and “extra” calories burned exercising. Here is an
example: you burn 300 calories on the treadmill instead of your
usual activity (watching TV at home); in reality, you have to
subtract the calories you would have spent watching TV from
these 300 calories to calculate how many additional calories you
burned. Let’s say that watching TV, you would have burned 80
calories. In this specific case, you have expended 300 calories
while exercising, and 220 “extra” calories.
Calorie counters mindlessly add the calories burned exercising
as “extra” and in some cases, this practice can significantly
influence the calorie calculations. Hence, calorie software
counts the part of your usual activities that overlaps with the
extra activities twice.
How to estimate the “extra” calories burned exercising?
In order to make the calculations more accurate, I shall first
introduce the concept of MET values. MET values are a convenient
way to calculate the calorie cost of activities. MET values are
multiples of the resting energy expenditure per time. In plain
English, a MET = 3 means burning 3 times more calories than
resting. A MET = 1 signifies how many calories you burn at rest
(your Resting Metabolic Rate or Basal Metabolic Rate). Whatever
you do, you burn calories at a rate of at least MET = 1 with the
only exception being sleeping which has MET = 0.9. During the
day, most activities include sitting and walking which have MET
values between 1.2 and 3. Your total daily energy expenditure is
calculated by multiplying your Resting Metabolic Rate by the
average MET of all your activities. Is your head spinning?
Let’s use a real world example. Consider a female person with a
Resting Metabolic Rate of 1200 calories a day. One day has 1440
minutes. Our example lady is burning 1200/1440 = 0.84 calories
per minute at rest, which signifies a MET = 1. Let’s say our
example woman just returned from an aerobics class, where she
exercised for 30 minutes. General aerobic class training has a
MET = 6. Our example lady has just burned 30 (minutes) x 6 (MET)
* 0.84 (calories per minute) = 151 calories while exercising.
Suppose our lady would have chatted on the internet instead of
exercising (MET = 1.5). In this example, the woman substituted
chatting on the internet with aerobic exercising. Remember, that
every time you do something you substitute one activity for
another. In order to get the extra calories, we have to subtract
1.5 (chatting) from 6 (exercising). Now let’s calculate the
extra calories: 30 (minutes) * (6 - 1.5) (MET value) * 0.84 =
113 calories.
Let’s consider what a standard calorie counter would have done.
First, it will assume an average calorie burn rate of 1 calorie
per minute. Then the counter will find that exercising for 30
minutes will yield 30 (minutes) * 6 (MET) * 1 (calories per
minute) = 180 calories. The calorie counter will add these 180
calories to your daily expenditure without considering that a
part of these 180 calories is already accounted by your usual
activities.
Do you now see the difference between 113 calories and 180
calories? If that woman spends 5 hours a week in that aerobics
class, the standard calorie counters will overreport her calorie
output by: (180-113) * 10 = 670 calories a week. The woman will
be fooled that her metabolic rate has dropped while she just
overestimated her calorie expenditure. Enter weight loss
plateau, wasted time and efforts. Do you have the time for trial
and error calorie estimations?
Remember these two rules:
- Report only extra
activities to your calorie counter. If your walk to your office
every day, do not log “walking to office for 30 minutes” as an
extra activity. Consider only unusual activities that contribute
to extra expended calories! - Always subtract the
calories you would have burned instead of exercising. A general
rule is to subtract from 1.2 to 1.5 from the MET values. In some
cases, you need to subtract a greater MET. If you substitute 30
minutes of bodybuilding (MET = 6) for 30 minutes of slow jump
rope (MET =
then the additional MET would be 8 - 6 = 2.
How to find the MET values of activities based on standard
tables?
In order to make the above calculations, you need to know the
MET values of activities. Standard tables give: name of
activity, duration and calories. Standard tables assume an
average calorie expenditure of one calorie per minute. To find
the MET you just need to divide the calories by the duration.
Example: “Bicycling, stationary, general”, “20 minutes”, “140
calories” MET of “Bicycling, stationary, general” = 140 / 20 =
7
I know these calculations are somewhat tedious and in many cases
the standard calorie calculations are close to correct. However,
in some cases they can significantly over or under-calculate the
calorie expenditure of activities and compromise your weight
loss plan with daily miscalculations.
Mistake #3: Training with light weights and lots of
reps
I have seen countless number of ladies come to the gym, get the
lightest possible dumbbells, crank out some hundreds of reps and
go home. Most often, these women do not get the results they
want. The problem with this type of training is that it does not
burn many “extra” calories unless you spend a considerable
amount of time in the gym. Hefting Ken and Barbie weights in the
gym has a MET value of 3, which means that it burns 3 times more
calories than resting in bed. Almost anything you do during the
day has a MET value of 1.2 to 2. Browsing the internet on your
computer has a MET value of 1.5. Realize that almost anything
you do during the day (average MET = 1.5) has about 50% overlap
in calorie expenditure with training with very light weights
(MET = 3). If you pump super light dumbbells in the gym, only
about half of the calories burned are “additional”.
Of course, you can burn a considerable amount of extra calories
training with light weights but you have to really extend the
duration of this type of training. Curling 5 pound dumbbells for
4 sets of 20 reps and chit-chatting for 20 minutes in the gym is
not going to burn many extra calories.
Remember the rule: the less intensive the activity (smaller
MET), the greater the calorie expenditure overlap with casual
activities; the less intensive the activity, the more time you
have to spend doing it to expend a good deal of extra calories.
Always subtract a MET of 1 to 1.5 to arrive at the additional
expended calories.
Mistake #4: Using “average person” calorie estimations
You can find all kinds of tables showing the calorie cost of
different physical activities on the internet. These tables
don’t show your calorie expenditure. They actually tell you the
calorie expenditure of an “average person”. These tables assume
you are an average person that burns one calorie per minute at
rest. Yes, we covered this in the first part of the article and
it needs repeating. Most men burn more than one calorie per
minute and most smaller women burn less than one calorie per
minute at rest. In reality, these standard tables overestimate
the calorie expenditure of smaller people and underestimate the
calorie expenditure of bigger than average people. Combine this
with the common mistake of counting all burned calories as
“additional calories” and you have a wide range of possible
miscalculations.
Mistake #5: Going on very low calorie diets (VLCD)
Research has shown little to no difference in the weight loss
rate of 1200 calorie diets and 800 calorie diets. The 1200
calorie threshold is the point where further calorie restriction
does not yield faster results. Diets in the range of 800 to 1200
calories a day suppress the resting metabolic rate from the very
first day and after some weeks on these diets, the metabolic
rate has dropped by up to 20%. This metabolic drop is just a
consequence of the calorie restriction factor; other factors
such as the level of leanness may further depress the calorie
expenditure.
A big percentage of the quick initial weight loss on a VLCD is
water. VLCDs create an illusion of fast fat loss, while in
reality most of the weight loss is water. It is hard to continue
a very low calorie diet for a prolonged time because the harsh
calorie restriction makes you hungrier than ever. People on
VLCDs often lack energy and move very little. When you stop the
diet, you are prone to instant overeating. Eating a very low
calorie diet is the ticket to yo-yo dieting.
Instead of using very low calorie diets, I recommend diets with
a mild calorie restriction and an emphasis on exercise.
Overweight people who know what they are doing can employ VLCDs
for a limited time. It is important to get enough vitamins and
minerals from supplements, because such low calorie diets are
woefully inadequate in nutrients. Water intake should be
high.
Bodybuilders, powerlifters and athletes must stay away from very
low calorie diets because the large calorie restriction causes a
greater proportion of the weight loss to be muscle loss.
If you want to automate these complicated calorie calculations,
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About the author:
Hristo Hristov owns X3MSoftware, a company specializing in
developing diet and fitness tracking software. Hristo has a
degree in Computer Science and passion for strength training.
Hristo has designed and written Fitness Assistant, X3MSoftware’s
leading software product. Download your demo at Download Diet Software and
Fitness Software from X3MSoftware