Some ‘quick and dirty’ math today.
Here is a hypothetical situation for you…
Your basal metabolic rate is 1,500 calories (Remember, this is just an example I’m not saying that YOUR BMR is exactly 1,500).
If you include your daily exercise, and the costs of eating, your total daily energy Expenditure is 2,200 Calories per day.
So the total amount of calories that you burn in a day is 2,200.
Now in this hypothetical situation, you’ve decided that you want to lose some weight.
You read around on the internet and discover that if you eat 500 less calories per day, the over the course of a week you should lose 1 pound of fat.
So you give it a try.
You count your calories meticulously. With precision that would make NASA engineers jealous.
You know for an absolute FACT that you ate 500 less calories EVERY SINGLE DAY.
But you still didn’t lose weight.
What gives?
Did you slow down your metabolism?
Is your metabolism broken?
even worse…did you enter Starvation mode?
Actually…. It’s none of the above.
You’ve been eating 2,900 Calories for the past year (part of the reason you are trying to lose weight in the first place)
2,900 -500 = 2,400
Bottom line: Even with you’re new diet, YOU ARE STILL OVEREATING BY 200 CALORIES!!!
This is why the old saying ‘eat 500 less calories to lose weight’ doesn’t work….because it’s not a complete sentence.
it should be:
“Eat 500 less calories per day THAN YOU BURN”.
I know it seems overly simple, but this example may help a lot of people who are struggling to lose weight. You can be ‘dieting’ and still overeating.
The amount you need to eat is probably a lot less then you might think.
BP
Elementary my dear Watson
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solid info !
brad i have both ese and how much protein and have read both but im wondering as for the fasting would 2 x 12 hours be as effective as a 24-hour fast ?
the reason i ask this is for some time now ive been fasting about 12-14 hours prior to every workout about 4-5 days a week and i find it has worked well for me can you give me your 2 c ?
cheers the swede
“Eat 500 less calories per day THEN YOU BURN”.
Harsh! Unless you mean “THAN YOU BURN”.
Well, in that hypothetical situation, you’ve decided that the person has NOT figured out their BMR etc and has misunderstood the ‘eat 500 fewer calories per day’. Not many people I know make that mistake – when they start tracking their food, they work out their BMR etc and work backwards from there.
You’re also assuming that this person is constantly over-eating. It’s completely possible that this person has been eating to cover their daily needs exactly for years and years, but is still carrying a bit of extra weight.
There are far more dieters out there that are woefully under-eating than those who are accidentally over-eating. To send the hard-losers the message that they should cut back on calories further is pretty irresponsible. I guess you’re happy if people start losing lean mass – so long as they’re losing.
Jess,
If you read this blog you should know that the concept of losing lean muscle mass when undereating is largely exaggerated and misunderstood.
And the point of the blog post was to address the people who are eating too much, hence why it was a hypothetical situation to explain why you can’t just simply eat 500 calories less than you currently eating.
Why does it seem to me like you are simply posting to pick a fight?
B
OH man, me and the English language!
Yep, good catch.
This is so true but not understood by people at all. People don’t realize that we need so little food to be fit and still have a lot of power and strength. It is amazing how efficiently our body can use the food as fuel. Most of the folks I know are overeating and anytime i point out the fasting they says: “NO WAY, my body will die” I am personally a good example of a person being on diet for over 2 years. Six meals a day, around 2200 calories, working out 3 times a week and still have fat and love handles. This only leads me to this: still not enough deficit” So what else can work for me? Probably only ESE!!!
Hi Brad,
I’m curious if you have come across any research about eating during the day vs. night. For example, Paul Nison recommends eating only during daylight hours, no eating a few hours before bed so your body can process and rest better. I often plan my fasting so that I eat only in the day, ESE-style. Is there anything to that?
So if You eat below your bmr the weight loss should be constant no matter how fat you are/were. Why is it easy to lose weight with very high body fat level and why become very hard at maybe 10%.
I know what to do and how to do it, (you taught me that Brad and I thank you.) My problem is food addiction. I work out 5-6 days a week for an hour or so concentrating on strength and I eat very clean, however I discovered that I have a habit of over eating healthy foods just as much as I did with sweets and grains. I struggle daily with obsessive thoughts of food and it’s horrible. The upside is that although I have yet to conquer my eating disorder I do feel much better eating clean and have very slowly managed to lose some body fat. My body fat would be much lower if I would stop buying almond butter and nuts to snack on all day long!
Smart and simple post, Brad!
Bart, my thoughts exactly. I’m so sick of meatheads telling me to eat more and lift more. I’m a 5’4” woman and I ate 1800 calories a day, lifted twice a week, ran twice a week and biked 4 days a week…and I got fatter!! It was only when I stuck to increased weight training and practice ESE did the lbs start to slowly come off. True, I have to keep my diet in check all the time, but twice weekly fasting helps when I go a little overboard one day.
What I’m trying to say is that I’m eating less, much less than I used to. So while all of my fat friends and family tell me I’m hurting myself, i just look down at myself and see that I’ve lost fat and not muscle. And to put that into perspective, I’ve gone from 27.7% bodyfat to 21% in about 6 months (including holiday madness). May not sound super impressive to some of you, but it’s the first time in my life people have been saying, “Hey, you’re looking fit these days.” I’m a 30 year old female, and let me tell you, fat loss is typically slower and a bit more difficult for women (in general). SLOW is frustrating, but over time it works.
Don’t give up to my male and female friends who are no longer 18
Cathie,
This is the hard part. This is why I say weight loss is simple, but not easy. I know that I, aswell as most other people have the exact same problem. It’s an addiction, a habit, and conditioning.
I think the trick is small changes, little improvements that are not ‘uncomfortable’.
B
PS- step one, would be to stop buying nuts.
Wood,
Without getting into too much detail, I think this is a myth.
I think the key to ‘losing the least 10%’ is oil, a pump, proper posing and timing.
In other words it’s a look thing.
B
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Hi Brad, i was wondering if 1 calorie = 1KG per 1 KM is on top of your BMR or does it include it? For example if someone weighed a 100 KG and walked a KM in 1 hour and there BMR is 2400 (2400/24=100), would they burn 100 calories or 200?
Hi, Brad.
An OT question: are you going to release a book with the subjects you talked about in your February teleseminar? (I couldn’t follow it, and generally speaking I prefer books to DVDs or teleseminars. I already own ESE, EW and HMP).
Best wishes from Italy.
Wood,
Also a person with a higher body fat percentage is carrying around a lot of excess water. That may contribute to the apparent ease of higher % fat people losing ‘easier’.
Excellent point.
hey brad if i stopped my fast at the 18hr mark is it still ok and will i still get results?
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Hey Brad, i was wondering, would a fasting method were i had lunch at 3pm and then had dinner at 7, then fast till the next day 3pm be an advisable method, it means i have 2 meals which in my mind seems a lot, but i get to have dinner and lunch and still maintain a 20 hour fast
So, can’t I just figure out the total daily energy expenditure for what I WANT to weigh, then eat that much (taking into account any fasting), & eventually I will stabilize at that weight? Or is that too simple?
Irene, it would be about the same.
B
Yo Brad,
If i am trying to lose the last 5 to 10 poundsto see my six pack abs using eat stop eat lifestyle on fasted state. On fed state I am a vegetarian and I try not to overeat junk food such as chips,choco and etc. Will I able to drop to single digit bodyfat percentage?
Thanks,
Yi Shen, Singapore .
It amazes me when mainstream weight loss “experts” fall back on the eat less & move more solution to weight loss.
Shameful
Amen, Douglas.
Brad, your hypothetical is assuming people are over-eating by more than 500kcal per day. That’s pretty much going to be a sign of a messed-up metabolism (i.e. leptin resistance, etc) or a psychological relationship to food beyond actual hunger. Fasting isn’t going to help this person if their hormone balance is tied up in food – they would be better off cutting out refined/starchy carbs and maintaining a steady blood glucose level so that they can rebuild their sense of true hunger and satiety. This person needs to learn about the physiological effects of food – they don’t need a ‘quick fix’ or ‘easy’ diet that will potentially shock the metabolism and freeze fat burning. And even if they do manage to make ESE work for them, they will still probably have those psychological ties to food and go back to self-medicating since they won’t have found hormonal balance through mere fasting.
But perhaps you have invented someone who just happens to overeat by more than 500 kcal per day, but has no emotional relationship to food, yet they wonder why they’re overweight… They arbitrarily choose to cut down their calorie count (assuming a mixed diet) by 500, they don’t see results… Are they going to give up, or are they going to reduce calories further? Of course, they’ll keep following Conventional Wisdom and cut back and back and back. Maybe they’ll figure out that an easy way to do this is to skip a meal, or maybe they’ll just shave some off each meal. And maybe that starts working. But perhaps they’re not losing fast enough, so they keep cutting back… Point is, that person hasn’t learned anything about nutrition either, and when they hit their goal weight, they might start upping the calories, or not measuring so carefully, and be surprised when their metabolism – having adjusted to the lower caloric intake – encourages fat accumulation. Hello yo-yo dieting.
Believing that the average slimness-seeking (as opposed to health-seeking, since we tend to do more thorough research than assume one guy with a book knows it all) individual will be any more or less successful through ESE vs. alternative calorie reduction methods is ignorant of physiology and psychology on a base level.
You ignored my point about the over-weight person who is eating the correct amount of maintenance calories. That person cuts out 500 kcal and doesn’t lose any fat. What about them? If that person saw your post, they would then think they’re not cutting back enough. We can see from their not-uncommon situation that there must be something else going on – insulin resistance, metabolic issues, etc. By encouraging further calorie cutting without nutritional context, you’re indirectly inflaming their situation.
If you truly believe that under-eating does not promote lean mass loss in the majority of cases, no matter what foods constitute those calories, then I don’t know what you’ve been reading. But you might try looking at Ancel Keys’ starvation study – if you don’t have time to read the study itself, I know that Matt Stone recently published a summary of its key points on his 180 Degrees Health site. Those healthy, young, male participants were limited to consumption of the same level of calorie count that’s recommended by diet experts, and the kind of numbers the average person would be reaching to achieve on a fasting day (overall, the same numbers that would be the daily average over the course of a week of ESE unless you pump up your meal size – a generalisation, but true from what I’ve seen here). These participants were also doing manual labour, so they certainly got their strength training in. And those participants wasted away. Post-starvation, they put on lots of fat through extreme over-eating (compelled by their hunger), but not much of their lean mass. Keys himself showed that while obese individuals seem to be able to maintain lean mass and metabolic rate through caloric restriction, those who have less excess fat (your target audience) are more prone to wasting lean mass and deleterious metabolic effects.
So anyone who posts a criticism of something you write is only doing so to pick a fight with you? Not seek further clarification? Not to assist readers who may be confused by the simplistic arguments you present in the guise of ‘they’re wrong and I’m right’ over-simplifications? To point out the flaws in your use of hypothetical?
I do read your blog, since you are a known voice when it comes to intermittent fasting. Usually, your points are not all that surprising, or are sadly steeped in flawed understanding – but that’s your business. But when your opinions could mislead and damage particular audiences, I’m moved to respond.
You could show your readers some respect by not trying to dismiss them with the label of troll.
But I guess you need to do something to help discourage informed individuals from coming along and pointing you out as the sham that you are, especially when each of your blog posts are over-simplified pseudo-scientific rambles designed to do nothing but promote your book.
Jess,
I started to read your comment and thought “these are some great points that we can discuss.”
Then I saw that you felt the need to sign off by throwing insults at me like we were in grade school.
I think you are in the wrong place, as this is not how I communicate with people, nor how I choose to be communicated with.
B
Wow, I feel so good right now! Jess’s post makes me feel so grateful about where I’m at right now. For a recovering information overload/ fear/ anxiety junkie, the clarity and simplicity of Brad and John’s approach is so liberating.
i also feel moved to comment. Brad your point is clear and as usual very simple to understand. i don’t feel you need to confuse a hypothedical expample with race, gender, health issues or mental instability.
On a fast day blood sugar drops to low levels, psycological attachment to food is shown new light and amazingaly some fat is burned (but then it’s burned when you eat too.)
If someone doesn’t eat, works out properly and still loses no body fat this is called magic. it goes against all four laws of thermodynamics.
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Thanks again for reminding us that it takes an shift in calorie balance rather than just a change in one or two numbers on that balance to lose weight.
If i had one more client say they were doing “everything right” bus till couldn’t lose weight on our first session I would scream.
Bottom line: it takes a negative calorie balance and it’s a lot harder than people think.
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All of people New Year might be better with this idea!
My new year might be greater with this idea!