Meals - Day 9

I freaked out yesterday afternoon, i was sat here feeling very light headed, washed out and couldn't concentrate.

I put these feelings down to the food addict in me screaming out for sugar but as i am eating a nutritious well balanced meal plan i decided to do a bit of digging on the internet, trying to correlate all the advice into one solid answer proved to be a bit difficult however i think i have a rough idea what is going on now.

It turns out i may have unintentionally put my body into starvation mode, in short i am consuming less calories than my body needs just to function properly and if this is the case my body is triggering defence mechanisms which will slow down my metabolism to make the most of the energy i am feeding it, meaning my weight loss is also slowed down, which is not good.

To calculate the amount of energy required for our bodies to go through the daily motions of just staying alive we need to know our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR), this figure is determined by height, weight, age, gender.  To calculate manually we can use the Harris-Benedict equation later revised by Roza and Shizgal as follows:

For men: BMR= 88.362+(13.397 x weight in kg)+(4.799 x height in cm)-(5.677 x age in years)

For women: BMR= 447.593+(9.247 x weight in kg)+(3.098 x height in cm)-(4.330 x age  in years)

So for me my equation looks like this:

BMR= 3220.91 - 221.40 = 2999.51 calories

2999.51 represents the amount of calories i need to be eating if i theoretically stayed in bed all day blinking, breathing, scratching and turning over.  But we don't do that on a daily basis so now we have the BMR we have to take into account the amount of energy we expend going about our daily routines of commuting, working, digesting food or exercising this is called the Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) to reach this figure we have to be honest with ourselves and pick from the list below and multiply our BMR by the number which follows our level of activity:

Sedentary (little or no exercise) 1.2

Lightly active (light exercise, doing sports 1-3 days a week) 1.375

Moderately active (sports/exercise 3-5 days per week) 1.55

Very active (intense sports 6 or 7 days per week) 1.725

Extra active (sports and exercise, physical job or hard training) 1.9

So if i take my previous level of activity prior to my move to a healthier lifestyle as sedentary my TDEE calculation looks like this:

2999.51 x 1.2 = 3599.41 calories which represents my TDEE.

Therefore to maintain my body weight of 162.4kg i need to eat 3599.41 calories a day and do little or no exercise for example walk to the car, go to the office, sit at my desk, walk back to my car, go home and couch potato all night but now i am walking 10,000 steps a day of which at least 4000 are in one go which is classed as exercise, i have increased my physical activity to lightly active so 3599.41 calories is not an accurate figure of my current lifestyle so i have to recalculate my TDEE as follows:

2999.51 x 1.375 = 4113.33 calories which represents my new TDEE, this is very accurate because my sports watch mentioned in a previous blog tells me that i burn between 4000 and 4500 calories a day.

I now know how many calories i need to be eating in order for me to stay at 162.4kg, go about my daily lightly active lifestyle, but i don't want to weigh 162.4kg i want to lose weight and do it in a responsible and safe way over a realistic period of time so i now have to create a calorie deficit meaning eating less calories than my maintenance level currently requires, some dietitians i have come across during my research recommend reducing your calorie intake by between 500 to a 1000 calories maximum per day, but this figure does not really take into account the overall meaning of healthy eating, sure i could reduce my intake from 4113.33 to 3133.33 calories which is ok because i am very heavy and have plenty of fat stores to keep me going but what if your TDEE is 2200 calories in this scenario reducing your calorie intake to 1200 calories per day can be very dangerous to your health and also negatively effect your metabolism for weight loss so i found this excellent guideline to follow when creating a calorie deficit which is based on your desired rate of weight loss showing the calorie deficit as % of your TDEE:

15-20% = conservative deficit

21-25% = moderate deficit

26-30% = aggressive deficit

31-40% = very aggressive deficit (risky)

41-50% = semi starvation/starvation (potentially dangerous & unhealthy if not monitored by a doctor)

Which brings me all the way back to my opening point because as it stands right now my figures look like this:

BMR = 2991.51 calories

TDEE = 4133.33 calories

Daily intake = 1700 calories

Calorie deficit = 2433.33 calories

Calorie deficit % = 58.87 which is in the semi starvation/starvation zone.

As i need to lose a lot of weight i can afford to be aggressive with my calorie deficit due to my size, so realistically my figures should look like this:

BMR = 2991.51 calories
TDEE = 4133.33 calories
Daily intake = 2893.34 calories
Calorie deficit = 1239.99 calories 

Calorie deficit % = 30%

Please note that as you lose weight or increase your daily activity levels or both you have to recalculate your daily intake of calories in order to maintain your set level of weight loss for example i will do this once a month on photo/measurements day.

Finally, from the figures above we can get a rough estimate of how long the weight loss will take if we stick to the deficit % we have chosen for ourselves which in my case is 30% as follows:

Goal weight = 85kg
Weight to be lost = 77.4kg
Calories to be burned 77.4kg x 7000 = 541800 calories (7000 calories = 1kg of fat weight)
Calorie deficit = 1239.99 per day
Calorie deficit = 8679.93 per week
Calories to be burned divided by weekly calorie deficit 541800/8679.93 = 62 weeks.

Just over a year to safely lose 77.4kg sounds about right and in accordance with what most dietitians advise about losing weight gradually to aid goal weight maintenance instead of crashing with a fad diet which is a difficult lifestyle to maintain once goal weight is achieved.

In closing it is obvious that i need to increase my calorie intake from 1770 calories per day in order to maximise my weight loss so over the course of the following month i will be gradually adding healthy options to my daily calorie intake and monitoring how i feel versus weight lost.

So without further ado yesterdays meals were as follows:

Breakfast: Blackberry smoothie.
Mid morning snack: Lean biltong plus a banana.
Lunch: Roasted butternut & halloumi salad.
Afternoon snack: Apple plus a peanut butter sandwich on low gi white bread.
Dinner: Grilled chicken fillet with stir fry vegetables and buckwheat noodles.
Dessert: Blueberry and pecan oatie.
Evening snack: Handful of salted peanuts.
Drinks: 3 litres of water, 2 coffees and 1 green tea.

Total calories: 2181 calories.