01/14/2012 Paleo Challenge Day 8, rethinking Calories-In Calories-Out for Weight Loss

After a full week of the Paleo Challenge, with the exception of one diabetic fit, it has gone well, proving to be surprisingly effective, without hunger or major lapses of energy.  My diabetic issues the other night proved to me that my body is becoming more sensitive in insulin and starting to know what to do with it. 

Everyday that I stepped onto the scale to see what was happening, I was surprised and confused by the rapid weight loss.  Through the morning of January 15^th 2012 I’ve lost 11 pounds since the 7^th of January.  This got me thinking about my time in Malibu at Fat Camp and the theories that they teach about weight loss.

The first thing they teach you about is the calorie equation, and how to balance it.  Which when you are programmed for years that you’re fat because you eat too much, and never once given the idea that you might eat too much because you are fat, meaning that it’s quite possible that your fatness is a manifestation of some pathological issue.  These are not my ideas but ones expressed in Gary Taubes Why We Get Fat.  Beginning chapters are spent attempting to debunk the theory of weight loss purely being a condition of Newton’s 1^st Law of Thermal dynamics.  Weight loss and weight gain are purely the result of energy transfer.

A key argument used by Taubes is a scientific experiment done on female rats, who surgically had their ovaries removed.  One group of rats who had them removed ate voraciously and gained weight rapidly.  The other group of rats, the control group was given a strict diet, with a restrictive caloric intake, yet these groups of rats gained weight rapidly, but also became sedentary.  This a drastic oversimplification of what Taubes writes about, but one can’t help to wonder how that happens.  It was later found that once the rats were injected with estrogen that both groups lost weight and returned to normal levels of rat activity. 

Clearly in regards to weight, there are other factors involved including chemical and hormonal systems and response that regulate whether or not we gain weight.  In this experiment the scientist conducting it concluded that the absence of estrogen after the removal of the rat’s ovaries changed the body’s cellular response to fat regulation and that regardless of the conditions that the body found a way to retain fat whether it was through overeating, or reducing the activity level of the rats in order to maintain more fat.

Couple this section of the book, and my rapid loss of 11 lbs without much effort.  Meaning I wasn’t killing myself with 3 and 4 workouts a day, nor was I starving myself and putting my mind in state wanting to commit homicide.

So I did the math.

I’ve consumed over the last week 16,773 calories give or take a couple of hundred because the food diary I am using could be wrong with the numbers, to be safe let’s just say its 17,000 calories consumed.  So 17,000 is my calories in number.    

If I have a resting metabolic rate of say 3,000, which I did when I was over 300 lbs, that would mean I burn 21,000 calories a week in just daily activities and breathing.  Now this past week I worked out at Crossfit 5 times, each time for an hour.  I have no idea how many calories I burned, but for purposes of this argument let’s say I burned at a maximum level of caloric burn possible.

According to shapefit.com a person when running for an hour at a speed of 5.5 miles per hour will burn about 8.17 calories per hour per pound of body weight, so at 270 lbs I would be burning roughly 2200 calories per hour of exercise.  This is a ridiculous number because I’m not running, and during a Crossfit WoD you don’t spend the entire 60 minutes moving at a pace of 5.5 mph, but for purposes of this mathematical equation lets say that’s what I did, which means I would have burned 11,000 calories from working out.

So my “caloric balance” looks like this:

Which means that 12000 calorie deficit equates to 3.42 lbs lost, one pound equaling 3500 calories.  When I first did the math I thought to myself, what the fuck have I been doing this entire time?  It’s a futile existence when thinking about your weight this way, because you either have to eat nothing, or workout until the point of exhaustion. 

I have done both, and been pissed off about both.

I looked at this week another way.  If you take the 11 lbs I’ve lost and multiplied it by 3500 calories per pound, I would have had to have burned 38,500 calories in excess of what I ate, which would have meant I would have had to have had a daily caloric deficit of 5,500 calories a day double what I was eating. 

Is this conclusive data…NO.  It’s an individual perspective on the issue, but if you’ve read my blog then you know the struggles I’ve have over the last year, and probably as a result will get you to at least rethink the notion that weight loss a simple process of balancing your intake and output.  There was a point last summer were I was spending 15-20 hrs a week in the gym, it’s clear for me why even during those weeks I was only losing 5-6 lbs at most.  This past week I spent 5 hours in the gym, and ate more then I did a year ago and lost 11 lbs, how do you explain it? 

Regardless of the answer you may have I think you can eliminate the idea that I was able to achieve this loss because I expended more energy than I ate, because the numbers are impossible to achieve.

My final note, is to anyone who has been to the Biggest Loser Resort in Malibu formerly known as Fitness Ridge, having been someone who has been down that road, and done the work, probably at a level higher than yours (I can say that without feeling like an asshole), there is a better way.  Read Gary Taubes “Why We Get Fat”, and then you decide whether or not what they prescribe is for you, I no longer think their programming is rooted in sound scientific knowledge, but a system predicated on years of bad information.

Birthday Day

I started my 33^rd birthday off with a WoD at Patriot Crossfit with a good friend of mine Gustavo.  He’s in his first month of Crossfit but is enjoying it.  We’ve done a couple of Saturday WoDs and it’s kind of cool to do something physical with a high school friend. 

The WoD involved finding your one rep maximum of a Clean and Jerk, then the WoD “Nasty Girls”.  Nasty Girls as prescribed is 3 rounds of 50 air squats, 7 muscle ups, and 10 hang power cleans at 135 lbs. 

I partnered with Gustavo for the Clean and Jerk, I was able to get up to 155 lbs, I know I could have gone heavier but I ran out of time.  For the Nasty Girls Metcon I had to scale the 7 muscle ups to 14 pull ups with a black and green band, and 14 ring dips with a green band.  I finished the WoD in 12:52.  I decided that I want to stick with the 135 lbs for the power cleans, and scale down the pull ups and ring dips because the clean is something I want to get stronger at, and the pull ups and ring dips I need to work on lesser bands for less reps to build more raw strength.

When we finished the WoD Gutsavo and I went to Rockland’s where I got some naked beef ribs which tasted awesome, in fact if my wash was closer I would go there right now for some more.

I spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, ended up going shopping with my girlfriend, which I can’t stand but this day it didn’t bother me all that much.  It was nice to just be off on a Saturday. 

In the evening I went out to dinner with my brother and a couple of friends, poor planning resulted in changing plans 4 times this week, so I really was ok with whatever.  At Bobby Vans I was able to stay Paleo by having an unadulterated Delmonico Steak and some steamed spinach. 

Birthdays the past 8 years have sucked because I’ve been very depressed on those days, because of how obese I was, and not being where I want to be in life, this year I’ve made significant progress in the one thing that bummed me out, and the other part about where my life is and where it’s headed have also changed, they’ve changed enough I didn’t want to hang myself on my birthday. 

So in that light, it was a good birthday.  Thanks again to everyone who posted birthday wishes on my facebook page, or sent me text messages.  

Paleo Meals

Paleo Meals Day 8