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how it works
a follow up to Calorie Awareness

By Paul Dexter

Last month I wrote about how easy it is to consume a large amount of calories, while actually consuming very little food. I showed you how having one “cheat meal” could really do a lot of damage.

That was probably the most popular article I have written so far for ShopinRI. I have received so many calls with everyone telling me how they couldn’t believe they were consuming so many calories. I wrote this article because this is what has been the biggest problem any of my clients have had to face. They would diet so hard for 4-5 days, exercise their butt’s off, go out for one night on the weekend, and never lose weight! Some would actually gain a pound over the course of 4-6 weeks. They would tell me how hard they worked and they couldn't believe that they didn’t lose any weight.
This month I am going to show you all exactly what I told them. It may not be what you want to hear, but it is the truth…plain and simple. It’s all about the math! That is it. No magic pill, no magic diet, no magic ab machine. You simply must burn off more calories, than you consume.

The following are proven scientific facts.
*Fact #1 – You must burn off 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of fat.
*Fact #2 – Your metabolism will shut down if you don’t eat enough (should eat no less
than 500-750 calories below your maintenance level).

With the above in mind, your goal would be to lower your daily caloric maintenance level by 500. So, for the week you would lose 1 pound of fat just by dieting alone (7 days x 500 calories = 3,500). Combine that with exercise and you could come close to burning off another pound of fat.

Example #1- The Right Way

Client A needs 2,000 calories to maintain her weight of 150 pounds. Her goal is to lose weight, so we reduce her caloric intake to 1,500 per day (-500). Remember, the amount of weight that she wants to lose doesn’t determine the caloric intake. The amount of weight just determines the length of the diet.

Remember, she needs to eat 14,000 calories per week (2,000 per day) to maintain her weight. By consuming 10,500 for the week, she forced her body to feed off 3,500 calories of fat to make up the difference (14,000-10,500).
By exercising with weights and cardio 4x during the week, she was able to burn off an additional 2,000 calories. As I said before, there is 3,500 calories in 1 pound of fat. By burning off 5,500 calories (diet + exercise), she will have lost almost 2 pounds for that 1 week.

Example #2- The Wrong Way

If Client A has the same goals as in the first example but chooses to not pay close attention to her diet she will never lose weight and possibly gain weight.
This is the most common mistake people make. They are extremely good for 4-5 days, and then think 1 “cheat day” won’t hurt them. When I sit down with my clients, I show them this example of how 1 bad day can ruin 6 good ones.

This is the most common example of where dieters go wrong. They “suffer” for most of the week, and think that they can “reward” themselves once or twice on the weekends. What happens is that they become very frustrated because they either don’t change at all, or actually begin to slowly put on weight. This will then lead to most people giving up. What everyone should do is reevaluate their own situation and ask themselves why they are not reaching their goal. Is one night of cheating really worth destroying all the hard work you put in all week - resisting tempting foods, denying yourself ice cream while everyone else eats it, and hours of strenuous exercise. You should set up short term and long term goals so that you can pace yourself. “Reward” yourself at the end when you reach your goal, not after 5 days of hard work.

In the above example, she exercised just as much as in the first example – burning off 2,000 calories, but she will not lose weight. She was very good Monday thru Thursday, and tried to make up for the weekend by going extra low on Sunday. This is the most common mistake people make. They think if they are really good for 5-6 days, they can cheat a little on the weekends. The problem is, like I explained last month, that there are more calories than you think, in most of the foods and drinks that we consume.
Instead of losing almost two pounds of fat, she stayed the same. She consumed 16,000 calories, while only burning off 2,000 with exercise. Since she needs to eat less then 14,000 calories to lose weight, she stays the same (16,000-2,000). She could have actually put on weight if she didn’t exercise.

You might think that you would never eat 6,000 calories on a Friday, but I guarantee you have done it more than you think. If you read my article last month, I’m sure you were surprised to see some of the examples listed of high calorie foods (Chinese, candy, etc.). If you aren’t losing weight and you think you’re dieting hard, most likely you’re letting one or two days ruin 5-6 good ones – it’s not hard to do.