In our last post, we discovered that exercise alone was not enough for sustained weight loss. Let’s review our facts:

• 1 pound (lb) of human fat contains 3500 calories.
• 30 minutes of moderate to intense aerobic exercise burns between 200 and 400 calories.
• 12-ounce can of Pepsi or other soda contains 150 calories.
• In-N-Out Double-Double contains 690 calories.
• McDonald’s regular size fries contain 210 calories.

In Part 2, we looked at the exercise part of the weight-loss equation; today let’s look at the other part-caloric intake.

Every calorie that we ingest above the total calories that we burn that day gets stored in our bodies as a fat cell. 3500 fat cells equal 1 pound of body fat. It also works in the opposite direction-every calorie that we burn above the total calories that we ingest eliminates a stored fat cell.

Weight management then becomes an exercise in simple math:

• If ingested calories > burned calories, you will increase your body fat weight.
• If ingested calories < burned calories, you will decrease your body fat weight.

To lose fat weight, you must burn more calories than you ingest that day. Notice that I am writing about fat weight, not muscle weight. We’ll talk about muscle weight in a future post.

In Part 2 we saw how exercise helps us burn fat calories, but not enough. On average, we burn 10 calories for every minute of moderate to intense aerobic exercise. This is helpful, but consider this:

• Not drinking 1, 12-oz Pepsi is the same as exercising for 12 minutes.
• Not drinking 1, 12-oz Budweiser is the same as exercising for 15 minutes.
• Not eating 1 regular size order of McDonald’s french fries is the same as exercising for 21 minutes.
• Not eating 1 In-N-Out Double-Double is the same as exercising for 69 minutes (1 hour and 9 minutes!).

You get the picture. By paying better attention to the number of calories that you ingest, you can enhance the calories you are burning through exercise. Let’s look at one of our previous examples:

Remember John? He was 10 pounds overweight, which meant that he had accumulated 35,000 calories (10 lbs x 3500 calories per pound) worth of fat that he needed to burn off . Exercising 30 minutes a day, it would take John 117 days to burn of the calories contained in 10 lbs of fact. But if John replaces the Pepsi that he normally drinks for lunch with water or Diet Pepsi (saves 120 calories a day) and if he switches only one of his evening beers for water (saves 150 calories a day), the time it would take him to lose those 10 extra pounds would go from 117 days to 61 days. By watching his diet IN ADDITION TO exercising, John would cut his weight loss time almost in half.

I hope this short series has been helpful and I invite you to continue to make exercise and intentional calorie management a regular part of your life. Please let me know if you have any questions or want to share any of your success stories with us.

Warmest Regards,

Coach Paul
www.lifechangingcoaching.com

“And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.” – Rich Mullins

Life-Changing Coaching by Paul Edward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 License.

Yesterday we talked about the discouragement that most people feel when they decide to start exercising to loose unwanted pounds and it doesn’t seem to work. Today we’re going to find out why.

First, let’s start with some facts:

• 1 pound (lb) of human fat contains 3500 calories.
• 30 minutes of moderate to intense aerobic exercise burns between 200 and 400 calories.
• 12-ounce can of Pepsi or other soda contains 150 calories.
• In-N-Out Double-Double contains 690 calories.
• McDonald’s regular size fries contain 210 calories.

Now let’s do some math:

Q1: John is 10 lbs overweight. John begins a new exercise program that will include 30 minutes of aerobic exercise per day. How many days will it take for John to lose 10 lbs through just the aerobic exercise alone?

A1: At 10 lbs, John has accumulated 35,000 calories (10 lbs x 3500 calories per pound) worth of fat that he will need to burn off . Exercising 30 minutes a day, it will take John 117 days to burn of the calories contained in 10 lbs of fact. This assumes of course that John does not add any additional fat pounds during this nearly 4-month period.

Q2. Jane is 8 lbs overweight. She plans to start an exercise program that consists of 15 minutes of aerobic exercise per day. How many days will it take Jane to lose 8 pounds through exercise alone?

A2: At 8lbs, Jan has accumulated 28000 (8 lbs x 3500 calories/pound) calories of fat. If she exercises only 15 minutes a day, it will take her 187 days to lose 8 lbs. This assumes of course that Jan does not add any additional fat pounds during this nearly 4-month period.

You get the picture. Exercise is a critical part of weight management, and it has benefits beyond the scale. However, exercise alone will never be enough for sustained weight loss.

Stay tuned for Part 3!

Warmest Regards,

Coach Paul
www.lifechangingcoaching.com

“And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.” – Rich Mullins

Life-Changing Coaching by Paul Edward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 License.

The number one reason that most people start a new exercise program is to lose weight. They’ve either become tired of making excuses for the fat they’ve been slowly gaining around their bellies, thighs, or arms or their doctors have told them that they need to shed some pounds for health reasons. Whatever the case, they head off to their favorite clothing stores, buy new work out clothes, and then head off to a local gym to purchase a membership.

This is great! They start out a little inconsistently at first, but soon they are working out 3 to 5 times a week. They sweat, they push themselves, and they get into an active routine. They feel better about themselves as they seem to have more energy and be less irritated and stressed out. But when they look at themselves in their mirrors, it doesn’t look like any of that hard work has paid off. The fat is still there and when they step on their scales, their weight hasn’t gone down.

Now they get discouraged. Slowly they start to reduce the number of days that they go to the gym. Eventually they stop going altogether. A few weeks after starting out so strong, they are back to the sedentary lifestyles that they had wanted to leave behind.

Does this story sound familiar? Perhaps it’s your story. If so, you are not alone. Thousands of people across America repeat this same cycle of going from sedentary to active back to sedentary again. Why do they give up? It’s simple really. The reason that most of us start new exercise programs is to lose weight. When we don’t lose any weight, we figure that exercise is just a big waste of time, effort, and money. So we quit.

It’s no surprise then, that this phenomenon of working out without experiencing any weight loss has fueled the myth that exercise doesn’t have any value for people who are looking to lose weight.

In Part 2, we’ll take a look at why this myth is not true as we explore the missing ingredient for real weight loss.

Warmest Regards,

Coach Paul
www.lifechangingcoaching.com

“And if your home is just another place where you’re a stranger, and far away is just somewhere you’ve never been. I hope that you’ll remember, I am your friend.” – Rich Mullins

Life-Changing Coaching by Paul Edward is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivative Works 3.0 License.