When I was a kid I used to play this apple game called Math Munchers. I have often thought of this game when I think of fat loss, thinking of these little green munchers chomping away at calories. I am very visual...or weird...however you want to look at it.

The first thing that most of us do when beginning a new diet program is to calculate our needed caloric intake through way of activity level measurement. The concept is pretty simple...

Take bodyweight, height, age, gender and then throw it into an equation blender and out comes our BMR (Basel metabolic rate).This is the level of energy you should be expending at rest. Note the SHOULD BE again as we are going to get into the thought of what you are and how different that can be.

From there we combine that data with an activity level to this is where it can really get tricky. An activity level isn't exactly something that is laid out in front of us as an absolute. It's activity, it changes on a day-to-day basis depending on what your activity was within that day. Every movement from the path you take to work to how extreme and often your workouts are is going to be figured into the calculation. To me it's very mind-boggling that when it comes to this step of the calculation the average person surpasses it was very little thought. They pick from one of five basic categories and run with it from there. Here is a sample of those categories through the Harris Benedict equation.

1. If you are sedentary (little or no exercise) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.2
2. If you are lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.375
3. If you are moderatetely active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.55
4. If you are very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.725
5. If you are extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job or 2x training) : Calorie-Calculation = BMR x 1.9

Now the above categories are not set in stone. You can land somewhere in between activity ratings (ie: 1.44). These little numbers are just telling you that on average this sort of activity done is going to rate this kind of expenditure. This slight little calculation makes up a headache for the majority of people in fat loss. Their calculations of what they do in a day are usually so beyond off that for the majority of them they are landing in overeating or undereating by large degrees. This leads of course to them failing at their goals.

It would make sense then to focus more efforts on creating a method of figuring out the exact caloric amount you're burning in a day so that your math of in and out are going to be as close to accurate as possible. There are some methods of doing this technologically but they can be costly and not very practical.

So what then is the easiest method(not to mention the most correct) of figuring out what we burned in a day? Quite simply a trial and error. The problem comes in because most trainees trials, are full errors in technique.

I last left off talking about the importance of figuring out your activity level. I want to really hit at this again though to the point to where you can't scan over what your activity means to your fat loss. All of this by the way is going to be covered in the new edition of my book, so for those of you who grab it some of this my feel a little Deja Vu' when you read it.

Fat Loss is about taking stored energy from your body. You have to in a day, night or in sleep hit negative. If it takes X amount of calories a day to achieve what you need, you need to work from there and go down. Lets look at this very simply and might I add anally by using a how energy works through out the day. I am going to list out periods of time and what you burn in them. This is under the assumption of starting off a day at zero, this is for example purposes only.

Wake up-Arrive at Work (office)-During this period of time you have burned 300 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed 500 calories in food. You are currently in the positive by +200 calories.

Work-Lunch Break-During this period of time you have burned 450 calories in movement and in internal body function. Prior to eating lunch you are now in a negative burning zone and have pulled from your stores of energy (fat,glycogen, etc) in order to function properly. Roughly 250 calories of energy have been pulled from storage.
When you eat lunch you consume 500 calories.

Lunch-Leave work-During this period of time you have burned 500 calories in movement and in internal body function(studies show activity level after lunch is usually a bit higher even for office workers). You are pretty much running even now with what you ate to get to this point from lunch. Prior you had 250 negative calories still of energy burn. So far for the day you still have a solid negative -250.

HERE IS WHERE FAT LOSS IS USUALLY WON OR LOST.

Do you go home and eat another meal OR do you go to the gym? Here is a look at the two forks in the road.

Fork 1
Arrive at gym-Leave gym-During this period of time you have burned 450 calories in movement and in internal body function. Being that you were running even at the time of your arrival all 450 calories burned were drawn from stored energy, putting you at a negative total so far for the day at 650 calories.

Arrive home (eat meal)-Relax-During this period of time you have burned 400 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed a meal of 500 calories. Currently you are running 100 positive in energy so add that to the negative -650 and currently you are running negative -550.

Eat snack-Go to bed-During this period of time you have burned 200 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed a snack of 250 calories. Currently you are running +50 positive in energy.

For the day you end at a negative -500 calories of energy drawn.
In sleep you burn 300 more calories, bring you to a total of -800 by morning.
Morning marks a 0 point for you so you start all over again. IN no time at all you achieve weight loss (we are not talking necessary fat loss/water loss/glycogen loss).

That is Fork 1.

What about Fork 2? Lets go back to that drive home from work.

Arrive Home-Eat meal/relax-During this period of time you have burned 350 calories in movement and in internal body function (the caloric amount is a little less then when arriving home from gym as the workout would still charge your internal temperature a little more for post workout metabolic increase. You consumed a meal of 500 calories. Currently you are running 500 positive in energy so add that to the negative -250 and currently you are running a positive +250.

Eat snack-Go to bed-During this period of time you have burned 200 calories in movement and in internal body function. You consumed a snack of 250 calories. Currently you are running +50 positive in energy. Add to the previous positive of +250 and we arrive at +300.

For the day you end at a positive 300 calories of energy drawn. In sleep you burn 300 more calories, bring you to a total of 0 by morning. You have broke even.

So as you can see that slight change of driving to the gym takes you from maintaining your weight to losing it.

Now that you see what activity means to your fat loss we need to see how to rate it properly.

So what have we covered so far?

-That your activity level is crucial to fat loss
-That just a small change in a daily routine can occur for serious change in body composition
-That fat loss is a collection of calories burnt overtime, not just during a workout.

Now the real important part. Now for the big question. Leigh, how do I rate my daily activity? How can I full proof my calories?

I am going to tell you but first let me make something clear.

You remember watching Back to the Future where the Doc tells Marty and Jennifer that the future isn't written, that it's whatever you want it to be? Well so is your metabolism! Oh and this goes for you unhealthy people as well. I have taken a dead, no good for nothing metabolism and turned it into what you thought would be an ectomporph AND without the aid of drugs. It takes patience, time, smart training, and most importantly lots of eating, but it can happen. So remember that metabolism is just a starting off point for negotiations.

Now the full proof/idiot proof plan on figuring out your activity level. You ready?

Eat until you gain fat performing roughly the same daily activity day in and out or as you would during a normal week, not altering anything. Keep the training at minimum. I personally recommend only light walking and light resistance work a few times a week.

I know what you are thinking, that I am nuts. Yeah well just wait, all will show itself and also remember that I said FULL PROOF, this can't fail, period.

The trick is to do it slowly. Slowly raise your calories, 50 here, 100 there until you are maintaining your weight for at least 3-4 weeks. This could take a month or even two depending on how long you have been dieting. If you are an extreme case possibly more. If you start to gain really fast then add for a week, stay for a week, add/stay, repeat. Account for obvious fluctuations and don't stop until you are one hundred percent sure that where you are at is maintenance. You aren't losing and you aren't gaining really, it could lean one way or the other by a small amount but basically you are at a stand still.

Now let's say your stand still in weight is 2000 calories daily and your BMR calculation is 1450 calories. Then the activity level you are at is roughly 1.4.

1450 x 1.4 = 2030.

This means that with whatever daily activity you have been performing has an overall average of roughly 550 calories burned. Congratulations! You just solved a really big puzzle, no seriously you just solved your fat loss problems. Here comes the beauty part!

From this point on your have a much better handle on your activity level and how your calorie in and calorie out works. All you have to do now is subtract a few calories and add some activity and bam! you are going to start to lose fat. If you stop losing fat either calculate where you should be again based on your weight, especially if you are losing a large amount of fat or re-feed and give your body a break for a bit and start back over. If you ever really get stuck build back up to maintenance all over again and restart. If your maintenance is lower than it was before you should keep feeding and slowly upping food until its back to where it was.

See this is what usually happens.

You know 2000 is your maintenance now.

You take and raise activity level by 1.5, now making your daily burn roughly 2175 calories a day. You start taking in 1400 calories a day giving you a negative 775. How long do you think your body is going to stand for this? Not long. It will make you lower your daily activity (making you sit more, laze about, etc even if you are training you CAN sit more still than before, you can become more lazy in other areas!). It will also slow your metabolic rate, body desires, etc. Now that BMR is 1250 (yes it can drop that low) and your activity level is 1.4 again (even though you still think its 1.5) and now look at this...

1250 x 1.4 = 1750

And...being at 1400 has caused a few cheats here and there but not quite enough to make your hormones happy so somedays you are negative 300, some days negative 0. You throw in a 2000 re-feed day thinking you are doing good, but one day doesn't cut it and now 2000 is a surplus, oh crap before you know it, STUCK AGAIN and blaming your thyroid when really its you, your stubborn need to drain and train your body, not judging your activity level and underfeeding!

*Breathes*

So see folks, me telling you to POSSIBLY gain 1-3lbs of fat to make sure you never find yourself in the above place again...not so crazy anymore is it? If you have been spending a long time stuck, if you are constantly bouncing back and forth never really landing on the right side of where you need to be you may want to think twice.

You could spend years and cause a lot of injury doing it your stubborn way of burning out OR you can use the full proof plan and just know.

Amazing. Thank You.

Very Welcome

is this really true?!
What do I do to fix things if I have been doing it wrong I dont want to get fat

In short you do what it says, just work slowly back to a point if higher activity and higher feeding. Things can change a lot depending on each person but the general protocol is move more, eat more.