by Rita Black
The “C” Word
“Is this a calorie counting program?” I’m asked frequently. Yes, I use calories to measure energy coming into your body as food and going out in activity. In my opinion, it’s the only way to accurately, scientifically, and logically (and not haphazardly, emotionally, and irrationally) track weight release.
People associate the word “calorie” with the weight struggle. That poor word has come to mean restriction, obsession, deprivation, “white-knuckling it,” etcetera. When you remove the emotional stigma that is stuck to the word “calorie” and define it accurately as “a unit of energy that is used for heat measurement,” it’s no longer a limiting belief.
For a moment, consider another unit of energy: money. When dealing with money, you wouldn’t dream of saying, “Gosh. Let’s not deal with dollars; let’s use colors or blocks instead.” If you did, how soon would it be before your bank account was out of whack? Measuring energy intake and output with calories is similar to dealing with money. It allows you to be exact and stay exact with the facts.
Food’s energy values are measured universally in calories. Energy expenditures in activity, including exercise, are measured in calories. In order to truly embrace weight release, you need to embrace the word “calorie” in a positive light. So, if you are challenged by calorie counting, please pause and engage in the following Mind-Shifting Exercise. If you and calories are already cool together, just skip ahead.
SHIFTING “CALORIE”
Did you know that you keep things, people, and places that you associate negatively in your mind in a different place than your positive thoughts about these same things? Just for a moment think about someone you don’t like. If it isn’t someone from your life, maybe it’s a politician or someone from history. Now, think about your best friend from school. You felt an internal shift take place as you moved your mind’s focus from the person that you have negative associations with to the person you have positive associations with, didn’t you?
Years of weight struggling have probably put the word “calorie” in your mind in the same place that you associate with other things you think of in a negative light. I would like to help you move that word from a disempowering file in your mind to an empowering file. It’s kind of like dragging something from one folder on your desktop to another.
Here are directions for changing your mind about calories:
Take a moment and imagine what a calorie looks like. Perhaps you see it as the word “calorie” or you see it as a little ball of fire or a radiator burning heat. Imagine it sprouting arms and legs. Imagine a head and face forming on it. It’s the face of someone that you associate with good feelings, someone who is a big help to you and helps you achieve your goals. If you can’t see it all, that’s okay, do your best.
Apprentice, I would like to introduce you to Calorie.
Imagine that Calorie says, “Hi there, I am here to help you take your power back from your weight struggle. I am not here to bum you out or deprive you. I am here to give you freedom.” Imagine Calorie extending a hand out to you to offer a warm greeting of friendship.
Imagine extending your hand and saying, “Hello, Calorie, nice to meet you. I look forward to having a powerful experience achieving and then maintaining my ideal weight with you.”
Now in your mind, shift Calorie from the fat thinking Weight Struggle file to the thin thinking Weight Mastery file.
Thin Thinking And Weight Release
Get ready to change your fat thinking once and for all. I want to introduce you to the idea that releasing weight as a Weight Master can be a journey of self-discovery that boosts your self-confidence and self-esteem.
You are now going to manipulate energy in the direction of releasing weight and then maintaining your loving and reasonable ideal weight. You are going to apply some science and simple math to retrain your brain. You are going to become aware of how the energy created by your body, exercise, and food work together to release and maintain weight or gain it.
Even if you were never good at math and science, never fear. You will get the basics quickly. The numbers in weight release sometimes freak out people, but avoiding the math keeps you in fat thinking. I know your thirst for knowledge will increase as you begin reaping its rewards. When you understand how to use your body’s energy and leverage to release weight at your own speed, you engage the following thin thinking results:
You become more rational, because your release is based on facts and data, not dieting science fiction. Your rationality keeps you from that all-or-nothing fat thinking.
You become more confident, because you are in charge of the results of your effort. You are no longer giving your power to some diet structure.
Your belief system changes, because you don’t see yourself as a failure. Rather you know you are quite capable and successful at releasing weight.
You are going to engage yourself and your Inner Coach in learning to:
Release weight at a rate you decide with the Weight Release Formula.
Calculate your Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release to achieve your weekly weight goal.
1 – RELEASE WEIGHT AT A RATE YOU DECIDE
Apprentice, you and your Inner Coach are now ready to learn the strategy of how to release weight. I know you may understand weight loss basics, but you are going to construct the information in your Weight Mastery part of your mind versus where it is now in the Weight Struggle part. Please read the following with an apprentice’s open attitude.
Weight Release Basics 101
There are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. In order to release one pound of weight off your body, 3,500 calories need to be burned. Your body burns food for fuel much like a car burns gas for fuel. Different cars require different amounts of fuel, depending on their sizes and makes. Each person’s body burns fuel at a different rate, depending on many things, including his or her size, genetic makeup, age, and daily activity levels.
A big wide-body truck is going burn a lot more fuel each mile than a teeny gas-efficient hybrid car. Similarly, a 19-year-old, 6 ‘3,” 290-pound linebacker who plays football 3 hours every day is going to burn a lot more fuel in a typical day than a 72-year-old, 5’1,” 90-pound retired grandmother who sits in front of a television all day.
I call the number of calories that your body burns in a 24-hour period without exercise your fuel tank. The football player’s fuel tank is going to be way bigger than Granny’s fuel tank. (Chart D)
Chart D: Granny’s Fuel Tank vs. Linebacker’s Fuel Tank
The amount of calories that your body burns at rest in a 24-hour period is called your resting metabolic rate (RMR). Even though it may not seem fair, the amount of calories of your RMR is out of your control for the most part, and there is little you can do to alter it. Adding a significant amount of muscle raises your resting metabolic rate a tiny bit but doesn’t radically alter it. (Converting 12 pounds of fat to 12 pounds of muscle will only increase your resting metabolic rate by about 64 calories a day. That’s not a lot!)
The only way you can significantly alter how many calories your body burns a day, other than unsafe diet pills, is with exercise. Research shows that exercise is one of the key skills for the long – term success of Weight Masters. (How to practice the exercise skill for weight release is the topic of the next chapter. For now, stay focused on weight release basics.)
The Weight Release Formula
When I walk clients through the Weight Release Formula, which is based on physics and the first law of thermodynamics3 they are amazed at the simplicity of it, especially since the term sounds so scientific and complicated!
In short, your body needs a consistent amount of energy on a daily basis to run itself. That energy has to come from fuel in the form of food or stored fat. When you burn more calories than you consume as food, you create an energy deficit. You
r body then uses stored energy. That is when weight release occurs.
The law itself is simple. However, when applied to weight loss and all the emotions and fat thinking attached to it, that basic law can become confusing. Aren’t you glad you have your lab coat on?
BASIC WEIGHT FORMULAS
Weight release. The amount of calories that your body burns at rest and in activity is greater than the amount of calories you consume.
Weight maintenance. The amount of calories that your body burns is the same as the amount of calories you consume. (Ultimately, this is the formula you will rely on to maintain your ideal weight.)
Weight gain. The amount of calories your body burns is fewer than the amount of calories you consume.
The calorie-based terms you will use in your Weight Release Formula are:
Daily Body Burn Calories. The sum total of calories your body burns at rest and in sedentary activity over a 24-hour period.
Daily Weight Release Rate Calories. The average amount of calories you need to burn daily in order to release weight at a rate you decide.
Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release. This is the amount of food calories you can consume daily and achieve the deficit necessary to achieve your weekly weight release goal.
Daily Body Burn Calories
Simply put, your Daily Body Burn Calories are the total amount of calories your body burns—not counting exercise—in a 24-hour period. Your Daily Body Burn Calories are the total of two energy sources: Your resting metabolic rate calories + your sedentary calories.
Resting metabolic rate (RMR). The amount of energy (number of calories) that your body expends in a resting state over a 24-hour period. Your RMR is the sum total of how much energy your body uses to breathe, beat your heart, digest food, run your brain, and all the miraculous things your body does without getting out of bed. (See Chart E)
Sedentary calories. The number of calories you burn performing daily, non-exercise-related activities. Assuming you get up at some point in 24 hours to live your life—make coffee, go to work, or read a book to your child. These sedentary activities take more energy than your resting body and burn so-called sedentary calories. (See Chart F)
Daily Body Burn calories. The total number of calories the body burns during a 24-hour period (resting metabolic rate + sedentary calories). This number does not include calories used in exercise. (See Chart G)
Okay, Apprentice, you with me so far? You have a body and it burns energy (calories). You can use that energy burn to release weight. You will be calculating your specific Daily Body Burn numbers after you learn a few more things. Hang tight, that info is coming!
Now, for the next important part of the Weight Release Formula—your Daily Weight Release Rate Calories.
Daily Weight Release Rate Calories
Some energy must be burned in the form of fat for weight release. As you learned, there are 3,500 calories in a pound of fat. If you want to release one pound a week, take 3,500 and divide it by the days of the week. That figure is your Daily Weight Release Rate Calories. (Chart H)
CHART H: Daily Weight Release Rate Calories
In order to release one pound of weight a week, subtract 500 Daily Weight Release Rate Calories from your Daily Body Burn Calories. By the end of the seven days, you will have burned a full pound’s worth of weight. 3,500 calories/7 days = 500 calories per day = Daily Weight Release Rate Calories for one pound, which is your Weekly Weight Release Rate Calories (Chart I).
CHART I: Weekly Weight Release Rate Calories for
One Pound Weight Release for Week
Stick with me, we are almost there. Your body burns calories every day. When you use a defined amount of those calories to burn fat, you release weight at a rate you decide.
Daily Calorie Budget For Weight Release
What happens to the remaining calories from your Daily Body Burn after you take away the calories you are going to burn to release weight? You can eat the remaining calories in food. I call this your Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release. It is the amount of calories you can eat each day and still release weight at a rate you decide. To determine your Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release, subtract your Daily Weight Release Rate Calories from your Daily Body Burn Calories. Here’s what the Weight Release Formula looks like:
Daily Body Burn Calories – Daily Weight Release Rate Calories = Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release
Case Study: Betty Thomas and her Broken Metabolism
When Betty, a second-grade teacher in her late thirties, came to my office, she had almost given up on weight loss, thinking she might just be happy being “chubby.” The problem was that she wasn’t happy or just “chubby.” Her health was failing: her cholesterol levels were up, and she had pre-diabetes.
“I just can’t lose weight. I have tried everything. Last summer I was on the Paleo diet, the very low carb one. I did okay on the plan for a while and lost about 20 pounds. But then I stopped losing weight even though I had about 25 pounds more to go. I was doing everything perfectly, too. I wasn’t eating any bread or white foods. Finally, I got so frustrated that I bought a loaf of bread, made ten pieces of toast with butter and jam, and ate them all. I didn’t care anymore.”
“Did you ever track calories to see how many you were eating daily on that Paleo plan?” I asked Betty.
She replied, “Calories? No, I hate counting calories. I would never do that. I choose diets that focus more on the food and not the calories.”
“Well, Betty, my guess is that your body isn’t broken, but the calories in the large amounts of bacon, almonds, and avocado you were eating added up and kept you from releasing more weight. I have many clients who came to me as overweight vegans, macrobiotic followers, raw foodies, Atkinites, Paleos, South Beachers, and Weight Watchers who all swear they are eating within their chosen system’s guidelines.
“Unfortunately, they were just eating too many calories to have continued weight release. That is probably what happened for you. When these clients began using the Weight Release Formula, they released weight according to the laws of physics.”
“I knew deep down I was kidding myself that I could eat all the bacon I wanted and keep losing weight.” She sighed.
Betty’s Weight Release Formula
Let’s now take Betty through the Weight Release Formula.
Betty is 38, 5’5” tall, and weighs 198 pounds.
Betty’s Daily Body Burn: 2,000 calories.
CHART J: Betty’s Weight Release Formula to
Release One Pound per Week
Betty’s Daily Body Burn Calories (2,000 calories) – Betty’s Daily Weight Release Rate Calories (500 calories to release one pound per week) = Betty’s Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release (1,500 calories). (See Chart J)
Can you see that one way of releasing weight would be simply by reducing the amount of food that you consume to leverage your Daily Body Burn Calories to help you release weight at a specific rate? Betty can eat up to 1,500 calories a day and release a pound a week without adding any exercise.
Three Weight Release Strategies
Cutting back on the number of calories you consume is one of three ways you can release weight at a rate you decide. These three strategies are:
Releasing weight by reducing food intake only.
Releasing weight by increasing exercise only.
Releasing weight by reducing food intake and increasing exercise.
Releasing Weight by Reducing Food Intake Only
As we just learned (See Chart J), Betty can lower her daily food intake to 500 calories below her 2,000 Daily Body Burn or “fuel tank” calories. That gives her a 1,500 calorie a day Calorie Budget for Weight Release, and now the remaining 500 calories (her Daily Weight Release Rate) are burned from her body. If her calorie intake stays at or below her 1,500 Calorie Bud
get for Weight Release each day for a week, she will burn enough stored fat to release a pound of weight.
Releasing Weight by Increasing Exercise Only
Instead of altering her food intake, Betty can decide to burn 500 calories a day in exercise. Those additional calories increase her Daily Body Burn from 2,000 to 2,500 calories a day.
CHART K: Betty Releases One Pound per Week
Through Increasing Exercise Only
Using this technique, Betty’s Daily Calorie Budget for Weight Release will be 2,000 calories, since she is burning the extra exercise calories. When she is consistent with creating an overall burn of 3,500 calories in exercise a week and keeping her Daily Calorie Budget at 2,000 calories, she will release a pound a week. (See Chart K)
Releasing Weight by Reducing Food Intake and Increasing Exercise
What Betty will probably decide to do is a combination of consuming fewer calories and exercising more to create her 1-pound weight release per week. Most Weight Masters, research shows, release weight using this combination.
Chart L: Betty Releases One Pound per Week by
Reducing Food Intake and Increasing Exercise
Let’s say Betty burned 200 calories a day walking for 30 minutes. This increases her Daily Body Burn to 2,200. Now if she consumes 500 calories less (Her Daily Weight Release Rate) and consumes 1,700 calories as her Daily Calorie Budget, Betty would be creating a 500 calorie a day burn and, therefore, release a pound a week. (See Chart L)
Case Study Conclusion
Betty decided to release a pound a week according to the formula described above with reducing food intake and adding exercise formula. She began tracking her food and exercise calories with an easy-to-use app so she could easily see how much she was consuming and stay within her Calorie Budget for Weight Release. (More on this in Skill 4.)
