Nutrition

The 3 Tiers of Weight Loss

It might feel like effective and long lasting weight loss requires ALL the stars to align, but the secrets really come down to a combination of factors that will mean that you can have true health.

The three tiers are:

  1. Energy Expenditure MUST Exceed Energy Intake
  2. Macro Nutrients: Too Much Fat or Carbs Will Get Stored As Fat
  3. Micro Nutrients: Good Mix of Vitamins and Minerals

Energy Expenditure MUST Exceed Energy Intake

If you eat more kiloJoules or Calories than you use up you are going to gain weight.  There is no other way about it. If each day your body uses 10,000kJ (~2,400Cal) and you eat 13,000kJ (~3,100Cal) worth of food, that is a surplus of 3,000kJ (~720Cal) that isn’t being used. This extra 3,000kJ needs to be stored somewhere.  Guess where that is going?

Conversely if you expend more energy than you take in, your body needs to actually get that energy from somewhere.  Good news for you is that it will burn up it’s energy reserves.

How do you expend more than you take in? That’s easy, eat less or exercise more. The maths is simple, but putting it into practice can be more challenging than it sounds.

As crazy as it sounds people have actually lost weight eating nothing but McDonalds. Here is a case where a High School Science Teacher conducted an experiment where he ate nothing but McDonalds for six months and lost 25kg (~56lbs) over that time. He restricted his dietary intake and made sure he exercised five times per week. This ensured his intake was below 8,360kJ (2,000Cal) and the exercise he completed lifted his energy expenditure, which allowed him to lose weight.

Macro Nutrients: Too Much Fat or Carb’s Will Get Stored As Fat

Once you’ve got the first tier sorted you need to look at managing your Macro Nutrients. There are three key macro nutrients that are all important as well as a fourth that some of you more than likely consume anyway even though we don’t really need it.

Carbohydrates

17kJ/g

Carbs provide us with with our primary fuel source for for high intensity activity and although there are plenty of people out there that encourage you to remove them completely from your diet, this restricts what you are capable of intensity wise. More appropriate is avoiding the highly processed carbohydrates and minimising the total Calories consumed of carbohydrates.

Fat

37kJ/g

An essential nutrient that fuels our body really effectively, however we all know the risk of consuming too much of it. It’s copped a lot of flack in the past and been blamed for a number of health issues that we now know are contributed to when fat is consumed to excess.  It is important for a whole range of body functions so you can’t exclude it from your diet.

Protein

17kJ/g

Protein is the building block for many parts of the body. It is heavily involved in repair after injury or a hard workout (you know the type where you feel it for the next few days).

Alcohol

29kJ/g

Alcohol isn’t utilised by the body in the way that other three Macro Nutrients are and it ends up being converted into the body and stored as fat.

Micro Nutrients: Good Mix of Vitamins and Minerals

For the next level down you need to make sure you get enough vitamins and minerals to ensure that your body can operate effectively. Not enough of something can have a massive impact on some process within the body that it controls.

 

If you manage the three tiers of weight loss you will find yourself losing weight and getting healthier (assuming you have weight to lose). If you’ve been trying to lose weight for a while, why don’t you jump on my 28 Day Triathlon Body Transformation Beta programme.

Since August I’ve lost nearly 10kgs following this programme and in the first 4 weeks I lost 4.6kg

I’m going to be launching the 28 Day Triathlon Body Transformation Programme as a pilot programme and need 12 people to help validate the programme. If you are interested in joining the pilot programme enter your details in the form below and I will contact you. I’m looking at charging about half price for the 12 involved in the trial/pilot programme.

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