Getting your calories right

For managing your weight (fat and muscle), your nutrition will potentially play a more important role than your training, which can be an ironic thing for a personal trainer to say, because we aren't nutritionists or dieticians, and we mainly advocate training hard and regularly in the gym. But the science shows just how important someones nutrition is for weight management, and my experiences with myself and my clients have also shown me exactly how important it is to have your calories in the right place, whilst also exercising.

Although I'm not a nutritionist or dietician, it is very difficult to discuss weight management, or a change in body composition, without discussing nutritional habits.

With that being said, here are some notes on my opinion on the importance of 'getting your calories right'.

A calorie is a measurement of heat energy, it is generally accepted that if you have consumed more calories in a day than the calories you have burnt, then you will have a calorie surplus and technically you'll gain weight that day.

The general equation being: Calories consumed - Calories burnt = Weight change (For that day).

But there are a few problems with the general interpretation of this logic. Firstly, when calculating how many calories you may burn today, most people completely forget to take into account the calories they will burn by their Basal Metabolic Rate, known as BMR, which in most cases actually accounts for more calories than what you'd expect to burn in an hour at the gym, or any exercise done during the day. Instead, people just think of how many calories they'll burn in the gym, which is typically between 350 and 600 calories.

BMR is the minimal amount of calories your body needs to complete its basic (basal) life-sustaining functions. Many factors can have an impact on your BMR. Including your weight, height, age, gender, metabolism and hormones.

You can calculate a generic guideline of your BMR for free online. For most females it is usually between 700 - 1,400Kcal and between 1,400 – 1,900Kcal for most males. You can visit http://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator to calculate yours.

Once you have calculated an estimate of your BMR, you now need to add this into the weight-change equation. So the equation hasn't actually changed, but now it's being understood better, because you'll realise that the 'Calories burnt' section now includes your BMR as well as the calories burnt from activity / exercise / movement.

So Calories consumed - Calories burnt (From movement and from BMR) = Weight change (For that day).

The second reason that the calories consumed minus calories burnt logic isn't fully understood is because people take it to the extreme, forgetting that their body is constantly making adjustments to survive.

They assume that if you eat less and less, and exercise more and more, then your weight or fat loss will be even greater. So why don't we all just eat 300 calories per day and burn 3,000 calories from exercise, then we would lose the most weight, right?

Over the years of personal training, I have rarely found that to be the case, for multiple reasons:

• The bodies' automatic response to lowering your calorie intake will often be a reduction in your metabolic rate, so your metabolism will slow down. This is partly because more often than not, your body doesn't actually want you to lose weight, or fat, which is essentially just stored glycogen (energy).

• This can also lead to some of the most important hormones' production moving in the wrong direction, leading your body to essentially refuse to reduce your fat stores.

• Because of these hormonal and metabolic changes, It can become very difficult to function properly when your calories are far too low.

• It's likely you won't be in a good mood, you won't feel healthy, or have enough energy to concentrate at work or to exercise regularly.

• This could also mean you struggle to follow the low calorie diet for long (more than 1 month), and end up giving up, or having days when you eat far too much, to over-compensate the very low calorie days.

• Lastly, whilst it's still possible that you will lose weight, it's highly likely that you will lose more muscle than fat, which is unhealthy, and is not the goal. It's important to focus on reducing fat, and retaining as much muscle and strength as possible. If you end up losing large amount of muscle and low amounts of fat, or if you lose large amounts (over 15kg) of weight too rapidly, this can lead to loose skin.

With all of this being said, the best answer that I have found with clients is to try and find the perfect balance (which is constantly changing, with time and as your weight or body composition changes) between consuming enough calories so that the BMR is met and the client feels somewhat full, but then also having the calories low enough to be in a calorie deficit, and to ensure fat loss is occurring. This is a balancing act, where we agree on a plan, and adjust accordingly with time and progress.

Unfortunately, because of the reasons above, I would estimate around 70% of my clients that wanted to reduce their fat, actually were under-eating before we started training. And in many cases this had caused their metabolisms to slow down, which then caused their fat to increase even more, which confused them: because they were eating less, and increasing weight. Not until they had personal training and discussed their nutritional habits, did they start to realise the role of the metabolism in the body, and the fact that reducing their calories by too much of a deficit actually made matters worse. I've had clients that were gaining weight whilst just eating1,100 calories, who have ended up losing weight at 1,800 calories.

To recap, what should you do ?

1. If your goal is weight management, or a change in body composition, (less body fat, or more muscle mass) then remember to also prioritise your nutrition, whilst following an exercise plan, ideally exercising 3 - 5 times per week, for 60 minutes.

2. Know your numbers, so you can get your calories right. What is your BMR? What is your current weight and your goal weight? How often are you going to exercise in the gym? How active are you in the day, when you're not in the gym? How many calories will you burn daily? How many calories will you aim to consume daily? Will you consume less on less active days?

3. Have a plan to follow; a training plan, a nutritional plan. If your goal is fat loss, 0.2kg to 1kg per week is a good ballpoint figure to aim for.

4. Adjust your plan, if you are losing less or more than this per week.

5. To learn about how many calories, carbohydrates, fats and protein are in your meals, try a free calorie-tracking app like My Fitness Pal, or speak with a dietician or nutritionist. Good luck!

6. Reducing your calories to extremely low amounts is unhealthy and not recommended.

7. Long term fat loss is the result of a change of habits, not an extreme reduction of food intake, to an unsustainably low amount of calories.

It is impossible for me to write a blog that will be specific with how high or low each persons calories should be. Speak with a nutritionist, dietician or discuss your goals with a personal trainer if you are unsure where to start.

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