02.05.08

Less is Bad

Posted in Nutrition tagged , , , , , , at 9:00 am by leslie

Over on SparkPeople, most people aim to keep their calories between 1200 and 1400. I read people’s posts/blogs, where they say they’re always tired, are injured, or aren’t losing weight, and then I check out their food & exercise tracker. 1200 calories and glued to a treadmill… Most nutrition studies/information I’ve seen say “starvation mode” is anything under 1200 calories.

My estimated Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is just over 1200 calories. I’m 5′2″, female, 132 lbs. That means if I only slept all day, my body would still use 1200 calories. Heart, lungs, brain, kidneys, liver–you know, those slightly important organs–they need gas to keep going. A person who’s larger than me will have a higher BMR. Makes sense: there’s more of them to keep going.

But if I wake up, go to work, and do the normal things I do every day, my body needs more energy. Heart, lungs, brain, et al–they’re doing more work now. They need more gas. This “activity coefficient” also depends on your personality: Mr. Rogers or Robin Williams? Mr. Rogers is calm, collected, and efficient; Robin Williams is fidgety and spastic. To stay fidgety and spastic, a Robin Williams personality would have a greater daily energy need than a Mr. Rogers type.

According to my first calculation in NROLFW, my non-workout daily need is 1900 calories. (NROLFW chooses a single activity coefficient, but does caution that the final calculated value 1) is an estimate and 2) can be adjusted because everyone is different. It’s also a Maintenance level, i.e., not losing or gaining.)

Now if I add a workout to my day, I’ve not only used more energy than a normal day, I’ve also started my body’s repair mechanisms, which will fix and strengthen the areas I worked out. Next time, I’ll be able to lift a little more or run a little further. According to the same calculation, my workout daily need is 2200 calories.

So, the amount my body needs to stay where it is is 1900-2200 calories, 700-1000 more than my BMR. And yet most people eat at their BMR, cutting out a huge number of important calories. (Seriously, do you want to think about your brain not having enough calories? Not that it would, but that’s almost how low these people go, to an unhealthy range. You do want your body to keep functioning properly, don’t you?)

To lose weight safely, I can cut down on my non-workout and workout day calories by 100-300 calories. I’ll still be eating at least 1600 calories, which means I can eat more than celery.

It sounds contradictory, crazy, and dumb to tell people to eat more. News stories always tell you that Americans eat too much already, but really, it’s more that we eat the wrong things. And dieting, we’ve now been told, also makes us fat. The truth must be somewhere in the middle.

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I did some Wikipedia searching as I was writing parts of this, and I finally noticed something that I hadn’t really seen before: the RDA is 2,000 calories (and they always show the “2,500 calories” breakdown, too). Ha! It’s actually close the right, for most people. The problems start when you go too high or too low, which we all too often do…

01.15.08

New Rules of Lifting for Women

Posted in Workouts tagged , , , , , , , , , , at 9:00 am by leslie

The New Rules of Lifting for Women: Lift Like A Man, Look Like A Goddess, Lou Schuler, Cassandra Forsythe, and Alwyn Cosgrove (2007).

I’d seen this book mentioned on one of my SparkPeople groups, so I picked it up. The author, a former editor at Men’s Health magazine, quickly admits that he is a non-woman. The book is simply laugh-out-loud funny in some places.

The basic principle of the book is simple: women need to lift heavier weights to get the results they want. *insert much applause* If you’re a female who’s scared of the big weights or if you want validation that lifting heavy is good, then you’ll probably enjoy most of this book. This book is meant to push you off the treadmill and in to the land of iron and steel.

The other strong points in the book are:

  • Ditch the “Barbie” weights. (I am so stealing that phrase.)
  • Eat more calories. Most women eat too few.
  • Eat more protein (at least 1 g/lb of body weight).
  • Eat 5-6 smaller meals/day.
  • Focus on losing fat, not just “weight”.
  • Traditional cardio isn’t the only way to lose fat.
  • Training “abs” (or, in modern gym-speak, “the core”) is usually goofy and counter-productive.

While this book is written by an author who also wrote the same book targeted to men, this is not simply the men’s book with feminine pronouns. The first part, especially, goes after all the excuses and myths women have heard. This book really is about women and lifting.

The first part of the book is rather long but goes in to detail to explain why women can and should lift like a man (one reason: because our muscles work the same way); it strikes down the “sculpt and tone” idiocy and other “facts” that are incorrect. This part also emphasizes that you must eat enough calories and why. Instead of losing “weight,” the focus is on losing body fat, so the discussion of measuring your progress is presented in terms of how do your clothes fit, how do you feel, how do you look, etc., instead of what the scale says.

The second part of the book shows sample meals for the 5-6 meals. A lot of the recipes added whey protein powder for extra protein. I admit that I skimmed through this second part rather quickly, but I did notice that they list an iced coffee protein shake, which is my current post-workout shake. Whoot! Also, there are small lists of decent frozen and fast food and most of the recipes look fairly easy & non-time-consuming to prepare.

The third part of the book gives the exercise plan: Workout A and Workout B, which you alternate over 3 days/week. (Just like my current lifting plan.) Squats & squat variations figure in prominently (good), and the emphasis is on whole-body movements rather than isolating muscles (also good) and on using free weights over machines. Also, the plan actually changes every few weeks to prevent your body from becoming too efficient at the exercises (also good–and reminds me, my program needs a shake-up). There are pictures to illustrate most exercises, too (I did laugh at one as I seriously see myself doing a face plant if I tried the Plank with Swiss Ball and Bench exercise:P). And, according to the author, this workout plan is harder than the one is the men’s book. Take that!

All in all, I’d recommend this book to any female who wants to look like the fitness & figure competitors–proportioned and strong.

My one complaint is that they do advocate partial squats (“curtsies,” Krista at Stumptuous calls them) but give no reason why these are supposedly better than full squats. I find that full squats put far less pressure on my knees than trying to hang halfway down, and most information I’ve read elsewhere also recommends using a full range of motion on squats.

The partial vs. full squats was also brought up in the forum. Yes, there is a forum for the book, and at least two of the authors do actually comment on the questions. Very nice addition to the book.

Especially recommended as motivation to go hit the weights =P

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Update 1/29/08: I’ve been doing NROLFW for a week now, and I love it. You can see my daily notes through my NROLFW tag.