The Glade 4.0

Losing fat requires time, patience, and forethought. If that’s too much for you to deal with, then you might as well stop reading now.

First thing first - how much fat do you want to lose? If the number is bigger than 2lbs/week, then go back to the part about time, patience and forethought, and begin again. Trying to lose any more than 2lbs/week (without the use of pretty strong supplements/steroids) will result in either a) muscle loss (which is bad), b) a lowering of your body’s metabolic rate (which is bad), or c) both (which is really bad). If you’re starting from a big number (i.e. your bodyfat percentage is above 15% and you need to lose a lot of fat) then 2 lbs a week is a good number to start from. Aiming for more will do the above (the bad stuff above). As your bodyfat % lowers and your weight gets lower, you’ll want to aim for smaller increments per week; it gets harder to lose fat the less you have.

Your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) is the amount of calories your body (given normal metabolic conditions) burns in a day, given that you do nothing more than exist. No eating, no walking, no getting out of bed. These are your ‘existence’ calories. To calculate your BMR, use these formulas:

Men BMR = 66 + (6.3 x Body Weight in lbs) + (12.9 x Height in inches) - (6.8 x age)
Women BMR = 655 + (9.6 x weight in kilos) + (1.8 x height in cm) - (4.7 x age)

Now that you’ve got your BMR, you’ve got a good starting point for how your body (at your current weight) burns calories. Now it’s time to use that information and figure out how many calories you burn during a normal day. You know, when you crawl out of bed and actually do something. Take the BMR, and multiply it by the Activity Multiplier below that best describes your average day:

Activity Multiplier
Sedentary = 1.2 (little exercise, desk job)
Light Activity = 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Moderate Activity = 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week)
Very Active = 1.725 (heavy exercise/sports 6-7 days/week)
Extreme Activity = 1.9 (heavy exercise/sports, physically demanding job)

The super easy method is one that popeye (a mentor to many on the Men’s Health boards) has popularized. I have no idea where he got it from, so I’ll credit him for it and let him source it properly if he feels like it. The fact is, though, that it seems to work pretty well.

The general rule of thumb about caloric intake is this:

10-12xBW to WANE
13-15xBW to MAINTAIN
16-18xBW to GAIN

Spelled out in big letters for you - take your bodyweight and multiply it by the number that fits your goal (wane means lose weight, maintain means maintain, and gain means . . . you get the picture). That number that you get is an approximation of how many calories you should have as your starting point.

Well, why don’t I eat even less calories?

Because you’ll lose muscle. And you need muscle. So don’t burn muscle. Unless you’re very large (we’re talking 350-400 lbs here) you need all the muscle you can get.

4. I’m doing all this, and I’m not losing fat!

First, make sure that you’re not eating too little. That seems to be a common problem. Someone does the calculations, finds their maintenance to be 3500 calories, decided that 2500 calories is too much because they ‘feel stuffed’, and drops to 2000 calories. They quickly hit a plateau where they can’t lose anymore fat, and so they think: Well, I should cut more. When that doesn’t work, they do it again.

You’re not a bird. Stop eating like one.

I take this approach when I hit a plateau. I immediately increase calories by 250. Maybe a few bigger portions. Maybe another snack. Then I track my body fat % for two weeks. If I have kickstarted the fat loss, sweet. If I have gained fat weight, then I cut by 250 calories, and track for 2 more weeks. Play with the calorie levels - go up, go down. Give each change a few weeks so that you can accurately gauge results. Eventually you’ll find the answer. In my experience, 9 times out of 10 it’s eating too little, not too much. This is where Fitday.com becomes an invaluable website.

The general rule of thumb about caloric intake is this:

10-12xBW to WANE
13-15xBW to MAINTAIN
16-18xBW to GAIN

Spelled out in big letters for you - take your bodyweight and multiply it by the number that fits your goal (wane means lose weight, maintain means maintain, and gain means . . . you get the picture). That number that you get is an approximation of how many calories you should have as your starting point.