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Read on, because to understand weight management, you must also understand energy balance and what influences your metabolism...and it’s actually really interesting!

Energy Balance 101: What we eat, where it goes in our body and what we (try to) get rid of.

To put in more scientific terms, energy balance is the combined processes of caloric intake, caloric storing and caloric expenditure.

When this balance is in-sync our weight stays relatively stable – what we all dream of!

If caloric intake is high (food intake) and caloric expenditure is low (no or lowered exercise) then for some, weight may start to increase.

Same old story huh?
Maybe not...

For others this high intake and low output may not even change their weight as genetics may account for a higher ‘metabolic rate’. Hurrah! I hear all you frustrated people yell.

There is an answer...yep promise here it is...
Genetics, your resting metabolism, your level of activity and the quality and quantity of your food intake all play a huge part in being able to control your weight.

ENERGY BALANCE = ENERGY INTAKE + ENERGY OUTPUT
(OUR WEIGHT) = (WHAT WE EAT) + (WHAT WE SWEAT OUT)

We’ve all seen or heard of this equation and it is simple enough. However there is more to this than meets the eye and to really understand the basis of weight loss, we need to look at this equation in greater depth.

Let’s start with ‘energy output’ or as it is referred to in physiology – energy expenditure.

Total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is of interest to health and weight researchers the world over. Why?

Because this is the term used to describe how much energy is used (or how many calories are burned) by an individual during a 24 hour period. With obesity–related lifestyle diseases on the rise in many westernised countries, you can see why interest is emerging in being able to better understanding influences on energy expenditure.

TDEE is made up of three primary components:
• Resting metabolic rate (RMR)
• The thermic (heat generating) effects of exercise and physical activity (TEPA)
• The thermic effects of feeding (TEF)
Therefore, the equation which underlies the energy balance equation is:
TDEE = RMR + TEPA + TEF

Sounds confusing but the most important thing you need to know is; understanding this formula will help you lose weight.

Let’s take a more in-depth look at each component.
Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR):

Understanding metabolism is important in weight loss. This is because your metabolic rate at rest accounts for a whopping 60-75% of all calorie-burning in the body.

RMR refers to the amount of energy required and used by the body to maintain organ systems and body temperature (homeostasis). Because muscle tissue is the largest tissue in the entire body, there is a now a lot of interest in how RMR can be manipulated upwards through the development of more muscle. In other words, by building muscle your metabolism increases, which helps burn calories.

This is why resistance training is now included in many weight loss programmes. Very simply, if you grow and tone muscles by over-loading them, they become more active metabolically. This means that when you are at rest, e.g. sitting at your desk, lying down or just standing, you will burn more calories if you have more muscle on your body.

Wonderful – get the weights out ladies!

However, perhaps even more importantly, one of the most meaningful benefits of adding some resistance training into your weekly schedule is that it helps to prevent the loss of the muscle tissue you already have. This is even more important as we age.

Thermic Effects of Exercise and Physical Activity (TEPA):

Structured exercise (e.g. walking for 60 minutes) as well as non-structured movement (e.g. doing household chores), accounts for another few calories burnt. In fact, most research shows that 15-30% of total daily energy expenditure is accounted for by the energy required for structured and un-structured daily exercise.
It’s another reason why health messages targeting those who don’t do any structured activity, concentrate on ‘snack-tivity’ e.g. activity which is a response to daily lifestyles, e.g. walking to work; doing house-work; washing the car etc.

Most recently, this non-structured movement has been given the acronym NEAT.

It stands for Non-exercise Activity Thermogenesis and is the increase in temperature we gain from our lifestyle activity, which in turn influences our metabolic rate.
Turning up the intensity of your planned workouts contributes to greater TEPA as well. You will burn more calories by exercising more vigorously on some days (about twice weekly). Simply put, your heart rate, blood pressure and temperature are elevated higher during a more vigorous workout causing your internal metabolic rate to remain higher for longer AFTER the workout.

Even better, if you do your structured exercise in the morning prior to getting on with your day, your metabolism stays elevated for longer as the non-structured effect of activity kicks in. Many successful Exercise Specialists and Trainers know that manipulating calorie-burning for client’s means making the client work harder for longer. It’s all about intensity of effort and this is what inevitable gets great weight loss results in the longer term.

Thermic Effect of Feeding (TEF):

The final component in the energy expenditure equation relates to food – what we eat, when we eat and how much we eat!
TEF refers to the energy required for digestion, absorption, transport, metabolism (energy transfer) and storage of consumed food. In other words, it’s the internal energy required to move the muffin you eat into energy for movement or if you’re not moving much, to convert the components of the muffin (fatty acids and glucose) into fat storage areas!

This act of converting the food we eat into either energy or storage accounts for approximately 10-15% of daily calorie burn. It’s also the rationale behind the fact that people who don’t eat much, e.g. go on extreme diets or very low-calorie diets, are actually SLOWING down their metabolism. Very low calorie diets often fail because there are not enough calories consumed to fuel daily physical activity.

This under-feeding therefore leads to a diminished metabolism. In fact, some research has shown that restrictive diets are not only tough to maintain, but actually trigger mechanisms in the brain to suppress the body’s usual resting metabolic rate by as much as 20%.
So the ‘take-home’ news from this is – in order to speed up your metabolism you have to eat little and often.
But of course, the type of food we eat is also important.
So that all makes reasonable sense, right? But wait there’s more...

Despite the simplicity of the Energy Expenditure equation (TDEE = RMR + TEPA + TEF) unfortunately there is more to consider. Throughout our life stages, a host of factors influence our metabolism and potential for weight fluctuations. Apart from pregnancy, weight change with ageing is perhaps the influence that people literally see and feel the most. Increasing age equates to decreasing RMR (resting metabolic rate) as people generally become less active. Physical inactivity contributes to a loss of muscle over time and it is this aspect that researchers attribute an additional drop in RMR of 2-3%. This decrease can be minimised as we continue to age though. Regular resistance training and of course, aerobic exercise such as walking, works wonders!

And finally...
We cannot discuss metabolic rate and calorie-burning without mentioning some specific hormones. For those people under stress, including poor sleep patterns and insomnia, weight loss becomes harder. Adrenaline, the stress hormone, becomes elevated and over time, another hormone, Cortisol, kicks in when stress levels go into over-drive for long periods of time.

This hormone very simply encourages the body to retain fat stores rather than use fat for energy. It’s a complex issue, but getting off the stress-wagon, getting good quality sleep as well as eating fruit and veggies to get vital anti-oxidants are still the best undisputed strategies for building resilience, boosting metabolism and maintaining energy for life!

So kick that fad diet in the butt and follow this formula to really achieve the results you want!

Wendy Sweet