I’ve read a lot of stuff on how to bulk up or lose weight and I found out that it is simpler than it seems. If you can get passed all the bullshit of the marketing machines, the people, and companies trying to sell you something to get good results, you’ll realize that all you really need is discipline, a calculator (optional) and a weighing scale.
First off I don’t believe in “going on a diet” because if you “go on” a diet you’ll eventually “get off” it. I look at it in a different perspective. I see it as developing a sustainable moderation of the quality and quantity of food I eat.
Now on to business…
The healthy way to lose or gain weight is about a pound a week. This benchmark allows our bodies to lose or gain weight while still maintaining a sound state. To lose or gain weight we just need to eat 500 calories less (if we are trying to lose weight) or more (if we are trying to gain weight) of our TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure). to know your TDEE you’ll first need to know your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). It is basically the minimum calorie requirement your body needs to function. You can use the following formula to calculate for it:
English BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) – ( 6.8 x age in year )Metric BMR Formula
Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) – ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) – ( 6.8 x age in years )
Now to calculate your TDEE: all you need to do is to multiply your BMR against an activity multiplier:
- Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
- Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
- Moderately active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
- Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
- Extremely. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)
For example my BMR is 1560 so my TDEE is 2,701 (1560 x 1.725). So if I like to lose weight I should only have about 2,201 calories per day, If I want to gain weight I’d have to consume 3,201 calories a day. This will make my body gain/lose 1 pound a week. Now what you eat to get those calories in is entirely up to you Just make sure you get the right stuff your body needs to function properly.
This is just an estimation but it gives you a good baseline. It’s relatively easy to do and free! Don’t get sucked into the hype of diet products/pills… there is no substitute for hard work.
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You might also want to compute the number of cells you have in your body. An average bone mass of a male is 15% of his weight. 12% for female.
The average molecular weight of a living molecule is 100 u. To divide the weight, water is 70%, protein is 15%, carbs is 3%, Nucleotides is 1%, others is 11%.
If you weigh 80 kilograms or 80,000 kilograms, remove 15% of bones (68,000), divided by 100 u, equals 680 moles. Multply with avocado renders a fruit of unsaturated fat. But multiply with Avogadro’s number, 6.022 x 10^23, you get, 4,095 x 10^23 molecules of living cell, made up of hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, carbon, phophorus and sulfur.
Whenever you move, ATP is converted to energy, which is a nucleotide. And so each muscle cell lose at most 1% of its weight during an exercise. ATP is reproduced via breaking down of sugar and lipids. And so ATP is imediately reproduced, thus nullifying whatever this paragraph tried to point out.
In conclusion, therefore, Mike is right. There is no substitute for hard work.
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