It takes less energy to convert fat you eat to stored fat than it does to convert other food.

I recently had a discussion with a friend who had watched a show on either the ABC or SBS. The documentary I was told, said it takes more energy to convert fat than sugar, so sugar is more of a problem than fat.

From what I've read this is not the case. The body is able to more easily convert fat to stored fat than sugar. From what I've read it takes around a tenth of the energy to convert fat to stored fat then sugar and other foods. Thus to me more energy is used from the food you eat that isn't fat and thus there is less energy that can be stored as fat.

According to the article for each 100 calories of fat it takes just 2.5 calories of energy to convert fat you eat to stored fat. Whereas it takes 23 calories of energy to convert glucose floating around in your bloodstream to stored fat. Sugar is converted to glucose as are carbohydrates. Thus the body uses around a tenth of the energy to store consumed fat to stored fat than it does glucose from sugar and other foods.

I can't say the ABC or SBS documentary was necessarily wrong because often what we hear we can interpret incorrectly. But I would suggest no matter whether you hear information from a commercial station or public station that you consider researching the information for confirmation. I hear so much misinformation the only way to know if the information is correct is to do your own independent research. I tend to trust .gov and .edu sites more than commercial domains, but I've also seen information on edu sites which could be much better. Simply gather information from a range of sites until you feel there is a consistent message. I saw one site which was reportedly by a doctor which was contrary to every other site I had read. When I then checked what the site was about I could see the site because of their agenda appeared to be deliberately promoting information to support their point of view, which wasn't backed by any other sites or research. Those sites become obvious sites you can dismiss. Many commercial sites have little desire other than to sell you something mixing half truths with good information only to promote their product.

From what I've learnt the main thing to consider is the energy content of the food it you wish to lose weight. Fat is more energy dense then non fat foods but this will be taken into account with the energy content of the food.

Knowing the body can convert fat nearly ten times more easily into stored fat than other foods is interesting. To put this into context consider what proportion of your daily intake is fat as compare to non-fat food. According to this article from the Heart Foundation , it is recommended that energy from the daily energy requirement be limited to around 20 to 35% and around 7% from saturated and trans fat. That means you shouldn't aim to eliminate fat, but to keep the fat intake at a reasonable level and of the fats known to be better for you.

This blog is about the maths behind weight loss and I don't claim any medical or nutritional focus. In essence, the higher your fat consumption the less energy the body uses to convert the excess fat to stored fat. If your body is receiving sufficient energy the excess fat you consume could potentially be stored as body fat more easily.

Now as I was writing this article a thought occurred to me. Perhaps there is some merit in what my friend was saying. Until now I've only read about the energy required to convert consumed fat or other foods into stored fat. But that is only half the story. If you eat fat and it is stored, to use the energy in that fat, it needs to be converted to glucose by the liver at a later time when needed and that would require energy. How much energy this requires I've not ascertained.

In keeping with Weight Loss Maths strategy you should focus your efforts where you get the greatest return for your efforts. One article I read indicates the energy required in converting excess energy to fat only amounts to around 5 per cent of your daily intake. To put that in context about the same as a chocolate biscuit. Whilst the complex processes in the body are interesting, when it comes to weight loss it is important to keep your focus on efforts which give you the best weight loss return. Not having a single biscuit a day is much easier than trying to work out the complex relationships in the chemical reactions occurring in the body.

A low energy diet will result in your losing weight. Reducing the energy which comes from undesirable fats could assist, but the difference won't be that great.

All we can however do easily is to ensure we keep our fat intake at the appropriate level and also consume the appropriate level of saturated and trans fat.

Kelvin Eldridge

 

I had a really big weekend where I partied, ate lots of food and had a few drinks. What should I do?

Be happy you enjoyed yourself. Life is too short to be too worried about breaking your diet. Just get back onto the diet and you'll find the effect of the excess food and drink won't hang around for very long.

What I found is if you do break your diet by having a night out, your weight does increase. I put some of this down to increased liquid, waste food in the intestines and some weight gain due to excess energy intake being converted to fat.

Liquid will pass through your body fairly quickly, but keep in mind waste in your intestines can take two to three days to pass through. All you then need to be concerned about is the energy converted to fat and chances are it wasn't really that much after all. In fact if you party on the Saturday and get back onto the diet, then by around Wednesday of the following week you'd generally find you're close to the weight you were before that great weekend.

There is a small chance you may still end up weighing less at the end of the week, but I wouldn't be concerned if you didn't.

The way I think about it is if I splurge, then the dieting for the week will counter the effect of the splurge. In effect it takes about a week after a splurge to get back to where you were.

That in itself is a good lesson. If you think about it, splurging once a week really means that week is written off in terms of losing weight but you still had to diet for the rest of the week. Not a great outcome really.

So where possible try not to splurge and you'll find the weight continues to come off. If you do splurge, just consider dieting for the week balances the splurge.

The difficult times tend to be Christmas and Easter where we can continue to eat treats over an extended period of time. It is very easy over the Christmas period to put on quite a few kilograms and it takes quite a lot of hard work to get that weight off. Watch those periods where those less nutritious food (OK, junk food) are available in plenty for an extended period of time.

Don't beat yourself over having a good time. Life is for living and you can't stop living just because you're dieting, but do try to keep those moments of excess to a minimum.

Recently it was my birthday and we went out as a family for a lovely meal and show. Followed with another day with relatives and other activities and I'd put on nearly a kilogram. Having also lost focus on dieting I tended to nibble a little more than desired. (OK, more like a binge on M&M's.) However, I largely kept to the diet and by the end of the week I was back to close to the weight I'd achieved the week before. When you fall off the horse don't worry. The horse will still be there. Just get back on when you're ready.

Kelvin Eldridge 

Why losing weight through exercise alone may never work for you.

When most of us think about losing weight we first think about making ourselves more active. We've put on weight and as our weight continues to climb we think the way to lose weight is to exercise. Visit a gym for a new membership and chances are the first thing they'll try to sell you on is losing that excess weight.

Forget it. It's a sales pitch which many people fall for.

Go to the gym to get fit, tone up and feel good, but when it comes to weight loss, it could be a very poor investment.

In the earlier post on why it appears males can lose weight easier than females, I mentioned the average weight of a male is 85.9 kg and a female is 71.1 kg. It is important to keep in mind when exercising, more often than not it involves moving our body. Try shifting a heavier object than a lifter object and you'll notice it takes more effort. The true is the same for our body. A heavier body uses more energy for the same exercise than a smaller body.

Let's say you get onto that walking machine and walk at the rate of 7 km/h for a hour. Using the Energy Exercise Calculator we can see the average male will use 1691 kJ and the average female 1400 kJ.

If exercising three times a week the average male would take 6.5 weeks to lose one kilogram of weight from fat loss and the average female would take 7.8 weeks . Yes. That's right, one to two months of exercising to lose just one kilogram of fat.

Often people who are putting on weight and only exercise without dieting. may find the excess food they are eating is more than the energy they're burning off through exercise. All they may end up doing is to slow down the rate their body is increasing in weight. They may never actually lose weight from dieting.

If when exercising you're drinking an energy drink. or rewarding yourself afterwards with a treat, then chances are much of the energy you've burned off through exercise is simply being replenished. Pretty tough hey.

Just keep in mind a snack of a muffin and coffee has more energy than an hour's exercising. It is much easier to so no to the muffin and coffee, than it is to exercise for an hour.

I recently saw on TV that when exercising, people need energy otherwise they may not feel well. An appropriate snack or light meal before the exercise can provide some of the energy required and enable the person to exercise for longer. Thus you can see there is probably a need to top up before exercising to get the most out of exercising.

The second thought to keep in mind, is we live and eat seven days a weeks but we only tend to exercise two or three times a week. Add up the energy for the exercise sessions for the week and divide by seven to obtain average exercise energy per day. For a male this would be 724 kJ and for the female 640 kJ. All it takes to negate the exercise in terms of weight loss is a coffee and a biscuit each day. Not much at all.

Where exercise can assist in weight loss is when you combine exercise with dieting. Get your diet in order first and then any weight loss benefit from exercising adds to the benefit you receive from dieting. Exercise only and don't get your diet into order and you may see little or no benefit.

Weight loss maths can make the picture clearer for you.

Use the BMI/BMR calculator to determine your daily dieting energy intake. Work out the difference between what you'd normally need for your body and the dieting energy intake. Then add the energy consumed from exercise and you'll work out the energy reduced and consumed from dieting and exercise.

For example. The average male dieting has reduced their intake by 3533 kJ plus 640 kJ (three exercise sessions a week averaged over seven days) which gives 4173 kJ per day. Dividing 4173 into 33000 kJ (the amount of energy in 1 kg of fat) and we can estimate the average male can lose a kilogram in just over a week.

What is also important to notice is the effect of the dieting compared to exercising. Dieting has over four times the effect of exercise. This is why when considering dieting and exercise, 80% of weight loss is through diet and 20% is through exercise.

In business people always reference the 80/20 rule. You get 80% of your revenue from 20% of your efforts. The same is true for losing weight. It is best to focus your efforts where you'll get the biggest return.

Kelvin Eldridge 

How does Lite n' East compare to Weight Loss Maths?

I continue to review weight loss programs with regards to the maths behind the program. I decided to shout a person two weeks on the Lite n' Easy program.

First Lite n' Easy is a packaged approach to losing weight. You choose the calorie intake you want for your diet and then the food is packaged to enable you to consume the required number of calories or kilojoules. Lite n' Easy is thus simply dieting at the appropriate level of energy intake with the convenience of having the food packaged for you.

There really is not much more to Lite n' Easy. But there is a catch. If you don't investigate the maths behind the program and check out what is right for you, you could easily end up with not meeting your objectives. Dieting is about reducing your energy intake. If you don't reduce your energy intake enough, the results won't be there and you won't lose weight fast enough.

The second issue with Lite n' Easy is it is expensive. The program cost for a single person is around the same as you'd pay to feed a family. That's pretty expensive.

The advantages however is that everything is largely done for you. You receive packages of food and all you have to do is stick to the food you're provided, and as long as you've chosen the appropriate energy intake, you will lose weight. The Lite n' Easy diet also provides a good variety of food which can keep dieting interesting.

The problem however is if you don't take the opportunity to think about the food you're receiving, then at some point you'll come unstuck. You'll either have to continue on Lite n' Easy, regularly return to the program, or most likely put on weight when you finish the program.

Lite n' Easy reduces your energy intake and if you discontinue the program then you are the person who needs to reduce your energy intake to continue to lose weight. Also, once people stop dieting they often return to their previous food intake level and as a result put the weight straight back on.

Overall Lite n' Easy does work. It is expensive contrary to what the marketing would have you believe, but it won't educate you, which means you could end depending on the program to keep your weight off and that isn't a good long term dieting strategy.

Initially the person I shouted was going to use a higher level daily energy intake. What I then did was use the BMR/BMI calculator to determine what their daily energy intake level should be and how much weight they could expect to lose when using Lite n' Easy.

The maths really is very simple. Work out what your daily energy intake should be. Then take each of the 1800, 1500 and 1200 Calorie plan levels, convert to kilojoules, then subtract the plan level from your daily energy intake. Divide this number into 33,000 and you'll get the number of days it will take to lose one kilogram. Pick a program too high and you'll hardly notice the difference in your weight.

For example. It is said the average person (whatever that may be) requires 8,700 kJ per day. The 1800, 1500, and 1200 Calories a day need to be multiplied by 4.2 to convert from Calories to kilojoules. This gives us 7560, 6300 and 5040 respectively. Thus for each level the reduction in kilojoules for an average person would be 1140, 2400 and 3660 respectively.

This means if an average person was on the Lite n' Easy diet at the 1800, 1500, 1200 Calorie level, they could expect to take around 29, 14 and 9 days respectively to lose one kilogram of weight. Most people wouldn't consider one kilogram to be much weight, so you don't want to take nearly a month to lose your first kilogram, otherwise you'll lose interest very quickly.

Keep in mind the first week, if you stick to any diet, will always give you a better than expected outcome. One reason I suspect is you've reduced the amount of food in your digestive track as well as the initial weight loss. The second week will be more in line with what you would expect to lose.

With the Lite n' Easy program make sure you do the maths before you start and that way you'll have a better understanding and appreciation of what you'll achieve. Whilst people may find it hard to accept, if they are losing half a kilogram a week they are doing well.

Kelvin Eldridge