Location is to real estate what portions are to weight management. This brings me to the question of the week: What is your caloric comfort level? At what calorie load do you feel satisfied/dissatisfied?
I’m at week 5 of administering a weight loss program for the corporate fitness center that I manage. I call this ‘quit week’ because the novelty of the program has worn off, the day to day eating less and exercising more has begun to grate on them, and on top of it all, the weight is coming off slowly, even for those that are 100 percent compliant-two pounds/week, tops. As their health coach and physiologist it’s perfect, but to them it can be agonizing. The discomfort involved in creating a 500-calorie deficit per day (through exercise and diet) is significant. Blow it tomorrow, and it’s a wash.
Wax on, wax off. If it was easy, we’d all be reasonably trim. It’s not possible to live under your means (a requirement of weight loss) and not eventually feel the squeeze. Nearly all of my 70 participants wanted to set their 10-week weight loss goal at the max: 20 pounds. I dissuaded most of them to set a more realistic goal, but for those who wouldn’t budge, I let them enter the gates of caloric deprivation with a watchful eye for their return.
What many don’t consider is what it’s going to be like trying to consistently lose two pounds a week. I’m not talking about the part where you get to hop onto the scale and cheer your progress, I’m talking about what it takes in terms of calorie reduction and exercise. For an average female who exercises 3x/week for an hour to lose two pounds/week, her calorie budget will range around 1,300 or 1,400 cal/day. She may set that two-pound loss goal (who wouldn’t?) but when she actually starts living it … that’s a whole different story. She’d be better off setting her goal at a pound/week, where her daily calorie budget will be a much more reasonable 1,800-1,900.
My participants use software to track their nutrition and exercise so they can stay within their allotted calorie budget. Their calorie budget is derived by measuring their resting metabolism, then calculating their average daily caloric expenditure at work and home. They frequently notice two things: living with 1,500 calories is like living at a monastery after staying at the Taj Mahal. It’s sparse, and since most of us really do like to eat, this is hard. Second, without exercise, many of them simply cannot attain the caloric deficit required for the weight loss goal they’ve set. Many of them are beginning to see that daily exercise ‘buys them some calories’ and allows them to take in 1,800 cal/day (women) or 2,200 cal/day (men). This usually gets them to their caloric comfort level, a critical factor for sticking with it!
The only way to weight loss is through caloric deficit and there is no proper way to speed it up. Weight loss requires some discomfort, so be realistic when setting your goal in terms of rate of loss so that you can actually live with the plan that will get you to your goal.