Tim Bennett

YOUR WEIGHT DOESN’T LIE

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It can tell a few fibs here and there though.



The first thing to understand is that fat isn’t the only part of your body that weighs something.

Now, you’re probably thinking that I’ve just made a really silly, waste of your time kind of a point.

But think about it.

When you jump on the scales and your weight has gone up, what’s the only thing that you consider could have increased your weight?

Yeah, that’s what I thought.

Ok, so what are some other things that could be affecting your weight in the short term.

Fat is the go to when we think of energy storage in the body, but carbohydrates can be stored too, as glycogen.

Stored glycogen can be found in your liver and skeletal muscle among other places.

And for each gram of glycogen stored in your body, three times that weight in water is stored.

So if you were in an energy deficit, say by lowering your carbohydrate intake, you’d start to lose fat but also a some of your stored glycogen.

And for each gram of glycogen you lose, you're losing say three grams of water.


That’s why you’ll see a drastic drop in the early stages of a deficit, especially noticeable on a diet that rhymes with ‘shmeeto’.

Then, when you have a day where calories are up higher and you’re taking more carbs in, your body starts stockpiling glycogen along with three grams of water per gram.



And you have a nice little weight spike right there.

Or how about salt?

If you take in a lot of salt in a day, it will cause the salinity in your body to increase.

This will cause you to feel real thirsty, because the way you can decrease the relative salinity in your body is to dilute it.

So you drink a heap of water and because of that, you’re holding more water (which weighs something) and you have another weight spike there.

We could go into more depth but I’m running out of characters, and I’m sure you get the idea by this point.

If you have any questions or feedback, chuck them in the comments below.

And I feel awkward asking, but if you did read this I’d love it if you gave it a like, a comment and even a cheeky share. 



All that goes a long way to getting this in front of more eyes.

ENERGY BALANCE 101

There’s more to life than losing weight. 



A lot more.

Weight management however consumes a lot of our thoughts.



This is in large part to a lack of understanding about the mechanics of energy balance, and how that affects your weight.

Let’s break it down quickly, so you can see where your energy comes from and where it goes.



The things you do in a day fall into two categories when it comes to energy. You’re either taking it in or you’re using it.

Now, let’s look at what you’re doing and which category it falls into.

Did you wake up this morning?

You did? 



That’s amazing and you’re very lucky. It also means that you have a Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). Your BMR is the amount of energy it takes to run your body for the day without taking movement into account. BMR is just the cost of keeping organs running and that sort of thing. It’s also your biggest cost in terms of energy expenditure.



At some point in time after you wake up (maybe a very distant point in time) you’ll get up and start moving around, go to the toilet, make a coffee, etc.

All this general movement through the day falls into the category of Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT). NEAT will be the second highest energy cost for your body during the day, and is obviously heavily affected by your lifestyle.



Ok, so you’ve had your coffee and then bolted to the toilet (NEAT) for an emergency p**p. Then it’s off to the gym for a training session. 



Your specific training sessions are classified as Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (EAT). Now for most of you training once per day for about an hour, EAT is going to cost much less energy than NEAT for the day. Although the intensity of EAT is going to be higher meaning you use a lot of energy for that time, you have fifteen more hours of NEAT and that energy cost is constantly ticking over every time you move.



Now, where does all that energy you’re using come from?



The energy you’re consuming through the day.



This energy comes from anything consumed, be it solid, liquid or in between. It comes from carbohydrates, fat and protein. Even alcohol has energy.



Speaking of the energy you’re consuming, your body has one more energy cost for the day. 

It takes energy to digest food and this is called the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF). Different macronutrients have different energy costs to digest, with protein being relatively high and fat being very low for example.


The combination of BMR, NEAT, EAT, TEF comprises your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).



Alright, so now you have a quick overview of where your comes from and where it goes in a day.



So what does all this tell us?



If your energy intake is lower than your TDEE, then you’ll lose weight because your body has to dip into its energy stores. 



What can happen though, is when you haven’t eaten enough you feel pretty low energy and which leads to you not moving around as much. That would lower your TDEE to bridge the gap in energy, which would mean you wouldn’t lose weight.



I know, what the f**k right?



I didn’t add that bit to ruin your day, but it’s important to be aware of because then you can make sure it doesn’t catch you out.



If your energy intake is above TDEE, then you’ll gain weight as stored energy.



If your energy intake is equal to TDEE, then you’ll stick.



Tah dah!



Not really tah dah though because as you can see, there’s nothing magic about it.

DIET BREAKS. WHAT ARE THEY AND SHOULD YOU IMPLEMENT THEM?

A break from your fat loss diet that improves your results.

Sounds pretty sweet huh?

When you’re dieting for fat loss, you need to put your body into an energy deficit. Once in this deficit, your body will start to respond in a number of ways.

One of these ways is the one you’re after, by using energy stores like body fat. Another response is to try to conserve energy by lowering your energy expenditure.

At this point, it’s important to remember that your body doesn’t give a toss that you want to get lean.

It’s set up for survival, pure and simple.

So when your body senses that you’re not taking in the energy that you need, one of the ways it adapts is to find ways to reduce your energy expenditure.

It makes sense when you think about it.

Wasting away to nothing isn’t a great survival tactic, but conserving energy to prolong life for as long as possible is a pretty solid one.

A diet break serves to mitigate that response in your body, temporarily removing the input that you’re starving by increasing energy intake up to maintenance levels intermittently throughout your diet.

In a 2017 study (1), an energy deficit with intermittent diet breaks (versus a consistent energy deficit) was shown to increase both the amount of weight lost during sixteen weeks in a deficit as well as slightly reducing the amount of weight regained up to six months following the intervention.

So should you implement diet breaks?

I’d say they’re definitely worth a look, both for improved short term results and longer term sustainability.

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1. Byrne, N., Sainsbury, A., King, N. et al. Intermittent energy restriction improves weight loss efficiency in obese men: the MATADOR study. Int J Obes 42, 129–138 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2017.206

Progress? Slowgress more like.

I reckon that the speed of your body transformation is inversely proportional to the sustainability of your results long term.

Basically, the quicker your transformation, the less likely you’ll hold onto it.

Thoughts?

‘But what about when...’

‘Yep, then too.’

Lockdown progress. Trying to slowly get leaner and spare maximum muscle mass, so protein is high and deficit is still in effect but not super aggressive. Sitting at eighty fiveish kilograms here.

Making faces. Strains are where the gains are.

If you’re a coach and you’re programming things for good reason, you’ve got nothing to fear from this question.

That’s it. I’m coming out of stage four, plus some traps and minus some neck length. Sixty kilograms for two hundred and fifty metres.

The health game is changing.

It's not enough anymore to put you on a meal plan, make you sweat a couple of times a week, get some weight off and then repeat the process in six months when things fall apart again.

You deserve to be educated about all aspects of your health, so that you have the tools to take control of it yourself.

Your coach should be helping you gain independence, not holding on to the tools so that you're completely dependent on them.

I'd really encourage you to start asking questions of your coach.

How would this work?

Why does this matter?

What do your health practices, training, etc, look like?

They should be (and I hope I speak for every truly passionate coach out there) more than happy to teach you the ins and outs of their own health practices and their methodologies.

I'm currently offering free initial consultation calls for online coaching.

If you'd like to start taking control of your health, or even if you're not sure, I'd really encourage you to click the link below or message the page to book in your call.

What have you got to lose?

https://timbennettcoach.com/coaching

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Nothing wrong with pushing, but if you’re pushing off unstable foundations it’s unlikely to end well.

Do you ever wonder what's worth your attention when it comes to your health?

Or when a spanner gets thrown in the works (say a pandemic), do you find yourself feeling like you've lost control?

You're not the only one.

Here's a few thoughts about what's worthy of your time.

**FREE ONLINE COACHING CALL** https://timbennettcoach.com/coaching

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Progress is rarely linear.

Not saying it’s necessarily easy, but it’s certainly not complicated.

How often do you just play around when you train?

Fun is a super underrated component of training.

Hit the link below and book your online coaching call to mix things up.

https://timbennettcoach.com/coaching/