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3DMUSCLEJOURNEY - Science Blog - May 2011
May 2011 - The Energy Balance Equation: Why doesn’t it seem to add up?
You hear it all the time, arguments on whether a “calorie is a calorie” or whether all foods are created equal, or whether you should eat more fat or more carbs. People swear they get leaner eating a greater percentage of calories from fat, or a greater percentage from carbohydrate. Sometimes you will even hear of 190lbs bodybuilders not losing weight eating 1500 calories and doing cardio. It would be foolish to dismiss all of this as people simply misreporting food intake (although this frequently happens), because as a coach and as an athlete I have seen and experienced it firsthand. So, what gives? Isn’t it as simple as: calories eaten minus calories burned equals your caloric deficit and thus how much weight you will lose?
The answer is yes, however this equation has a hidden complexity that most fail to acknowledge. There are two sides to the energy balance equation: caloric expenditure, and caloric intake. If you can measure both accurately (and that’s a big “if”), you should be able to predict weight loss or gain. However, what is often not realized is that caloric intake directly affects caloric expenditure. Meaning, that what you eat, its macronutrient composition and your individual hormonal response to that intake and composition changes how many calories you expend. Your genetics, how lean you are, the diet you have been on, how long you’ve been on the diet, your training, how long you’ve been training and also some specific micronutrient deficiencies can all impact how, and to what degree your caloric expenditure is changed by your food intake. Addressing all of these variables is beyond the scope of this article (or any other article of reasonable length) because of how numerous and complex these variables are. But, to give you an idea of just how much some people can be affected, I will give you some case studies of actual clients we’ve worked with that I know for a fact were accurately reporting their food intake, and were maintaining their daily activity outside of the gym.
Case Study A: 26 year old male amateur natural bodybuilder, goal of competition
Weight Training: 5 days/week low to moderate volume, moderately high to high intensity
Starting Food Intake: 6 days a week at 2150 calories, 50g fat, 200g carbs, 225g protein and 1 day a week at 2805 calories, 45g fat, 400g carbs and 200g protein.
Starting Cardio: 1 20min High Intensity Interval Training session and 2 Moderate Intensity Steady State cardio sessions of 400 calories each per week.
Progress on the above protocol: Weight and body fat dropped consistently, but with intermittent plateaus. To break each plateau cardio was added or food intake was reduced. At about a bodyweight of 168lbs a very stubborn plateau was hit, during which the bodybuilder’s weight did not drop for nearly 3 weeks. The following adjustments were needed eventually to break the plateau and progress to about 164lbs. This was a slow and difficult period in comparison to earlier progress. As you can see below, about 300 calories a day were reduced from his diet and his cardio volume was tripled:
Lowest Food Intake: 6 days a week at 1860 calories, 40g fat, 150g carbs and 225g protein and 1 day a week at 2660 calories, 40g fat, 375g carbs, and 200g protein.
Highest Cardio: 1 25min HIIT sessions, and 6 MISS sessions of 500 calories each per week.
Results: Once he hit 164lbs, we changed directions with his diet and cardio. At this point we incrementallyincreased his carb intake eventually to 6 days a week at 300g and one day a week at 420g while HIIT cardio was eliminated and MISS cardio was reduced to 5 days a week for 500 calories each session. Weight loss increased to 1lb-1.5lbs/week (from at its slowest losing less than 1lb/week) even hitting an eventual depleted low of 157lbs!
He started at 178lbs and finished at 158-160lbs after 22 weeks. By the end he was eating 1.5x his starting carb intake
So what the heck happened here? He ended up with his carbs 100 grams higher on low days then when he started the diet 20lbs heavier! At this point he was losing weight faster than when his carbs were 150g lower with more cardio being done. It doesn’t seem to add up does it?
What we have to understand is that his insulin sensitivity, internal hormonal environment, leptin response, thyroid response, how much energy was expended due to lethargy, subconscious posture and random activity, and how much energy was expended in the gym had all drastically changed due to the diet and his body fat level. Thus, his body’s reaction to food increasing greatly changed his caloric expenditure, creating a super-compensation effect. While on lower calories his body was burning less and less and once calories were increased, the opposite happened. So much so, that the caloric deficit actually increased in a greater proportion to the amount that food was increased!
Case Study B: 40 year old 250lb male ex pro athlete and weight lifter, goal of weight loss
Weight Training: 5 days/week, 3 days moderate volume high intensity dedicated to the big three, the other 2 days moderate volume and intensity accessory work
Starting Food Intake: 6 days a week at 2830 calories, 70g fat, 300g carbs, 250g protein and 1 day a week 3340 calories, 60g fat, 450g carbs, and 250g protein.
Starting Cardio: 3 MISS sessions of 400 calories each per week.
Progress on above protocol: Client lost absolutely no weight for a month. Intake was progressively reduced to 2540 calories, 60g fat, 250g carbs and 250g protein 6 days a week and 3050 calories, 50g fat, 400g carbs and 250g protein 1 day a week. Cardio was increased by adding two more 400 calorie sessions per week. Again, no weight was lost whatsoever.
Next Step: The client was evaluated. It came to light that the client was born prematurely, at 13lbs! The mother likely had gestational diabetes, and he reported feeling “off” when eating higher carbs and more sugary foods. It was determined that the client likely did not have a favorable hormonal response to higher carb intakes, and a different approach was taken. Total caloric expenditure from cardio was kept constant but intensity was reduced, and caloric intake was changed to 2630 calories, 70g fat, 200g carbs and 300g protein 6 days a week and 3030 calories, 70g of fat, 350g of carbs and 300g of protein. His caloric expenditure from cardio was unchanged, and his caloric intake increased by 520 calories per week, hardly substantial considering it would take a 3500 calorie change weekly to elicit a 1lb change on the scale. But, despite the slight increase he began losing ~2lbs per week!
This guy had unique genetics, standing with (and behind) 4 bodybuilders (3 of whom are pros); he’s still the widest by far!
This one seems absolutely ridiculous. Unlike case study A, this was not a bodybuilder getting incredibly lean and depleted and being able to play with metabolic super compensation, insulin response, glycogen storage and a changing ability to expend energy in the gym. Instead, this was an overweight man, going from no weight loss, to losing 2lbs per week by simply changing his macronutrient ratios with nearly no change in caloric intake!
What gives? Well, it’s important to note this is a very unique case. The combination of being born prematurely at 13lbs (that’s huge for babies born on time!), his bone structure being huge for his height, his ethnicity, his age, and the fact that his mother had gestational diabetes, means that likely his insulin response to carbohydrate is very far outside of the norm. So far in fact, that by just shifting around his percentages, it drastically increased his caloric expenditure. It’s important to note that he had a personal chef who was a bodybuilder during this period cooking all of his meals who reported directly to us (who is also a client of ours), so there was little question to the accuracy of his reported intake.
Case Study C: 183lbs 21 year old male, beginning weight lifter, goal of gaining muscle with minimal fat gain
Weight Training: 3 times per week, full body each session, low volume, moderate intensity
Cardio: 2 MISS sessions per week on off days, 400 calories burned
Nutrition: Calories and macronutrients had two different values, one for off days, and one for training days. Weekly caloric daily average was 2700 calories.
Progress on above protocol: Weight was maintained, strength increased. Weight only increased when creatine was added, then leveled off and maintained.
Next Step: To cause weight gain, carb intake on training days (three days per week) was increased by 15g. This is only a 60 calorie per day increase, and only on three days of the week (180 calories added per week). Weight increased by 2lbs and the client began to look visibly leaner! Client then made the statement “I guess there is more to this than thermodynamics and calories in versus calories out!” I explained to him that actually, it all is thermodynamics and the calorie balance equation, but that his input changed his output along with a few other things happening. Based on this conversation, I decided to write this article.
So what’s going on with this guy? Although this seems like just as much of an anomaly as the other cases, this one is actually much more easily explained.
As his body adapts to an increased training volume, and an increased carb intake, his body increases its capacity to store muscle glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the muscle and for every stored gram of carbohydrate three grams of water are stored with it. As glycogen builds its storage capacity is increased allowing for even more carbohydrate to be stored. Over time a disproportionate amount of weight is gained relative to the caloric intake. This occurs because he’s not storing just the ingested calories, but also added water weight in the muscle cell from what is following the glycogen. He looks leaner because the ingested calories are being primarily stored as muscle glycogen (not fat), thus his muscles are getting engorged with carbs and water, stretching his skin and showing his cuts more prominently. Thus, he gains weight from a seemingly insignificant caloric increase and he looks leaner.
It’s also important to note that as a beginner the rate of muscle gain, and the ability to put on muscle while maintaining, and sometimes dropping body fat levels, is the best it will ever be.
The good old days when there was so much progress to be had!
In closing, thermodynamics is not wrong or incomplete, and a calorie of course is a calorie. What must be remembered though is that caloric intake and caloric expenditure do not exist in a vacuum. They directly and sometimes drastically affect one another, and it’s important to experiment to find out what is optimal for you for both fat loss and muscle gain.
May 2011 - The Energy Balance Equation: Why doesn’t it seem to add up?
You hear it all the time, arguments on whether a “calorie is a calorie” or whether all foods are created equal, or whether you should eat more fat or more carbs. People swear they get leaner eating a greater percentage of calories from fat, or a greater percentage from carbohydrate. Sometimes you will even hear of 190lbs bodybuilders not losing weight eating 1500 calories and doing cardio. It would be foolish to dismiss all of this as people simply misreporting food intake (although this frequently happens), because as a coach and as an athlete I have seen and experienced it firsthand. So, what gives? Isn’t it as simple as: calories eaten minus calories burned equals your caloric deficit and thus how much weight you will lose?
The answer is yes, however this equation has a hidden complexity that most fail to acknowledge. There are two sides to the energy balance equation: caloric expenditure, and caloric intake. If you can measure both accurately (and that’s a big “if”), you should be able to predict weight loss or gain. However, what is often not realized is that caloric intake directly affects caloric expenditure. Meaning, that what you eat, its macronutrient composition and your individual hormonal response to that intake and composition changes how many calories you expend. Your genetics, how lean you are, the diet you have been on, how long you’ve been on the diet, your training, how long you’ve been training and also some specific micronutrient deficiencies can all impact how, and to what degree your caloric expenditure is changed by your food intake. Addressing all of these variables is beyond the scope of this article (or any other article of reasonable length) because of how numerous and complex these variables are. But, to give you an idea of just how much some people can be affected, I will give you some case studies of actual clients we’ve worked with that I know for a fact were accurately reporting their food intake, and were maintaining their daily activity outside of the gym.
Case Study A: 26 year old male amateur natural bodybuilder, goal of competition
Weight Training: 5 days/week low to moderate volume, moderately high to high intensity
Starting Food Intake: 6 days a week at 2150 calories, 50g fat, 200g carbs, 225g protein and 1 day a week at 2805 calories, 45g fat, 400g carbs and 200g protein.
Starting Cardio: 1 20min High Intensity Interval Training session and 2 Moderate Intensity Steady State cardio sessions of 400 calories each per week.
Progress on the above protocol: Weight and body fat dropped consistently, but with intermittent plateaus. To break each plateau cardio was added or food intake was reduced. At about a bodyweight of 168lbs a very stubborn plateau was hit, during which the bodybuilder’s weight did not drop for nearly 3 weeks. The following adjustments were needed eventually to break the plateau and progress to about 164lbs. This was a slow and difficult period in comparison to earlier progress. As you can see below, about 300 calories a day were reduced from his diet and his cardio volume was tripled:
Lowest Food Intake: 6 days a week at 1860 calories, 40g fat, 150g carbs and 225g protein and 1 day a week at 2660 calories, 40g fat, 375g carbs, and 200g protein.
Highest Cardio: 1 25min HIIT sessions, and 6 MISS sessions of 500 calories each per week.
Results: Once he hit 164lbs, we changed directions with his diet and cardio. At this point we incrementallyincreased his carb intake eventually to 6 days a week at 300g and one day a week at 420g while HIIT cardio was eliminated and MISS cardio was reduced to 5 days a week for 500 calories each session. Weight loss increased to 1lb-1.5lbs/week (from at its slowest losing less than 1lb/week) even hitting an eventual depleted low of 157lbs!
He started at 178lbs and finished at 158-160lbs after 22 weeks. By the end he was eating 1.5x his starting carb intake
So what the heck happened here? He ended up with his carbs 100 grams higher on low days then when he started the diet 20lbs heavier! At this point he was losing weight faster than when his carbs were 150g lower with more cardio being done. It doesn’t seem to add up does it?
What we have to understand is that his insulin sensitivity, internal hormonal environment, leptin response, thyroid response, how much energy was expended due to lethargy, subconscious posture and random activity, and how much energy was expended in the gym had all drastically changed due to the diet and his body fat level. Thus, his body’s reaction to food increasing greatly changed his caloric expenditure, creating a super-compensation effect. While on lower calories his body was burning less and less and once calories were increased, the opposite happened. So much so, that the caloric deficit actually increased in a greater proportion to the amount that food was increased!
Case Study B: 40 year old 250lb male ex pro athlete and weight lifter, goal of weight loss
Weight Training: 5 days/week, 3 days moderate volume high intensity dedicated to the big three, the other 2 days moderate volume and intensity accessory work
Starting Food Intake: 6 days a week at 2830 calories, 70g fat, 300g carbs, 250g protein and 1 day a week 3340 calories, 60g fat, 450g carbs, and 250g protein.
Starting Cardio: 3 MISS sessions of 400 calories each per week.
Progress on above protocol: Client lost absolutely no weight for a month. Intake was progressively reduced to 2540 calories, 60g fat, 250g carbs and 250g protein 6 days a week and 3050 calories, 50g fat, 400g carbs and 250g protein 1 day a week. Cardio was increased by adding two more 400 calorie sessions per week. Again, no weight was lost whatsoever.
Next Step: The client was evaluated. It came to light that the client was born prematurely, at 13lbs! The mother likely had gestational diabetes, and he reported feeling “off” when eating higher carbs and more sugary foods. It was determined that the client likely did not have a favorable hormonal response to higher carb intakes, and a different approach was taken. Total caloric expenditure from cardio was kept constant but intensity was reduced, and caloric intake was changed to 2630 calories, 70g fat, 200g carbs and 300g protein 6 days a week and 3030 calories, 70g of fat, 350g of carbs and 300g of protein. His caloric expenditure from cardio was unchanged, and his caloric intake increased by 520 calories per week, hardly substantial considering it would take a 3500 calorie change weekly to elicit a 1lb change on the scale. But, despite the slight increase he began losing ~2lbs per week!
This guy had unique genetics, standing with (and behind) 4 bodybuilders (3 of whom are pros); he’s still the widest by far!
This one seems absolutely ridiculous. Unlike case study A, this was not a bodybuilder getting incredibly lean and depleted and being able to play with metabolic super compensation, insulin response, glycogen storage and a changing ability to expend energy in the gym. Instead, this was an overweight man, going from no weight loss, to losing 2lbs per week by simply changing his macronutrient ratios with nearly no change in caloric intake!
What gives? Well, it’s important to note this is a very unique case. The combination of being born prematurely at 13lbs (that’s huge for babies born on time!), his bone structure being huge for his height, his ethnicity, his age, and the fact that his mother had gestational diabetes, means that likely his insulin response to carbohydrate is very far outside of the norm. So far in fact, that by just shifting around his percentages, it drastically increased his caloric expenditure. It’s important to note that he had a personal chef who was a bodybuilder during this period cooking all of his meals who reported directly to us (who is also a client of ours), so there was little question to the accuracy of his reported intake.
Case Study C: 183lbs 21 year old male, beginning weight lifter, goal of gaining muscle with minimal fat gain
Weight Training: 3 times per week, full body each session, low volume, moderate intensity
Cardio: 2 MISS sessions per week on off days, 400 calories burned
Nutrition: Calories and macronutrients had two different values, one for off days, and one for training days. Weekly caloric daily average was 2700 calories.
Progress on above protocol: Weight was maintained, strength increased. Weight only increased when creatine was added, then leveled off and maintained.
Next Step: To cause weight gain, carb intake on training days (three days per week) was increased by 15g. This is only a 60 calorie per day increase, and only on three days of the week (180 calories added per week). Weight increased by 2lbs and the client began to look visibly leaner! Client then made the statement “I guess there is more to this than thermodynamics and calories in versus calories out!” I explained to him that actually, it all is thermodynamics and the calorie balance equation, but that his input changed his output along with a few other things happening. Based on this conversation, I decided to write this article.
So what’s going on with this guy? Although this seems like just as much of an anomaly as the other cases, this one is actually much more easily explained.
As his body adapts to an increased training volume, and an increased carb intake, his body increases its capacity to store muscle glycogen. Glycogen is stored in the muscle and for every stored gram of carbohydrate three grams of water are stored with it. As glycogen builds its storage capacity is increased allowing for even more carbohydrate to be stored. Over time a disproportionate amount of weight is gained relative to the caloric intake. This occurs because he’s not storing just the ingested calories, but also added water weight in the muscle cell from what is following the glycogen. He looks leaner because the ingested calories are being primarily stored as muscle glycogen (not fat), thus his muscles are getting engorged with carbs and water, stretching his skin and showing his cuts more prominently. Thus, he gains weight from a seemingly insignificant caloric increase and he looks leaner.
It’s also important to note that as a beginner the rate of muscle gain, and the ability to put on muscle while maintaining, and sometimes dropping body fat levels, is the best it will ever be.
The good old days when there was so much progress to be had!
In closing, thermodynamics is not wrong or incomplete, and a calorie of course is a calorie. What must be remembered though is that caloric intake and caloric expenditure do not exist in a vacuum. They directly and sometimes drastically affect one another, and it’s important to experiment to find out what is optimal for you for both fat loss and muscle gain.
