Energy Out

Your body uses energy every day; eating, sleeping, running, lifting, working will use varying amounts of energy. Everyone is different, so it is difficult to be exact about energy expenditure without sending you to a lab. We can estimate though and this is what most apps and weight loss programs do to "personalise" your program.

There are several ways of estimating your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) using lean body composition or a basic calculation using your weight, sex, etc. such as the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation.

For men:

BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) + 5

For women:

BMR = 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (years) – 161

This is the basic number of calories used in a 24 hr period by your body, to live.

We then need to factor in exertion. This can be in the form of exercise or NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis) sometimes NEPA (Non Exercise Physical Activity).

Or, it includes the thermic effect of food. That is to say, digestion of different foods requires different amounts of energy exertion to gain the energy from that food. And no, celery doesn't contain a negative number of calories... but it has recently come to light that our understanding of the digestion of different foods could be approximate only. The Walnut effect is a term used due to a study conducted in conduction with Californian Walnuts which showed that when eaten whole, participants did not gain as much energy as we would expect when mincing the same nut and using the traditional methods to determine energy contained.

Will the walnut effect make much different to you? Probably not, but it's a good idea, given this concept to eat food in the least processed form if trying to reduce weight and for health.

What I would like to warn you of, is the fact that most programs estimate your energy requirement, and the energy you will utilise in your exercise. So it is always good to eat to an approximated energy requirement first, make sure you don't gain or lose and then start factoring in a reduction or increase, that is of course, unless you've been lying in a lab getting tested after 8 hours rest on an empty stomach, then you've probably got a good idea of where you're at right now.