Dieting for Weight Loss by the Numbers: Build Muscle and Loose fat

Now for the nuts and bolts of tweaking your weight loss diet to loose more fat and to maintain muscle mass or even build muscle while at the same time loosing weight.

First you need a good estimate of your maintenance calorie intake (the amount of calories that your body requires in order to maintain your current bodyweight. There are a number of ways to estimate this-follow this link to ESTIMATE YOUR BMR. Let's assume, for the sake of argument, however, that your maintenance calorie level is 2750 calories. For weight loss, we are going to reduce your daily calorie requirement by 250 calories to 2500. Generally, if you have been following a typical low-fat diet you are most likely eating 50-60% carbohydrates with variable levels of protein and a low percentage of fat. We are going to reduce this number, while increasing fat intake and keeping protein intake an ideal level.

Protein

The typical dieter, if they follow USDA guidelines, does not get enough protein while most “muscle-heads” such as weightlifters or bodybuilders tend to eat way more than they need. (Too much protein just gets converted to fat- there are much more fun ways out there to gain body fat than overeating on protein!). We will use protein intake as the starting point to determine how many calories you need from fat and carbs. Once the protein requirement as a percent of calories is established, we will then move on to fat and carbs. My recommendation is to get 1-1.5 grams of protein per pound of lean mass- lets assume you weigh 200lb with a lean mass of 160 lb- this would mean your protein requirement is 160-240g of protein. We will assume you are doing lots of cardio and intense weight training as part of your exercise program so we will go with 1.5g/lb of lean mass, or 240 g protein. Doing the math, 1 g of protein is approximately 4 kcal (I have referred to kcal-which is actually 1000 calories, simply as "calories" up to this point- for simplicity I will continue to use the term "calorie").

240g x 4kcal/g = 960 calories.

(960 calories of protein/ 2500 total calories) x 100 ~ 38% calories from protein.

Carbohydrates

With 26% protein in our diet program we now need to determine how much many carbs to eat. The important thing here is that we have an overall reduction in the % of calories form carbohydrate sources. A range of anywhere from 15-40% carbohydrate could be ideal- this is largely an individual matter. Some people do not need to decrease carbs quite as low while others will only do well on a lower carbohydrate diet. A good approach is to start on the lower end to jumpstart your diet into action and then to slowly increase carbohydrate as you become more insulin sensitive. (Consult a good personal trainer who is also an expert in nutrition a custom=designed approach). Again, as an example, we will assume that we want to eat 30% of our calories from carbs. If you have been following the typical low-fat diet this will be a significant reduction. Like protein, carbohydrates have 4 kcal/gram so we do a similar calculation:

30% calories from carbs = (0.30 x 2500)= 750 calories.

(750 calories)/ (4 kcal/gram) = ~ 188 g of carbs.

According to our calculations above, we need 188 g of (low glycemic) carbohydrates to satisfy our 30% carbohydrate requirement.

Fat:

Last but not least, we need to calculate how much dietary fat to eat. So far we have 38% of our calories coming from protein while 30% are from low glycemic carbohydrate sources. This leaves us with 32% of our calories coming from fat. Unlike proteins and carbs, fats have 9 kcal/gram:

(0.32 x 2500 calories) = 800 calories from fat.

(800 calories)/(9 kcal/gram) = ~ 89g of fat.

Most people who are used to eating the lowest amount of fat possible in their diet are shocked at this recommendation- no worries, your calories are controlled so you won't get fat-you will loose fat and build muscle. As far as fat sources, there are many choices but I personally like to use walnuts, salmon, flax seed oil, olive oil, and fish oil for fat sources while keeping the saturated fat from animal protein as low as possible.

As an example' 1/4 cup of walnuts has 20 g of fat. Most oils have roughly 14g/tablespoon. Many of my clients like to eat salads with fat free Italian dressing (get the stuff that also has low carbs). Add this with a tablespoon or two of olive oil and flax seed oil to your salad giving and additional 28 g of fat (use more/less oil depending on your individual requirements- I tend to use 2 tbs of olive oil to 1 tbs flax oil). A 7-ounce serving of broiled or baked salmon has around 6-9 g of fat. Fish oil tabs generally have around 1g of fat /tab ( I take 10-12 every night before bed). Don't forget to factor in the trace fats you are getting from certain carbohydrate sources and from animal proteins.