When I returned to training in 2004, my Tanita impedance percentage body fat monitor, aka, my “fatometer”, told me I had 25.5% body fat at roughly 185 lbs. This is half a percent above the clinical definition of obesity. I worked that weight down to an average of about 148 lbs by cleaning up my diet and an exercise program of as much activity as my then 49 year old body could withstand.
This past holiday season, my weight crept over 150 lbs. My jeans and dress trousers, all purchased since I regained a healthy weight, started feeling uncomfortable. 150 lbs is my red line.
The facts are interesting. The average American gains one to two pounds a year after age 25. He/she also loses half to one pound a year in bone and muscle mass in this time. This adds up to a catastrophic 1.5 to 3 lbs per year gain in body fat. Conventional wisdom tells us that slowing metabolism due to decreasing muscle mass is the culprit. (1)
While muscle is more metabolically active than fat, a pound of muscle only uses three to five calories a day more than a pound of fat. This decrease in basal metabolic rate results in at most half a pound of fat gain per year. Admittedly, as a person’s fat content and muscular weakness increase, the net gain over a year by replacing muscle with fat becomes quite significant.
What you do with your muscle counts way more than its basal metabolic rate. A beginner can add 3 to 5 pounds of muscle mass in three to four months of strength training. As he/she moves into their senior years, there is an inherent tendency to lose muscle mass no matter what training he/she does. But the frailty that so often appears in old age is a result exercise deficit, not old age. Furthermore, osteopenia can be largely eliminated by proper training while younger. When endurance exercise is added to strength training, you have a powerful tool for weight management. (2)
The wrong diet can overwhelm any exercise program. Even an informal survey of calorie counts in a typical chain casual dining restaurant, or a review of calorie counts on packaged foods in the local grocery store, demonstrates that single meals of over 1,000 calories are quite common. One thing is very clear: a 1,000 calorie meal is never OK. Even if you’re an ultra marathoner, 1,000 calories in a single sitting is gluttony, not nutrition. It’s not even fine dining.
In the UK, cola companies will tell you that their beverage is a part of a wholesome diet, balanced by healthy amounts of activity. Since the 1950’s, US food companies have been producing ever more appealing products for less money in the perennial need to grow profits. Another point should be very clear: the foods in fast food and other chain restaurants as well as most food in grocery stores maximize profits for their purveyors by being created as attractive, or addictive, as possible. It is absolutely no coincidence that the rise of worldwide obesity coincides with the industrialized mass-marketing of food products. Processed food is engineered to be addictive. As proof of this, just open a bag of chips or cookies in almost any office or work site in America and observe the reactions. They are no different from drunk patrons in a late night bar, smokers standing around outside in a designated smoking area, or even users in a meth house.
(3)
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