The Biggest Loser

There are key steps to achieving weight-loss success. Knowing the basic facts about energy balance will give you the knowledge and the edge in tipping this balance in your favour so that you achieve your weight-loss goals. This section explains how we get energy from food, how to measure it, and how keeping it balanced with the amount of exercise you do helps you lose weight. No discussion of weight loss is complete without some examination of foods, so we examine the best foods to eat, how to measure the right amount of food and some great tips for avoiding temptation both at home and when out and about.

You are in ‘energy balance’ when the amount of energy you take in (measured as the number of kilojoules from food and drink) exactly matches the amount of energy your body uses up to keep it running smoothly. Your unique energy balance number is the number of kilojoules your body needs to keep your heart beating, your lungs breathing, your brain functioning, to digest your food and to undertake the exact amount of growth and repair that your body needs as well as the kilojoules used during your daily activities and any exercise that you do. This amount of energy is called your Total Energy Expenditure or TEE. See the next column to calculate your exact TEE. The ‘energy’ that your body uses is similar to the way a car uses petrol. In our bodies, petrol equates to the food and drink we choose to put into it and the distance we drive our bodies equates to all things we make our bodies do, both at work and for leisure. Get it right and things run smoothly. Too much fuel added into the petrol tank or too little ‘driving‘ and you quickly run into trouble.

Knowing how active you are is the first key to the puzzle of balancing energy in with energy out. The more active you are, both during the day as part of your job and daily activities, as well as during planned exercise, the higher the Physical Activity Level (PAL) factor. Use the table below to determine your PAL factor.

Each person has different energy (food) requirements, which is measured as your TEE (Total Energy Expenditure). Your TEE value takes into account whether you are male or female, as well as your body size. This makes sense and is just like the adjustment we make to work out how much petrol our car will use, based on its size. A bigger car or one with a larger engine will use more petrol. So men need more fuel (food and drinks) than women and people who are taller and have a greater body weight need more fuel than those who are shorter and weigh less. The amount each person needs is their individual TEE. To estimate your unique TEE, use the equation below.

BMR CALCULATION FOR MEN BMR = 4.2 x (66.5 + (13.8 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age in years))

BMR CALCULATION FOR WOMEN BMR = 4.2 x (655 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.85 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age in years))

Your TEE is made up of two main parts. First, the energy you burn up when you are completely at rest, called your Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. The second part is your Physical Activity Level or PAL, which is a measure of how active you are. Once you have these two values (see the facing page and above), you can calculate your TEE and know exactly how many kilojoules you should be consuming every day. Note that the TEE calculation is only relevant for adults, not children.

Each time you adjust your routine to add more exercise to your day (see for ideas of how to do this), you‘ll need to recalculate both your PAL and TEE so you make sure you are getting the right amount of food for the amount of exercise you are undertaking.

Record your TEE in your food diary and use it to check you are in ‘energy balance‘.

Once you know how active you are and how much food you need you have the knowledge to speed up your weight loss and understand why weight loss sometimes slows down or even plateaus.

When you start your weight-loss journey write down everything you eat and drink. Initially, do this every day. Once you are confident you know where your kilojoules are coming from you can cut this down to four days a week (include the weekend). Why? This will keep you honest about how and where the extra kilojoules sneak into your day and it will also show you what the kilojoule values are for the food and drinks you like to consume. Most people consume more on weekends, so they are particularly important to monitor.

Here is a warning up front! If you reduce your daily kilojoules to a level that is too low you risk running out of fuel and having a reduced ability to be active or do exercise, because your body has to slow you down in order to avoid a complete breakdown.

Research shows that the people who lose the most weight and keep OFF the most weight long-term are very good at recording what they eat and drink each day.

To give you some idea of what is required to lose 1 kilogram of body fat you need to burn up approximately 30,000 kilojoules (7000 Calories) of energy. The next page shows how long it takes to burn off some popular foods. It certainly provides food for thought and shows how much effort it takes to work off the food we can so mindlessly consume.

This table shows you how much sitting, walking or running is required to burn off the foods listed. If the food is not completely burnt off then the extra kilojoules are stored on your body as fat. It doesn’t take long to accumulate this amount of excess energy.

For example, if you add a can of soft drink or a can of beer to your usual intake every day and didn’t burn this off, you would accumulate 1 kilogram in less than 2 months. Scary stuff when you think how easy it is to drink a can of soft drink.

The best way to keep track of the kilojoules you consume is by keeping a record of what you eat and drink. You can do this on paper or online using the food and exercise diary in the Biggest Loser Club at www.biggestloserclub.com.au. Check the kilojoules in foods and drinks using a kilojoule counter in the Biggest Loser Calorie and Carbohydrate Counter or use the Food Search in the online program to search the database of over 20,000 food and drink items. See below for an example.

If 1 kilogram of body weight were converted into fuel, it would give approximately 30,000 kilojoules. This means that in order to lose 1 kilogram of body weight you have to be able to reduce your energy ‘in’ by this amount over a specific period of time or increase your energy ‘out’ by this much. Now that is a hard task.

The two ways to approach it are to make changes to both ‘in’ and ‘out’ and to accept that it will take some time to get to your goals, depending on how much you want to bend your energy balance equation. For most busy people who can manage about 30 minutes of walking a day and cutting their kilojoules back so that they consume 2000–4000 kilojoules less than their TEE each day, they will be able to lose between 500 grams to 1 kilogram per week. If you cut your kilojoules back by a smaller amount then your rate of weight loss will be slower. If on the other hand you are able to cut your kilojoules back by 4000 less than TEE each day AND you increase your physical activity so that you were burning an extra 4000 per day, then you could lose 2 kilograms per week. The reality is that unless you are in the Biggest Loser House, most people still have to go to work and attend to their other normal daily tasks and simply do not have that much time to devote to weight loss.

The absolute minimum you should ever consume is 4000 kilojoules per day, or 1000 Calories. You will have difficulty meeting your requirements for vitamins and minerals below this level and would need a daily multivitamin with minerals.

For the longer-term an excellent rate of weight loss is 500 grams to 1 kilogram per week. This adds up to 25 to 50 kilograms over a year. Pretty good when you consider that for most people the extra weight has crept on at a rate much, much slower than this.

There are a number of ways to work out if you are carrying too much body fat and whether you are officially in the overweight or obese body weight categories.

The Body Mass Index or BMI is widely used to assess the degree of overweight in adults and is a measure of your future risk of disease and weight-related medical conditions. The more weight you carry the more likely you are to develop high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, type 2 diabetes, heart disease and even some cancers. The BMI is a measure of body weight based on your height and weight (see the calculation at the bottom of the page). Check your result in the BMI classification chart in the next column to assess your risk of weight-related health problems. The BMI is not perfect, though, especially for very muscular people; for some people the mirror and a tape measure may be better indicators.

In adults an attempt at weight loss is recommended if you meet any of the following criteria.

BMI between 25–29.9 kg/m² AND two or more risk factors, such as high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol.

Waist circumference >88 cm in women or >102 cm in men AND two or more risk factors high blood pressure or high blood cholesterol.

Once you start trying to lose weight, reductions in your body weight and waist circumference can be used to follow your weight-loss progress. As you see the results of your effort, you‘ll be inspired to continue.

Your waist circumference is a good indicator of just how much fat is stored under the skin and around your internal organs. In people of Asian and Indian descent waist circumference targets can be up to be 10 centimetres lower, while they are significantly higher in Pacific Islanders and African–Americans, although the exact figures have not yet been determined.

Measure your waist circumference at the midpoint between your lowest rib and the top of your hipbone. If you are not sure exactly where this is then take it at the narrowest point when you look at your waist while standing in front of a mirror.

If you could shrink one part of your body, what would it be? Women commonly want to shrink their hips or thighs, whereas men usually want to lose their gut.

The truth is that extra hip and thigh fat, or being pear shaped, is not bad for you health. Current research indicates that too much fat stored around your waist, or being apple shaped, is more unhealthy than being a pear. Excess waist or gut fat increases your risk of high blood cholesterol, high triglycerides, inflammation and impaired glucose tolerance. All of these factors mean you are more likely to develop heart disease and type 2 diabetes. In women, the risk increases with a waist measurement greater than 80 centimetres and is greatly increased above 88 centimetres. This compares to 94 centimetres and 102 centimetres in men.

The Australian Diabetes, Obesity and Lifestyle (AusDiab) study of 9200 Australian adults found that the waist to hip ratio (that is your waist measurement in centimeters divided by your hip measurement in centimeters) is a better predictor of heart disease and death than waist circumference alone or the body mass index (that is your weight in kilograms divided by your height in metres squared). In other words, it is important to look at how big your waist is compared to your hips. If your waist is small and your hips are large, you will have a smaller waist to hip ratio. If you have a larger waist and/or smaller hips, you will have a higher waist to hip ratio. A higher waist to hip ratio is also associated with a greater risk for type 2 diabetes and heart disease, in both men and women. In women larger thighs have been shown to convey a lower risk for type 2 diabetes. This might not be a shape you want to be, but it is good for your health.

There is no evidence that you can get spot reduction or lose weight from one specific area of your body without having surgery. However, the good news is that losing weight will reduce the body fat all over your body, including fat from the hip, thighs and tummy.

Liposuction can remove body fat from specific areas on your body but to date we do not know what the long-term effects on your health are of any weight gained after liposuction. A recent survey reported that 43 per cent of liposuction respondents had gained weight after surgery. This highlights that surgery is not a cure all: even after liposuction you still need to make major changes to your diet and physical activity level if you want to avoid regaining weight.

The bottom line is that whether you are an apple or a pear, if you want to feel good, put all your effort into eating healthily and staying active so your body can get to a healthy weight that is right for you. Although it is useful to know your body type so you are aware of risk factors to your health, it‘s much important to focus on developing a healthy lifestyle.

CHEWING GUM CAN HELP

One hour a day of chewing sugar-free gum burns up enough calories to prevent 2 kilograms of weight gain per year. Studies have shown that people who chew gum before meals and snacks feel less hungry at meal-time and subsequently eat less food and reduce their kilojoule intake.

MONDAY
Breakfast
2 Weet-Bix with 1 cup of milk	1030 kJ
1 slice of toast with margarine and Vegemite	508 kJ
1 glass of orange juice	300 kJ
Lunch
1 wholegrain sandwich with barbecued chicken, mayonnaise and lettuce
1336 kJ
1 banana	530 kJ
Dinner
Spaghetti bolognese	1645 kJ
2 scoops ice cream with chocolate topping	750 kJ
1 glass of red wine	492 kJ
Snacks
2 Milk Arrowroot biscuits	380 kJ
200 g tub of fruit yoghurt	650 kJ
6 rice crackers with hummus	460 kJ
1 apple	370 kJ

Classification	BMI (kg/m²)	Risk of weight-related health problems
Underweight	< 18.5	Low (but may have other medical problems)
Normal range	18.5–24.9	Average
Overweight	> 25.0
Pre-obese	25.0–29.9	Increased
Obese I	30.0–34.9	Moderate
Obese II	35.0–39.9	Severe
Obese III	> 40.0	Very severe