What Is Your Energy Balance?

Everyone knows that getting things done requires energy and stamina.

Maintaining a healthy weight can increase your energy and productivity nearly 20% which is like adding an extra 4 hours to your day.

But getting your energy balance wrong can make you fat, tired, and weak.

When I weighed well over 220 lbs, I would wake up exhausted after a poor nights sleep. But after fixing my energy balance, my weight dropped to 176 lbs and my strength more than doubled.

So how do we achieve an optimum energy balance?

What Is Energy Balance?

We convert potential energy stored in food (measured in calories or kcals) into kinetic energy (muscle, brain, and organ activity) or stored energy (fat).

“Energy balance” is the relationship between

• “Energy in” (food calories taken into the body through food and drink)
• “Energy out” (calories being used in the body for our daily energy requirements).

This relationship, which is defined by the laws of physiology (specifically metabolism), dictates whether weight is lost, gained, or remains the same.

If your body was a car, you wouldn’t want to run on empty (too little gas) nor flood the engine (too much gas).

Why Energy Balance Is Important

The relationship between the amount of energy in our food (calories) and the amount of energy we use in the body determines our body weight and overall health.

• Negative Energy Balance
• A slight negative energy balance leads to weight loss.
• Your body detects an energy “deficit” and fat reserves are called upon to make up the difference.
• A severe negative energy balance can lead to a decline in metabolism, decreases in bone mass, reductions in thyroid hormones, reductions in testosterone levels, an inability to concentrate, and a reduction in physical performance.

Positive Energy Balance

• A slight positive balance energy balance can lead to muscle gain.
• When you exercise, your body allocates “surplus” calories to repair and build muscle.
• A severe positive energy balance (overeating) can lead to plaque build up in arteries, high blood pressure, increased cholesterol, insulin resistance, diabetes, and higher risk for certain cancers.

There are two main ways to “tip” your energy balance between from positive to negative:

• Decrease calories taken into the body through food and drink (see below)
• Increase calories being used in the body through exercise (see below)

Should I Exercise To Lose Weight?

Evidence has been accumulating for years that exercise, while great for health, isn’t significant for weight loss. One very underappreciated fact about exercise is that even when you work out, the extra calories you burn only account for a small part of your total energy expenditure.

For instance, your resting (basal) metabolic rate accounts for 60 to 80 percent of total energy expenditure. That leaves only 10 to 30 percent for daily activities, of which exercise is only a small subset. Plus we often “compensate” for exercise by eating more or moving less through the remainder of the day.

1. Fat loss is primarily (80%) the result of nutrition.
2. Longevity is primarily the result of fitness.
3. Body composition (leanness & muscularity) is the result of both good nutrition and exercise.

Should you exercise? Absolutely. Exercise has profoundly beneficial health effects. In fact it is the #1 thing you can do to achieve maximum longevity and your full genetic potential.

Can you eat too much crappy food and just burn it off with exercise? Absolutely not (sorry).

I can tell you from personal experience: its a lot easier to not eat a donut then it is to spend 30 minutes on the treadmill running it off.

Don’t Major In The Minors

For fat loss, a slight negative energy balance is the foundation (80%) of success.

For muscle gains, a slight positive energy balance favoring protein is key.

Supplements and meal timing can slightly (2-3%) augment both processes but only if the foundation of energy balance and macronutrients are in place first.

In fact, I will go on record to say sleep is far more important than supplements. Sleep triggers profound beneficial hormonal changes and systematic parasympathetic recovery in all our systems (cellular, nervous, digestive, etc).

The Fine Line

The law of energy balance is precise.

A mere 150 calories per day is the difference between gaining or losing 15 labs a year:

You can lose 15 lbs a fat a year if you skip only half(!) a snack a day.

• This the equivalent to just half a donut (or muffin).
• The energy math works like this:
• -150 calories X 365 days a year / 3500 calories per pound = 15.6 lbs of fat burned.

The reverse is also true: You can gain 15 lbs a fat a year if you eat an extra half(!) a snack a day.

Nutrition-Based Negative Energy Balance

How do we calculate the “right” negative energy balance to lose fat but still have enough energy to power through our day?

A simple way is to use a reputable online calculator such as this one: https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html

Your gender, height, and age are used to calculate various energy balances to lose or gain weight. A reasonable rate of fat loss is 1 lb per week (see Optimal Rate below). Losing faster than this is not conducive for creating long-term sustainable lifestyle habits. Crash diets are call “crash” for the simple reason they don’t work.

Let’s look at an example of a 45 year-old male who is 6 feet tall and 220 lbs. You will see that he requires 2,305 calories to maintain his weight and 1,805 calories to lose 1 lb a week:

• 1,805 = 2,305 daily maintenance calories – 500 fat loss calories per day
• 1 lb of fat = 3500 calories = 7 days x -500 calories per day
• Nutritionally a 500 cal /day deficit translates into:
• Giving up alcohol and snacks OR,
• Walking or running an extra 6,000 steps EVERY DAY, OR
• Adding resistance (strength) training to increase lean muscle mass
• Adding a little bit of High Intensity Interval (HIIT) training
• Combination of the above (most flexible option, it may or may not result in long terms habits).
• You will notice his Activity level is set to Sedentary.
• This is because we can accurately measure Activity levels using Wearables (like Apple Watch, Fitbit, etc) or apps such as RunKeeper.
• Alternatively, we can accurately calculate Activity levels using METS (see below).
• Adding Sedentary Activity Level to measured Activity Level is FAR more accurate than using generalized “model” Activity estimates such as “Lightly Active” or “Exercise/Sports 1-3 times/week”.

Eat For The Body You Want

A slightly different way to approach setting your energy balance is to “eat for the body you want”.

For example, say our 45 year-old male who is 6 feet tall and 220 lbs wants to get to his healthy weight of 170 lbs.

In this case, you would use the same calculator but adjust the weight to 170 lbs. You will see that he requires 2,033 calories to maintain this weight.

The drawback of this approach is he will lose weight at half the rate of the previous approach (~ 1/2 lb a week versus 1 lb).

The benefit of this approach is he will create a sustainable set of nutrition habits that will maintain him at a 170 lb lifestyle.

Why Log Your Food?

In my experience with clients, meal logging is almost 100% predictive of fat loss and muscle gain success (this is also back up by numerous clinical research studies such as this one).

Some reluctance to logging your meals is pretty normal. Let me encourage you with the the following observations:

1. Logging requires only 3.5 minutes a day (1 minute per meal, 2 x 15s per snack)

• The MyFitnessPal learning curve is the lowest in this class of apps

2. You can’t make better decisions if you don’t understand your choices

• Many people are surprised to learn where sugar and fat calories “hide” in certain products and recipes

3. You can’t optimize your nutrition if you don’t have your data

• You can’t run a business without numbers, and you can’t run your body without logging

4. Food logging reprograms your brain for long-term self-mastery

• This is based on neuroplasticity improvements that come from practice and repetition

How To Log Your Food

In terms of logging nutrition, I highly recommend the MyFitnessPal app as it is a category leader in its class.

It is simple to setup and use, includes a comprehensive food food and restaurant database, and even allows you to ‘scan’ barcodes on food packaging to lookup nutrient data. Personalizing your Energy Balance in MyFitnessPal is straightforward:

• From within the MyFitnessPal (MFP) app do the following steps:
• >More… (located at bottom right of your phone)> Goals
• > Set your “Weekly Goal” to ‘Lose 1.0 lb per week’
• > Set your “Activity Level” to ‘Not Very Active’
• > Set your “Calorie, Carbs, Protein, and Fat Goals” to 1,805 Calories (using the previous example of a 45 year-old male who is 6 feet tall and 220 lbs).

Tip: This is how I log home cooked meals in MFP (MyFitnessPal):

1. Most food types are listed by weight or volume or brand.
2. So in the case of vegetables, pasta, rice, or lentils I look for the entry that is by volume:

• -i.e. 1 cup.
• 1 cup = about the size of your closed fist, so judge by that accordingly.
• As long as you are close to the nearest 1/2 cup that’s good enough.
• Note: use database entries for COOKED food (not dry uncooked).
• Spices and seasoning don’t matter, so you don’t need to log them.
• Small amounts (1/2 cup) of raw vegetables don’t really matter
• Sauces and dressings DO matter and need to be logged (typically high in fats).

3. For some ethnic home dishes, the MFP database may mostly list store brands.

• Here, I suggest you get your partner or myself to help pick the nearest store brand to what you eat at home.

4. For ease of data entry, you can create your owns meals in MFP and then use that if you tend to eat the same thing regularly.

• I.e., you might create a meal called ‘My Dinner’ and set it to contain 1 meat, 1 cup potatoes, 1 cup vegetables, 1/2 cup lentils, 8oz milk (or what have you).
• Alternatively, instead of adding ingredients to build a home cooked meal, you can simply enter the Macronutrient information that is included with virtually every recipe.

Pro Tip: Here is my The Healthy Executive Heuristic when analyzing MFP Nutrition data:

1. Identify HIGH CARB foods

• Any single serving that is > 25g
• Generally this will be breads, rice, potatoes, pasta

2. Look for lower Carb alternatives or substitutes

• Mnemonic : “The Whiter The Bread, The Closer To Dead”

3. Identify LOW PROTEIN foods

• Any single serving < 10g

4. Look for higher Protein alternatives or substitutes

• Protein shakes are a great shortcut BUT
• Make sure they are ISOLATES with little or no added sugars (i.e. LOW CARB)

Exercise-Based Negative Energy Balance

The other way to “tip” the energy balance scale is to burn more calories than you eat.

• The bad news is, exercise by itself is not as effective reducing the calories we eat.
• The good news is, the human body responds much better to exercise intensity versus duration.

This is great news for busy executives and leaders, because it means we can the most fitness benefits in the least amount of time (below I give you my personal example).

Activity intensity is measured in Metabolic Equivalent of Task (also known as “METs”). One MET is defined as 1 kcal/kg/hour and is roughly equivalent to the energy cost of sitting quietly. In other words, METs are multipliers of your resting metabolic rate.

Below are some MET examples (and you can find a detailed compendium here). Basically the higher the MET value, the higher the exercise intensity. You can convert METs into calories burned using a calculator like this one (and in fact most fitness and wearable apps perform a similar calculation based on your bodyweight and exercise duration).

 Higher MET values mean your cardiovascular (CV) system is getting a better workout and thus is a good predictor of your heart health and risk of heart attack (CV event):

Two activities in particular have a high MET value great returns on time investment:

• Interval Training for as little as 6 minutes a week is a great way to ensure cardiovascular fitness.
• Resistance Training for as little as 6 minutes a week is a great way to increase your strength.

1. Really Good News: Extensive research and scientific studies show that you can build lean muscle mass (and hence your longevity) in just 1 strength session per week.

• More than 1 session a week has been shown to produce very marginal gains.

2. Even Better News: Science shows you can make the most strength gains in just 1 set per session.

• More than 1 set per session has been shown to produce very marginal gains.

3. Excellent News: You can improve 80% of your muscle mass in just 3 basic compound movements:

• Pushups, Pull-Ups, Squats

Amazing News: You can build your lean muscle mass in as little as 6 minutes of strength training.

• As a busy executive I know your time is at a premium, so my strength system is designed to take this into account.

Pro Tip: “Eat Half Your Exercise”

• If you burn 400 calories exercising, eat 200 calories more either prior or at your next meal to support the grow of muscle, and “bank” a 200 calorie deficit towards your fat loss goal.
• This will prevent “crashing” for exercise sessions lasting 20+ minutes and will also prevent irritable moods or “brain fog”.

Tips & Tricks

I’ve compiled my list of 113 proven tips & tricks that get real-world results. These are not gimmicks or rehashes of the conventional wisdom. Most of my clients lose over 10 lbs of fat and increase their strength by 50%.

Sample Tip: Enlist your partner/friends/coworkers/kids as the “food police” to hold you accountable for what you eat.

• Share your health goals and ask for their help
• Tell them healthy snacks or foods you are trying to cut back on.
• A shared goal is a powerful goal
• From their perspective of course, they are merely defending their snacks 

Sample Tip: Many CEOs struggle with stress-eating due to the nature of their roles (the gnarly issues float to the top). Here are key the things to know and useful tactics in dealing with it:

• 15 Reasons Why You Stress-Eat
• 33 Countermeasures for Stress-Eating (my 2-part series of tips)

Optimal Rate of Fat Loss

You might wonder how fast fat weight will come off.

Note that initially your weight may rise a little due to increased muscle due to your higher intensity exercise and increased appetite. This is perfectly normal. It is also why it is useful to measure your waist with a tape in addition to using a scale — very likely you could be gaining muscle (increased weight) and losing fat (decreasing waistline) simultaneously.

After this initial phase most men find that fat loss of 0.5-1 pounds (0.5kg) a week is sustainable and also allows for adequate nutrition to support the demands of your workouts.

Your body needs time to adapt and make your new lower weight and increased muscle mass sustainable. This is why crash diets don’t work – you exceed the adaption rate of your physiology. In a crash diet you can quickly lose weight primarily as water and muscle mass (not optimal) and then after the diet regain weight as fat (leaving you worse off than before).

Lastly, you create sustainable long-term health habits by making positive tweaks to your nutrition that cumulatively compound over time.

My Personal Example

In my personal journey from 220+ lbs to 176 lbs I tried a lot things like eating dogfood to lose 25 lbs. Sometimes I’d bounce between spending 8 weeks losing fat to spending 6 weeks gaining muscle. I gave a lot of thought about how much health is enough and came to the conclusion that health is more important than money.

I learned a lot from my mistakes and dramatically increased my energy and productivity.

I lost another 14 lbs (from 176 to 162) and got stronger the last couple of years by making 2 key changes to my nutrition and exercise:

• Eating for the body composition I wanted (being leaner means more protein and less carbs).
• Switching from medium intensity cardio (running, biking, swimming) to higher intensity interval training (HIIT) and resistance training.

These changes produce much better results in far less time as you can see from my data:

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Originally published at The Healthy Executive.