WEBVTT
00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.861
Welcome to episode six of the Deficient Vegans podcast.
00:00:02.861 --> 00:00:06.543
I'm the muscle deficient vegan and I'm here with the awesome protein deficient vegan.
00:00:06.543 --> 00:00:07.262
You wanna say hi?
00:00:07.533 --> 00:00:08.132
Hi.
00:00:08.598 --> 00:00:08.987
Hi.
00:00:08.987 --> 00:00:12.018
So last week we talked about how to track your calories.
00:00:12.288 --> 00:00:15.198
This week we're gonna talk about how to burn or use your calories.
00:00:15.678 --> 00:00:18.617
So let's talk about how your body actually uses calories.
00:00:19.007 --> 00:00:24.827
Uh, first off, the majority of the calorie burn is gonna be from something called your base metabolic rate or basal metabolic rate.
00:00:24.827 --> 00:00:25.667
You may have heard both.
00:00:26.248 --> 00:00:32.548
This is mostly determined by your biological sex, your age, your weight, your height, and your body fat percentage.
00:00:32.607 --> 00:00:36.718
This makes up the majority of the calories you burn throughout the day, naturally, no matter what you do.
00:00:36.747 --> 00:00:47.457
Then next, for the actual total calories you burn throughout the day, you take that basal metabolic rate and you add on top of it your activity level, which is technically comprised of.
00:00:47.972 --> 00:00:51.482
Exercise activity and non-exercise activity at a high level.
00:00:51.963 --> 00:00:58.622
So exercise activities, obviously exercise, non-exercise activity is anything you kind of don't do intentionally.
00:00:58.622 --> 00:01:05.673
One of the common examples is if you sit around and bounce your leg up and down, that's that's one example and that can actually burn quite a bit of calories throughout the day.
00:01:06.427 --> 00:01:12.278
And then the last factor of your total daily energy expenditure is just the thermic effect of food.
00:01:12.367 --> 00:01:17.378
You don't need to think about it too much, but basically when you eat food, your body digests it, and that uses some calories.
00:01:17.438 --> 00:01:22.298
If you wanna calculate your TDEE, you can find many calculators online.
00:01:22.927 --> 00:01:27.727
So the one I like is TDEE calculator.net, but you can use pretty much any of 'em.
00:01:27.727 --> 00:01:31.808
So the things you'll need for the calculator are the things we talked about before for the base metabolic rate.
00:01:31.867 --> 00:01:35.168
And on top of that, you'll also need to put in your activity level.
00:01:35.227 --> 00:01:36.308
Yeah, be honest here.
00:01:36.638 --> 00:01:36.908
Yeah.
00:01:37.177 --> 00:01:38.468
Really do some soul searching.
00:01:38.498 --> 00:01:38.798
Right.
00:01:38.798 --> 00:01:40.957
So there are a couple of options for the activity level.
00:01:41.257 --> 00:01:45.548
Typically, depending on the calculator, you'll see maybe a, a couple, maybe a whole lot.
00:01:45.548 --> 00:01:49.628
But generally you're gonna see sedentary, which is an office job.
00:01:49.628 --> 00:01:53.287
This doesn't necessarily mean you literally sit in your house and don't do anything.
00:01:53.587 --> 00:01:57.817
Uh, in fact, that could be even a lower activity level that some calculators do account for.
00:01:58.058 --> 00:02:02.317
But sedentary is typically seen as you don't do any intentional exercise.
00:02:02.317 --> 00:02:02.858
Maybe you.
00:02:02.873 --> 00:02:06.442
Walk around a little during the day, maybe go into the office for work.
00:02:06.563 --> 00:02:10.462
So you're up and moving around throughout the day, but you're not really doing anything intentional.
00:02:10.462 --> 00:02:13.793
So that is considered a sedentary for the activity levels on the calculator.
00:02:13.823 --> 00:02:15.502
Next up is light exercise.
00:02:15.502 --> 00:02:17.478
So if you do exercise one to two days a week.
00:02:18.198 --> 00:02:26.627
Or even if you do some light walking three to four days a week, you would probably fall into this light exercise category after light exercise as a moderate exercise category.
00:02:26.627 --> 00:02:37.937
On the, the calculator I referenced specifically, this is exercise three to five days a week, or maybe you do physical work or you play sports a couple days a week, or maybe you work in construction, something along those lines.
00:02:37.937 --> 00:02:43.397
Even if you don't do actual exercise, you know that work is a little harder, so you're getting in kind of the same activity.
00:02:43.758 --> 00:02:44.057
Okay.
00:02:44.057 --> 00:02:44.777
I have a question,
00:02:44.782 --> 00:02:45.073
Uhhuh.
00:02:45.293 --> 00:02:46.233
So I have an office job.
00:02:47.223 --> 00:02:48.752
But I do work out three to five days a week.
00:02:48.752 --> 00:02:49.562
Which one do I pick?
00:02:50.103 --> 00:02:52.323
You have an office job and you work out three to five days a week.
00:02:52.323 --> 00:02:54.782
You're probably still gonna be in the moderate exercise range.
00:02:55.052 --> 00:02:55.293
Okay.
00:02:55.772 --> 00:02:55.953
Yeah.
00:02:56.163 --> 00:03:02.282
So I'd say if you do exercise, I would just default to picking the activity level that aligns to the amount of exercise you do.
00:03:03.078 --> 00:03:03.348
Fair.
00:03:04.068 --> 00:03:05.897
The next one is heavy exercise.
00:03:05.897 --> 00:03:13.848
So this is gonna be basically if you exercise almost every day, or if you play a sport several times a week, or if you work in some kind of really hard labor job,
00:03:14.207 --> 00:03:16.487
a real sport, not like bowling, right?
00:03:17.087 --> 00:03:17.927
Well, I guess it depends on that.
00:03:17.927 --> 00:03:18.263
Does bowling count?
00:03:18.497 --> 00:03:20.027
How energetic are you when you're bowling?
00:03:20.027 --> 00:03:20.087
How
00:03:20.087 --> 00:03:20.862
aggressive do you bowl?
00:03:21.203 --> 00:03:24.353
I've seen the movies about bowlers and they dance a lot, so maybe that would True.
00:03:24.358 --> 00:03:24.407
That's true.
00:03:24.473 --> 00:03:25.163
That might count.
00:03:25.193 --> 00:03:25.552
Yeah.
00:03:25.552 --> 00:03:26.393
Have you ever really about ping
00:03:26.393 --> 00:03:26.723
pong?
00:03:26.782 --> 00:03:28.252
Really hardcore celebration dance.
00:03:28.252 --> 00:03:30.923
Ping pong seems like it would be really hard actually.
00:03:31.252 --> 00:03:31.967
Lawn darts.
00:03:32.782 --> 00:03:33.143
Okay.
00:03:33.143 --> 00:03:33.502
No.
00:03:33.502 --> 00:03:33.772
Yeah.
00:03:33.953 --> 00:03:37.502
I think anything where you're drinking a beer as doesn't part of the competition, doesn probably doesn't fit into the, no,
00:03:38.272 --> 00:03:38.962
no corn hole.
00:03:39.052 --> 00:03:40.163
Yeah, no corn hole.
00:03:41.212 --> 00:03:42.802
And then the, the top.
00:03:43.078 --> 00:03:48.117
Um, the top activity level on most of the calculators is gonna be like an actual athlete.
00:03:48.117 --> 00:03:54.448
So this is typically, if you're doing like two exercises a day, basically you're gonna know if you put into this category, right?
00:03:54.568 --> 00:04:02.457
Uh, one thing to keep in mind is it doesn't matter too much if you pick the wrong category off the bat because the calculators are gonna be kind of a starting ballpark figure anyway.
00:04:02.532 --> 00:04:05.217
You're gonna have to adapt it to your body.
00:04:05.457 --> 00:04:08.638
You know, these numbers for the calculators come from big studies with a bunch of people.
00:04:08.638 --> 00:04:10.948
They don't always align to every individual that's gonna use it.
00:04:11.092 --> 00:04:14.393
So next we're gonna talk about what do you actually do with this information.
00:04:14.393 --> 00:04:16.043
Now you kind of understand how it works.
00:04:16.043 --> 00:04:20.843
You can understand how to use the calculator, but how do you actually go and use this to your advantage?
00:04:21.442 --> 00:04:30.098
So one thing to understand is that the, the total daily energy expenditure or the TDEE we were talking about, what that actually means is if you were to eat.
00:04:30.338 --> 00:04:41.617
The same amount of calories as your TDEE that will put you at what we call, uh, maintenance calories, which means you won't gain or lose weight, you'll stay at the same weight if you eat that level of calories.
00:04:41.648 --> 00:04:45.608
If you eat a little less than those calories, that's what we call a deficit, and you'll lose weight.
00:04:45.848 --> 00:04:49.088
If you eat more, you're anac caloric surplus, and you'll gain weight.
00:04:49.478 --> 00:04:56.233
So, I mean, controlling your weight at a high level is really just as simple as finding out what your actual maintenance is and eating more or less calories than that.
00:04:57.122 --> 00:04:58.742
It's math and math is fun.
00:04:58.802 --> 00:04:59.312
I agree.
00:04:59.343 --> 00:05:05.463
So what you can do here is you want to decide if your goal is weight loss, weight gain, or maintaining weight.
00:05:05.463 --> 00:05:13.353
And you know, as you kind of go through your life and your fitness journey, whatever that may be, you'll probably have all these goals at different points in time.
00:05:13.653 --> 00:05:16.197
So just focus on which one is the highest priority for you right now.
00:05:17.168 --> 00:05:22.269
If you want to gain weight, we recommend starting with 500 calories over your TDEE.
00:05:22.274 --> 00:05:23.798
That'll be a very slight surplus
00:05:23.862 --> 00:05:24.283
per day.
00:05:24.458 --> 00:05:24.997
Per day.
00:05:25.567 --> 00:05:30.189
If you wanna lose weight the same on the other side, 500 calories less than your TDEE.
00:05:30.367 --> 00:05:33.427
And then if you wanna maintain weight, obviously you can eat exactly your TDE.
00:05:34.153 --> 00:05:38.742
So total to lose or gain a pound is gonna be about 3,500 calories,
00:05:38.983 --> 00:05:40.603
which is like a bag of a chips.
00:05:41.442 --> 00:05:41.892
Yeah.
00:05:42.523 --> 00:05:42.882
Yeah.
00:05:43.033 --> 00:05:43.723
How many is that?
00:05:44.262 --> 00:05:46.033
I think it's like a bag of chips, probably.
00:05:46.122 --> 00:05:46.423
Yeah.
00:05:47.173 --> 00:05:50.382
The good ones, the good chips, not the healthy chips.
00:05:50.382 --> 00:05:51.312
The good shit guys.
00:05:52.033 --> 00:05:52.213
Yeah.
00:05:52.213 --> 00:05:55.333
So you can gain a pound if you eat a bag of chips if you're really struggling to gain weight.
00:05:55.423 --> 00:05:55.932
Yeah.
00:05:56.742 --> 00:05:58.002
That is our advice for you.
00:05:58.872 --> 00:05:59.653
No, don't do that.
00:05:59.892 --> 00:06:00.673
Definitely don't do that.
00:06:00.942 --> 00:06:02.052
So lucky for us.
00:06:02.362 --> 00:06:11.687
500 divides into 3,507 times, so you can just use the 500 calorie less or more a day.
00:06:12.452 --> 00:06:12.932
'cause there's
00:06:12.932 --> 00:06:13.773
seven days in a week.
00:06:13.923 --> 00:06:15.872
Yeah, there are seven days in a
00:06:15.872 --> 00:06:16.262
week.
00:06:16.322 --> 00:06:17.432
I can also do math.
00:06:17.733 --> 00:06:18.483
That's wild.
00:06:18.483 --> 00:06:19.562
I didn't know that about you.
00:06:20.492 --> 00:06:21.603
He's been hiding this from me.
00:06:21.632 --> 00:06:21.872
Yeah.
00:06:21.872 --> 00:06:25.742
So we wanna always try to maintain as much muscle as possible.
00:06:25.742 --> 00:06:29.793
So we don't wanna really want to lose or gain more than about a pound a week.
00:06:30.153 --> 00:06:35.463
That enables us to, you know, maintain muscle if we're losing weight and not gain any extra fat.
00:06:35.463 --> 00:06:40.562
If we're trying to gain weight, we shouldn't also ever really go below 1500 calories a day total.
00:06:41.423 --> 00:06:48.892
Sometimes the calculator will kind of guide you to maybe a deficit that has you eating less than 1500 calories a day.
00:06:49.223 --> 00:06:54.052
But I think in those situations you would really want to try to maybe just increase your exercise.
00:06:54.322 --> 00:07:04.612
The problem is if you go too far below 1500 calories a day, you can start running into nutrient deficiencies and really low energy and hard recoveries, and a lot of other issues like that,
00:07:04.612 --> 00:07:05.483
like hangar.
00:07:06.302 --> 00:07:08.372
Also hanger is a very real problem.
00:07:08.372 --> 00:07:08.432
It
00:07:08.432 --> 00:07:08.523
is.
00:07:08.583 --> 00:07:15.242
So, I know one pound up or down a a week doesn't sound like a lot, but I mean, really slow and steady is the way you wanna do this.
00:07:15.603 --> 00:07:20.343
You know, you've got your, your whole life to hit your fitness goals and live a long happy life.
00:07:20.343 --> 00:07:28.713
So there's no reason to rush it by a couple extra months and risk doing it, you know, in a way that makes you gain extra fat or lose a bunch of muscle, or just generally feel like crap
00:07:29.012 --> 00:07:29.673
or yo-yo.
00:07:30.038 --> 00:07:33.908
Yeah, yo-yoing is actually really bad for your, your health and your heart.
00:07:33.908 --> 00:07:35.288
And your skin and everything else.
00:07:35.588 --> 00:07:35.858
Yeah.
00:07:35.858 --> 00:07:48.817
Like, you know, for instance, not like anyone I've known me has ever done this, but like, you're like, I'm gonna do P 90 X and I'm gonna go so hard and I'm gonna eat like 1400 calories a day and do P 90 X every day.
00:07:49.117 --> 00:07:50.827
And then eventually you get today, I dunno.
00:07:51.793 --> 00:07:52.002
Huh?
00:07:52.062 --> 00:07:57.163
Let's say 63, that's your breaking point, and then you just eat Cheetos, you know?
00:07:57.283 --> 00:07:57.702
Yeah.
00:07:57.822 --> 00:08:00.642
And you probably didn't recover that entire 63 days.
00:08:00.822 --> 00:08:01.452
I don't think so.
00:08:01.478 --> 00:08:01.767
Yeah.
00:08:02.052 --> 00:08:02.262
Yeah.
00:08:02.653 --> 00:08:03.372
So don't do that,
00:08:03.673 --> 00:08:04.002
right?
00:08:04.002 --> 00:08:07.603
So it's way more sustainable to just do a small calorie adjustment like this.
00:08:07.932 --> 00:08:11.533
You end up with a better end result because you're more muscle and you feel better.
00:08:11.788 --> 00:08:14.562
You end up with less loose skin if you're trying to lose weight.
00:08:14.622 --> 00:08:19.528
Losing weight slowly is one of the few ways to kind of help reduce loose skin in the end result.
00:08:20.197 --> 00:08:21.968
And then it's also better for your heart.
00:08:22.028 --> 00:08:25.898
Gaining or losing a lot of weight really quickly can be a, a big strain on the heart.
00:08:26.317 --> 00:08:27.427
And you know what they say?
00:08:27.427 --> 00:08:30.247
You've gotta listen to your heart when it's calling for you.
00:08:32.048 --> 00:08:33.248
There's nothing else you can do.
00:08:33.307 --> 00:08:34.028
Do they say that
00:08:34.567 --> 00:08:34.988
it's a song?
00:08:35.738 --> 00:08:39.008
Okay, so now we know kind of what the body does with the calories.
00:08:39.008 --> 00:08:42.638
We, we know how to pick the amount of calories you wanna try to eat.
00:08:42.638 --> 00:08:45.307
So how do you actually track this and put this into action?
00:08:45.888 --> 00:08:52.668
So first things first, you will see calories burned on fitness trackers and exercise equipment and some stuff like that.
00:08:52.668 --> 00:08:57.227
And that tends to be kinda one of the first things you wanna think about when you start thinking about calories.
00:08:57.258 --> 00:09:00.888
'cause you're like, oh, I got on the elliptical today and it says I burned 600 calories.
00:09:02.572 --> 00:09:05.602
So those are usually pretty wildly inaccurate.
00:09:05.602 --> 00:09:11.663
Even on the, like the high tech fitness watches and stuff you wear, they're just, they're not very good.
00:09:11.842 --> 00:09:16.432
So you can use those as like trending your effort.
00:09:16.432 --> 00:09:23.903
So if it says you burn 500 calories one day doing a 30 minute run, and then the next day you did another 30 minute run, you only burned 200 calories.
00:09:24.173 --> 00:09:26.302
You can kind of know maybe you didn't run as hard.
00:09:26.302 --> 00:09:30.113
But I definitely wouldn't use any of those calorie outputs for anything related to.
00:09:30.822 --> 00:09:32.383
Deciding how much you're going to eat.
00:09:32.562 --> 00:09:34.033
It's just not accurate enough for that.
00:09:34.153 --> 00:09:49.932
Oh, also, if you happen to have your fitness tracker hooked up to MyFitnessPal and maybe some of the other food trackers, I'm not sure there is a setting where it's gonna try to give you back the calories that you quote, unquote burned for exercise.
00:09:50.293 --> 00:09:54.013
You definitely wanna turn this feature off because it will mess you all up.
00:09:54.528 --> 00:09:54.962
Yeah, definitely.
00:09:54.982 --> 00:09:55.283
You might
00:09:55.283 --> 00:09:56.082
end up gaining weight.
00:09:56.513 --> 00:10:00.857
Yeah, another calorie tracking app that might be good and is especially good for a beginner.
00:10:00.857 --> 00:10:06.498
Just getting into the idea of calories and all this TDEE stuff is called Macro Factor.
00:10:06.798 --> 00:10:11.357
Basically what it's gonna do, so we told you that the TDEE calculators are just kind of a ballpark.
00:10:11.357 --> 00:10:12.768
It needs to be adjusted for your body.
00:10:13.067 --> 00:10:15.258
Well, macro factor kind of does that automatically.
00:10:15.557 --> 00:10:17.298
They have an automatic diet coach.
00:10:17.597 --> 00:10:21.977
So basically what happens here is you weigh yourself, you know, a couple times a week.
00:10:22.038 --> 00:10:36.977
As you go through your process, you put in your calories every day, and then it basically automatically calculates for your body and your exact real results, what you need, your surplus or deficit to be, to continue to gain or lose weight.
00:10:37.398 --> 00:10:39.798
So this is actually one of the most accurate ways to do it.
00:10:39.883 --> 00:10:47.952
It is kind of a little tedious 'cause you have to weigh in con consistently and you have to put in your calories every day, or the calculation has a little bit of a hard time.
00:10:48.342 --> 00:10:51.493
But those are things you should really be doing anyway, especially in the beginning.
00:10:51.732 --> 00:10:58.543
So I think it is really good for understanding what your true TDEE is and then you know, you can go from there.
00:10:59.082 --> 00:10:59.712
Is that one free.
00:11:00.462 --> 00:11:02.232
No, it is not free.
00:11:02.322 --> 00:11:02.802
Sad.
00:11:02.893 --> 00:11:04.363
Yeah, I don't know.
00:11:04.423 --> 00:11:06.613
I don't think it's very expensive, but it's definitely not free.
00:11:06.643 --> 00:11:16.003
So also another tip on this with the, the macro factor thing, it makes it automatic, but even if you're not using macro factor, you do want to be weighing in pretty often.
00:11:16.033 --> 00:11:19.062
So we recommend, you know, weigh in at least probably two to three times a week.
00:11:19.332 --> 00:11:20.682
I like to weigh in every day.
00:11:21.013 --> 00:11:23.352
Another important thing is to do it at a consistent time.
00:11:23.383 --> 00:11:26.143
The most consistent time you can probably do it is.
00:11:26.413 --> 00:11:29.082
In the morning first thing after you go to the bathroom.
00:11:29.442 --> 00:11:34.572
That way you weigh about the same as far as water fluctuations and things like that from day to day
00:11:34.692 --> 00:11:36.072
and do it before you take a shower.
00:11:36.072 --> 00:11:38.113
'cause if you're a girl it will add weight.
00:11:38.143 --> 00:11:41.712
'cause you'll hold water in your hair and you want that extra 0.5 pounds.
00:11:42.133 --> 00:11:42.852
I never thought of that.
00:11:42.852 --> 00:11:43.962
Yeah, that's interesting point.
00:11:45.258 --> 00:11:46.523
It's really important.
00:11:46.528 --> 00:11:46.788
Yeah,
00:11:47.092 --> 00:11:47.452
yeah,
00:11:47.932 --> 00:11:48.173
yeah.
00:11:48.173 --> 00:11:49.432
So weigh yourself, uh, every day.
00:11:49.432 --> 00:11:54.743
Make sure, and you can take like the average throughout the week instead of just looking at each day individually.
00:11:54.982 --> 00:11:58.403
Take the average of your weight throughout the week and then watch that over a couple of weeks.
00:11:59.182 --> 00:12:05.393
And if you were targeting to gain a pound a week, you can look over a two week average and see, was I averaging a pound a week?
00:12:05.393 --> 00:12:06.592
Do I need to increase calories?
00:12:06.592 --> 00:12:08.003
Do I need to decrease calories?
00:12:08.302 --> 00:12:10.972
And then you can just kind of keep doing that on a continuous basis.
00:12:11.288 --> 00:12:17.197
And then also remember, as you gain or lose weight, your caloric needs and your TDEE will actually change.
00:12:17.288 --> 00:12:23.827
So if you go and lose 50 pounds, your TDEE is gonna be lower than it was, you know, when you first started.
00:12:23.827 --> 00:12:25.447
So you're gonna have to adjust your calories anyway.
00:12:26.013 --> 00:12:34.773
So I think what you're saying is the lesson here is use T-D-E-E-E-E as your starting guesstimation, right?
00:12:34.773 --> 00:12:39.513
And then you're going to modify that based on what you're actually tracking for your weight each week,
00:12:39.602 --> 00:12:39.962
right?
00:12:39.962 --> 00:12:40.232
Yeah.
00:12:40.232 --> 00:12:42.753
Well, we see a lot of people go and use the calculator.
00:12:43.057 --> 00:12:43.298
Yeah.
00:12:43.298 --> 00:12:44.857
And they'll say, this is my deficit.
00:12:44.857 --> 00:12:47.557
And then they'll try it for like six weeks and they'll say, yeah, don't do that.
00:12:47.557 --> 00:12:48.518
I'm not losing weight.