Another thing that’s come in conversation a few times recently, and countless times over the years., is that people saying they have gained weight because of something particular they have eaten.
Something, which when you do the maths on it, cannot possibly be the explanation for the gaining of weight.
It’s not uncommon for people to do their InBody analysis on Coaching Day at the start of the month and, having gained 5 pounds, said “I did have some bread the other day.”
When asked how much bread, the answer is normally something like “A couple of slices”.
When the average slice of bread contains around 80 calories and the average pound of body fat contains 3,500……
We’re saying that 160 calories of bread caused 20,500 calories of weight gain.
Or they might mention the tub of Ben and Jerry’s (1,096 calories / 1/3 of pound of body fat) that they had in front of the TV or the Domino’s pizza (~ 2,500 calories / 70% of a pound of body fat) they “treated” themselves with.
Whatever the numbers at play, the food used as an explanation usually could only account for a fraction of what it’s “explaining”.
We have to get up to pure lard for the numbers to even match equally (5lbs of lard consumed equaling 5lbs of weight gain, all else being equal).
Gaining more weight than the mass of food consumed is physically impossible.
And usually it will be a considerably lower ratio (220 slices of bread, 16 tubs of Ben and Jerry’s or 177 large apples in 5lbs of body fat).
So, if we’re gaining weight, as a few considerations;
1. There are natural variances in our weight throughout the day and week dependent mainly on how much food and liquid we have inside us (weighing at the same time, preferably first thing in the morning, will minimise this, but there’ll always be fluctuations).
2. If we’ve been gaining body fat, there’s a good chance that we’ve been consuming considerably more than we’re telling ourselves.
3. One calorie dense period of over-consumption can only do so much and should never be used as a justification for “writing off” a time period (whatever that means) and continuing to over consume.
Much love,
Jon ‘Googling ‘extra calories’ talks mainly about breast feeding and standing desks (probably not at the same time, although that could work)’ Hall
P.S. If you’re starting to think “I might try this in September as I have a lot of stuff on over the Summer, then don’t – September you will regret it when there’s more to do. Slower progress and damage limitation at “none ideal” time periods will always beat going backwards —> www.myrise.co.uk/apply
P.P.S. I’ll come back to standing desks next week
