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| From Spreewald runde |
I guess there are not so many people that have been blessed throughout the whole of their lives that have never been asking them self that question or: Am I too fat? As far as I know, those individuals are really not so common. Loosing weight is always a topic that people are interested in, and all of us at some point in our life want to lose one or two, or even several kilos.
So how much does it take to lose 1 kg?
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| From Spreewald runde |
Well, the mass balance equation is quite simple. One need to perform more workouts and spend more energy then his intake is with the food. This is theory, but it is not so simple in praxis, since all of us are individual, and digestion is not exactly a linear function of the food intake. It depends from person to person, but it could also vary by each individual, for example depending on his physical activity and lifestyle. Otherwise, it would be easy to calculate how much energy and therefore nutrients do we need per day to sustain our basal metabolic rate and keep the mass balance equilibrium or reduce our weight if we want so.
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| From Spreewald runde |
However, numbers is good for illustration, and below is one example for number crunchers. Our nutrients (focus is on protein, fat and carbohydrate) needs depend on our age, size, and activity level. According to various sources in literature, in order to get the value of our minimum daily protein requirement we need to multiply the body weight in kilograms by 0.8. Minimum fat requirement per day is estimated to be about 1 g per 1 kg of your weight. Standard value for the energy intake per day for people between 25 and 51 years old is 2400 kcal for male and 2000 for female. Although it is controversial, knowing your current weight and setting your realistic target you should be able to estimate how much energy in carbohydrate you need in order to reduce your weight. In order to do so, we also need to know that 1 g fatty food releases approximately 9 kcal on combustion, 1 g of carbohydrate and 1 g of protein approximately 4 kcal.
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| From Spreewald runde |
According to that, 25-51 years old male, weighting 80 kg would need:
0.8 x 80 = 60 g of proteins, or 240 kcal
80 g of fat, or 720 kcal
That means that you need 1440 kcal (360 g) in carbohydrates in order to be at equilibrium per day.
Reduce that amount slightly and you should start to decrease your weight, however have in mind that it so not that simple, for example body fat burns slower than fat in food, the former liberates 7 kcal per 1 g, just as much as 1 g of alcohol would release.
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| From Spreewald runde |
Usually reducing food intake does not work, so one needs also to increase his physical activity. Therefore, I am now testing running program recently published by the German journal Fit for fun. According to that program, if I regularly practice I should be able to reduce 5 kg in 4 weeks, by running 3 to 4 times per week. Now, I am at the end of the third week with significant progress, but I will report on that during the next weeks when I complete the course. Bellow is just simple answer to the question from the title, i.e. how much took me to reduce 1 kg weight. It took me about 6 hours, to cycle about 75 km and to paddling about 10 km:
View Spreewald runde 17.05.2009. in a larger map
Alternatively, you can have a look here for individual tour:
Cyclining from Cottbus to Lübbenau 41 km
average heart rate 127 bpm, maximum 164 bpm, energy 1375 kcal; total time: 2:16:24
Paddling around the Spreewald 9.5 km
average heart rate 132 bpm, maximum 162 bpm, energy 1276 kcal, total time: 1:56:18
Cyclining from Lübbenau to Cottbus 34 km
average heart rate 146 bpm, maximum 174 bpm, 1459 kcal, total time 1:51:21
That is in total, 4110 kcal or about 587 g of boddy fat. All I ate at that day was, except my usual muessli breakfast, was a couple of power bars, banana and some probably traditional German food (asparagus and potatoes on butter) and just some feta cheese and lamb's lettuce for dinner. Next day, indeed I have had 1 kg less than the day before.
However, during the week I went out with friends of mine for couple of drinks and dinner, and I got that mass back in less than six hour, just sitting, eating and drinking. Now, I am running regularly 3-4 times per week and during the past three weeks, I have reduced about 3 kg, but that would be another report, another post, during next weeks.
