Weight loss is achieved by knowing a simple formula. 'Calories in' versus 'calories expended' on a daily basis are the fundamentals of altering your weight. Exercise is not really necessary to achieve fat loss. However if you set a dramatic goal, such as a 10 pound loss in four weeks, most likely you will be required to do the physical activities to get there. You can decide to work harder than this program requires but if you force too much in a short time you may have a problem keeping all the weight off in the long run. This program was designed to help an individual lose weight by changing lifestyle without extremities. Here are the steps you will need to take.


Gather Starting Statistics

  • Know your current caloric intake
  • Measure your Resting Metabolic Rate
  • Be aware of medical conditions which may affect fat loss or exercise performance
  • Measure your current weight, body fat composition and circumferences.



    Set the goal (lose 10 lbs in 4 weeks)
    Convert pounds into the number of calories needed to meet goal
    3,600 = 1 lbs
    36,000 = 10 lbs

    -Estimate how many calories needed to burn in a week 36000 divided by 4 = 9000
    -Estimate how many calories needed to burn in a day 9000 divided by 7 = 1286

    To reach your goal, you will need to expend 1286 calories a day or 9000 calories a week!



    Understanding Caloric Maintenance, Intake and Expenditure
    Maintenance: This is the amount of calories you need to survive based on your lifestyle. This amount allows you to keep your current body composition and to keep you functioning appropriately with your lifestyle. If you alter this number eventually weight loss shall occur and the maintenance caloric intake will change sometimes over a period of time. If we decide to become more active weekly, our maintenance caloric intake will eventually go up.

    Intake: Count the amount of calories you consume at the end of the day.

    Expenditure: Estimate how many calories you expend from all your daily activity. This is the tough one. Everyday is different. This depends on your lifestyle. One day you might be sitting down at a desk at work all day, and other days you could be running around like a chicken with it's head cut off. It's nearly impossible to determine the exact number of calories you expend per day, however there are resources that you can use to figure out the "ball park" number.

    More Muscle burns more fat
    You will speed up your fat loss process if you can gain more muscle mass. For every extra pound of lean muscle you gain, you can burn up to 30 to 50 calories per day, even on days with no physical activity. For females: extra muscle does not mean you will be bulky. If you felt like you were getting bigger during a resistance training program , most likely you didn't shed enough fat.


    Untoned skinny
    The Bulky Fear Syndrome: "I don't want to lift weights, because I don't want to look bulky." Cardio alone with no resistance training in your program can make you untoned and skinny. If you're thin, wouldn't you rather be a strong, lean and thin person? It's possible to have 8 inch arms and 19 inch thighs and still be as strong as an ox. For females wanting to be tone without getting bigger, you should focus on developing muscle density.


    I'm ready to expend 1286 calories a day! Are you really?
    Exercise expenditure: Let's estimate that regular cardio vascular exercise rounds up to 1000 calories burned per hour. Not everyone can burn 1000 calories from cardio exercise within an hour, some may burn more or less, but this figure is ideal for this article.

    "This is easy, I can do 90 minutes on the treadmill 6 days a week and I'm there!"
    Wrong : It's not that easy. Your body is not a machine, it will require optimal rest and proper nutrients to keep it functioning. Furthermore, it's our nature to adapt to continuous physical activity and your body will eventually adapt to a 90 minute treadmill workout if done frequently. This is where the body is no longer challenged at the level it began. When this occurs, your daily caloric expenditure diminishes dramatically.


    "What if I increase my intensity and increase my heart rate above my fat burn zone?"
    Perhaps: you may continue to burn a lot of calories if you increase your intensity, however most individuals may experience more muscle fatigue before they can complete a 90 minute workout. Intense workouts tend to burn more glucose rather than fat and there's the possibility of losing muscle if your continue high levels for longer durations.


    "Okay now I've got it! I'm going to eat 1286 calories less per day than I do now!"
    Wrong: The average male eats around 2000 to 2500 calories per day, creating a a 50 to 60 percent deficit in nutrients is too dramatic. Do you want to starve yourself? The exception would be an individual extremely overweight, such as over 400 lbs. Small and gradual changes are more appropriate for healthy lifestyles.
    The P L A N

    Goal = expend additional 36,000 calories in a month


    Nutrients and Meals: To follow this program you must have the discipline to maintain a 4 to 5 meal daily program, breaking down each meal to 300 to 600 calorie meals. Reducing Carbohydrates intake can be done in this program, however reducing too much may result in the lack of energy to perform the workouts in this program.


    Week One
    Nutrients objectives: Reduce daily caloric intake by 300 calories (if your current intake is 1900 calories per day, you will need to reduce to 1600 calories per day.) 300 x 7(days) = -2100
    Resistance Training: Perform resistance training 4 days a week to increase metabolism and to build fat burning muscle. Each resistance training workout should be approximately 1 hour, and your training session needs to be intense enough to burn approximately 500 to 800 calories every session. 800 x 4(days) = -3200
    Cardio Vascular: Perform Cardio Vascular Exercises 4 times a week to burn 600 to 800 calories per day. For most people, this can be accomplished by keeping your exercise between 65 to 85 % of your MHR for approximately 30 minutes. Cardio vascular exercise can be scheduled immediately after your resistance training, however a different time of the day is more effective. 800 x 4 = - 3200
    Increase physical activity weekly: Add a walk into your routine twice a week or anything relevant to physical activity such as yard work or simple outdoor sports. Try and burn an extra 500 calories a week with this activity. 250 x 2(days/wk)= -500
    Week One Caloric Expenditure = 9000


    Week Two - Increase Intensity and Frequency
    Nutrients objectives: Assuming your regular intake was 1900 calories and now you've begun a 1600 calorie intake in week one, now it's time to increase your caloric intake and increase your workout. Yes, I said INCREASE caloric intake.

    Here's where most people make the mistake:

    Most people want to physically push ourselves beyond our natural capabilities and eat less. Reducing carbohydrates or a specific nutrient is not the solution. This is not ideal, If you want to physically push harder in week two, you will need the nutrients and the carbs including appropriate recovery to do so. This means more food and more rest. Also, our maintenance level may have increased slightly , but remember we're on a mission to lose weight, so eating below maintenance intake and tapping into fat stores is what we want to do.

    For week two we can choose to duplicate week one and perhaps meet our 9000 calorie deficit objective by the end of the week, however it may not work as well as the first week because your body begins to adapt to the routine. Remember our goal is a dramatic 10 lbs in 4 weeks, and we don't want the routine to plateau too early. Increase your workout frequency to 5 days a week.

    Currently at 1600 calories, we need to increase our intake to 1750 so we can maintain our current muscle mass and increase our level of intensity. Assume we've increased one pound of muscle mass the first week. Our maintenance level requires an additional 100 calories to compensate the activity change and now we need 2000. So if we consume 1750 calories we still created a significant deficit to continue losing weight.     		250 x 7 = -1750
    Resistance Training : Perform resistance training 5 days a week to increase metabolism and to build fat burning muscle. Each training session should be approximately 1 hour, and you should program your training session to burn approximately 600 to 800 calories per workout. 800 x 5 = - 4000
    Cardio Vascular : Perform Cardio Vascular Exercises 5 times a week to burn 600 to 1000 calories per day. For most people, this can be accomplished by keeping your exercise between 65 to 85 % of your MHR for approximately 30 minutes. Cardio vascular exercise can be scheduled immediately after your resistance training, however a different time of the day is more effective. 800 x 5 = - 4000
    Increase physical activity weekly: Add a walk into your routine three times a week or anything relevant to physical activity such as yard work or simple outdoor sports. Try and burn an extra 750 calories a week with this activity. 250 x 3 = - 750
    Week Two Caloric Expenditure = 10500


    Week Three - Avoiding Adaptation
    Perhaps you're 3 to 6 lbs lighter and feeling stronger. You've gained 1 to 2 lbs of lean muscle and you've become dramatically more physically active, your maintenance caloric intake has increased once again. You're now at 2100 calories to keep what you have. Your body begins to adapt to the change and the routine is not as challenging as when it first began. You may have hit a plateau in two weeks. Here's what to do to keep shedding those pounds.
    Nutrients: Your new maintenance level is 2100 you still have fat to lose, so you can continue your caloric intake at 1750 and this is still enough to maintain your current lean muscle. (take suggested supplements for better assurance) 350 x 7 = - 2450
    New Resistance Training Program Perform a completely NEW resistance training program 4 days a week. Each training session should be approximately 1 hour, and you should program your training session to burn approximately 600 to 800 calories per workout. This work out is new to your body so it will be more challenging and more recovery time is required, so we've reduced weight training from 5 to 4 days for week three. 800 x 4= - 3200
    New Cardio Vascular Variations Perform a completely different Cardio Vascular Exercise(s) 4 times a week to burn 600 to 1000 calories per day. Since this is a new routine, we went from 5 days of cardio to 4 days in week three to limit muscle fatigue. (a new routine will cause more fatigue and will require more recovery) 800 x 4 = -3200
    Increase physical activity weekly: Add a walk into your routine three times a week or anything relevant to physical activity such as yard work or simple outdoor sports. Try and burn an extra 750 calories a week with this activity. 250 x 3 = -750
    Week Three Caloric Expenditure = 9600


    Week Four = Same as week three
    At this point, you're approximately 7 to 9 lbs lighter and you've gained 3 lbs of lean muscle. Your maintenance level is probably still at 2100 calories per day to keep what you currently have. You still need to lose around 2 to 3 more lbs while keeping all your muscle you've gained.
    Nutrients: 1750 calories per day 350 x 7= - 2450
    Same Resistance Training Program Perform your Newly adjusted resistance program from the previous week but keep it challenging. You need to push each muscle group to a failure in the second and third set. Not much difference in your resistance workout this week, but you may realize that you haven't shed the same amount of lbs compared to last week. Every routine leads to diminishing returns and these are just the facts of adaptation. Eventually you will change your routine again to make another dramatic change but at this time, it's still working but perhaps just a little bit slower. You resistance train 5 times this week but only manage to burn 500 calories per work out. 500 x 5 = - 2500
    Same Cardio Routine Your current cardio routine has become less challenging also, you perform with the same amount of effort and add a 5th day of cardio , however your results are slightly less. You've increased your intensity once again however, you burn only 600 calories per cardio workout because perhaps muscle fatigue has limited your cardio workout to 45 minutes a day. 600 x 5 = -3000
    Increase physical activity weekly: Add a walk into your routine three times a week or anything relevant to physical activity such as yard work or simple outdoor sports. Try and burn an extra 750 calories a week with this activity. 250 x 3= - 750
    Week Four Caloric Expenditure = 8700


    TOTAL CALORIC EXPENDITURE IN 4 WEEKS = 37,800 !


    Now that you have a formula, it's up to you if you can follow it. Discipline and effort is within your power.





    note: This article is information only. Many factors in health and physical capabilities can contribute to different results. We advise you not to attempt this program without the consent of a physician or fitness professional.


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