Strength is built in the gym, size at the dinner table

Strength and fitness are built in the gym, size at the dinner table.

aka "eat less, move more"

You will not lose or gain weight in the gym. What it comes down to is energy in vs energy out. If energy in is more than energy out, you get overall bigger. If energy in is less than energy out, you get overall smaller. When getting bigger or smaller, you may gain or lose either fat or muscle. Whether you gain or lose muscle depends on whether you do weight training - give your muscles a reason to grow or stick around, and they will, give them no reason to, and they won't. 

There are four different approaches you can take. Two are useful, two are stupid and will kill you. 

• HOMER SIMPSON = energy surplus + sit on couch = gain fat + maintain muscle. You lose some muscle due to doing nothing, but gain a bit more simply because you are heaving increased bulk around, if you don't believe me, carry a 10kg weight plate around all day every day for six months and see what happens. 
• BULKING = energy surplus + lift heavy stuff = gain fat + gain muscle. You give your muscles a reason to grow, and give them material to grow with (food). Extra fat will come along with this, sorry. 
• GWYNETH PALTROW = energy deficit + sit on couch = lose fat + lose muscle. You go hungry and give your muscles no reason to stick around, so they leave. The sight of you excites fashion designers and causes migrants from conflict-ridden lands to hide their babies from you and have painful flashbacks to their time in a dusty refugee camp, congratulations. 
• CUTTING = energy deficit + lift heavy stuff = lose fat + maintain (or lose small amounts of) muscle. You can't grow muscle without an energy surplus, but you can at least hold onto most of it if you give it a reason to be there. 

Most people want to gain muscle and lose fat. This is what "toning" means. Muscles cannot be "toned", they can only get bigger or smaller, and be more or less visible due to bodyfat. In general, you cannot gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, this is because gaining muscle requires an energy surplus and losing fat requires an energy deficit. The exception is when the person is overfat: they can have an energy deficit and lose fat, and the fat they have provides the surplus needed to grow muscles. This will take most men from 25+% bodyfat to around 15%, and women from 35+% to the lows 20s%. (Visual guides to bodyfat percentage are here.)

However, most people in gyms are not overfat, so to gain muscle and lose fat they have to do as bodybuilders do and have a bulking phase and a cutting phase. For example, during the bulk the person puts on 8kg, 4kg muscle and 4kg fat; during the cut they lose 5kg, 1kg of muscle and 3kg of fat. Net result: gain 3kg muscle. Traditionally people want to eat more in winter and their bodies are covered up, and eat less in summer and their bodies are exposed, so they have a winter bulk and summer cut. 

So much for the principles, how about the practice?

Energy in vs energy out

It really does come down to energy in vs energy out. Note that the body doesn't know the difference between a calorie out because of lifting weights, or a calorie out because of running, or a calorie out because of Zumba or cycling or swimming or hot sex. It's all energy out. But most energy out does not come from exercise. 


We begin with a person's "base metabolic rate", which is the energy their body needs just to keep them alive, their liver and lungs and all the rest, even if they just sit on the couch watching Oprah all day. This varies a lot between people, but a typical amount is 1,500kcal and 2,000kcal for medium-sized men and women. They have to take in that amount, or they will eventually die. 

In the gym, people will usually expend 200-300kcal an hour, it doesn't really matter how fit they are or whether they do weights or cross-trainer or treadmill or whatever, most people adjust their effort to those levels and anyway  part of being "fit" is that your body is more efficient, it achieves the same work with less energy. No, the calorie calculation on your treadmill is not accurate. 

So 4 workouts are about 1,000kcal, and 36 workouts are 9,000kcal. There are 9,000kcal in 1kg of fat. Thus, if you want to lose 1kg of fat, and if you change nothing else about your food or your general physical activity, it will take at least 36 workouts to do. At 3 workouts a week, that's 12 weeks to knock off 1kg fat. I would suggest that your weight probably varies up and down by more than 1kg over three months anyway. 

And this will be very easy for you to sabotage with your food. One hour's workout = 250kcal = one Mars bar. Two hours? One large fries from McDs. I don't know about you, but I'd rather just not eat the fries. 

This is why we have programmes like 10,000 steps. Get a step counter, wear it, and just do whatever you normally do for a week, then see how many steps you do each day on average. People who are underweight, healthy weight or overweight may do very few or very many, it varies a lot. But everyone who is obese will be doing under 5,000. Under 2,000 steps a day is common for car owners with desk jobs.  

If you go from 2,000 to 10,000 steps a day, that's an extra hour of cardio every day. Build it up over the next several weeks. Not straight away, you won't keep it up. And you can have slack days and busy days. But the weekly total should go up until it hits 70,000. An extra hour each day, plus the three workouts a week, now it becomes four weeks to knock off 1kg fat. 

Consider your food. Now, I'm a personal trainer not a dietician. You wouldn't ask a dietician how to do a barbell squat, don't ask me for a meal plan. I can do not much better than pass on Dan John's wise words:

Before we get too specific: Eat like an adult!... Honestly, seriously, you don't know what to do about food? Here is an idea: Eat like an adult. Stop eating fast food, stop eating kid's cereal, knock it off with all the sweets and comfort foods whenever your favorite show is not on when you want it on, ease up on the snacking and - don't act like you don't know this - eat vegetables and fruits more. Really, how difficult is this? Stop with the whining. Stop with the excuses. Act like an adult and stop eating like a television commercial. Grow up.  (Mass Made Simple, p. 22)

Think about it, you know what to do. Eat more fresh fruit and vegies, nuts and beans. Have some meat, some fish and some dairy, but don't go crazy on it and stuff yourself. Ease back on the booze and junk food. "Junk food" is any food where the packet is more colourful than the contents. 


As for amounts, don't weigh your food or count calories, that will make you crazy, just steer as you go. If after a month you are overall bigger and wanted to be smaller, eat a little bit less; if smaller and wanted to be bigger, eat more. If bigger, smaller or the same and you wanted that, change nothing. 


As an example, with one less Mars bar each day, the 1kg fat comes off in two weeks. 


So the time to lose 1kg of fat,

• 3 workouts a week, change nothing else = 12 weeks
• 3 workouts a week, increase general physical activity = 4 weeks
• small caloric deficit from eating better food = 2 weeks 

All these figures are illustrative only, the human body is a stupidly complex thing. But they show the point: fat loss won't happen in the gym. Eat less, move more. Not heaps less, just a bit, steer as you go.

Much the same goes for gaining weight, if you have to be a hipster or someone unfortunate like that.

How one of my clients lost 30kg in six months
I'd love to say it was because of the 2-3 workouts a week he did with me, it wouldn't be true though. He just increased his general physical activity and ate better food. He ate less and moved more. 


So what did our workouts do for him? I just helped make him stronger, fitter and more flexible. He did the weight loss himself. Now, obviously the two things help each-other: once you've front squatted 70kg, walking to the shops doesn't seem like a big deal, and once you're regularly walking to the shops, your workouts will be easier. But really the weight loss was all down to him. 


Why go to the gym then?
I was asked in a job interview once, would I ever drop a client?
"If they were unreliable, sure."
"Yeah but what if they weren't doing what you told them?"
"If I fired every client who ignored my advice, I'd have no clients."
"Yeah but say your big guy had ballooned out instead of losing weight, drop him?"
"No. If he's going to be grossly obese, it's better for him to be grossly obese and strong and fit and flexible, than grossly obese and weak and unfit and stiff."
I didn't get the job, but wasn't too sad about it. 


Anyway, the point is that with proper workouts, your strength, cardiovascular fitness and flexibility improve, which improves your quality of life, health, posture and so on. And those are all good things, even if you still have spaghetti arms or a squishy bum. 


Strength is built in the gym, size is built at the dinner table.