Nutrition Round Table

THE ENERGY EQUATION NUTRITION ROUND TABLE:

Whether you are wanting to create an energy surplus to build muscle or add a couple more weight plates to your barbell, or a deficit to shed unwanted fat, understanding how much food you need to eat is key. But, unless you are a maths whiz, it’s easy to get lost among the acronyms and number-crunching. We asked our nutrition experts how they calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) – or the number of calories you burn each day – so you know how to take the best advantage of your metabolism and activity.

WILKINSON Understanding how many calories you should consume and setting up successful nutritional strategies to help you reach your goal of losing fat or gaining muscle requires understanding and measurement.

Starting points I start by collecting all the information needed to calculate a person’s Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) – which accounts for all the homeostatic processes of the body – including sex, age, height, weight and body fat percentage. You can plug these variables into various online calculators to get approximately how many calories you need to maintain your current condition. You can then consume slightly more or less, depending on your goal.

Don’t forget NEAT Beyond your BMR, an important (and often overlooked) contributor to your TDEE is non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), which is everything we do that is not eating, sleeping or exercise. NEAT includes non-training activities such as walking around, standing up, fidgeting and performing other daily tasks. NEAT varies widely from person to person, and the difference can affect TDEE as much as 1,500 to 2,000kcal per day between people with a similar BMR, according to one Journal of InternationalMedicine study. So it’s easy to see why an active occupation – such as a personal trainer or cleaner – can more easily stay lean compared to those in sedentary professions, such as an office worker.

On tracking steps Some coaches track steps and use that variable as a way to create further calorie expenditure outside of a structured exercise routine. I prefer to prescribe a diet that supports a person’s goal and training performance. Your diet helps you to lose body fat, while strength training creates your desired body shape.

Measure and manage When assessing how many calories a person requires, I take into consideration all of the above factors and set a number. I then ask the client to adhere to that number for one week and measure the results (and its impact on their training performance and lifestyle), before prescribing a new calorie target depending on their goal.

Final words At the end of the day, tracking and measuring your calorie intake against your training and lifestyle will enable you to make logical adjustments, no matter your goal. My best piece of advice is to remember that body weight and dropping fat are just two elements of body composition; how you train en route to your goal body weight or body fat percentage will determine how you look when you get there.

HARRIET WALKER ACCREDITED SPORTS DIETITIAN athleticearing.com.au // @athleticeating Harriet Walker is an Accredited Sports Dietitian with a masters degree in nutrition and dietetics. Through her online nutrition business Athletic Eating, Walker has worked with over 600 clients – ranging from weekend warriors to international level athletes – and consults to several well-known brands in the Australian fitness industry. Beyond her nutrition know-how, Walker has a passion for strengthfocused sports, and has competed at a high level in body building, rowing, strongman and CrossFit.

MARCUS WILKINSON RECOMPOSITION SPECIALIST ironbodygym.com.au // @ironbodycoaching Marcus Wilkinson is a qualified International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN) Sports Nutritionist who is notorious for his ‘zero cardio’ approach to body recomposition. Preferring to concentrate on diet, heavy lifting and lifestyle when working with clients, he has coached over 400 physique competitors to stage. Wilkinson founded his own gym, Iron Body, in 2012, which currently has three locations across Melbourne and employs 15 coaches. In his spare time, he is the Victorian President of the INBA Natural Bodybuilding Federation.

TOM FITZGERALD EXERCISE SCIENTIST & NUTRITIONIST integratedfitnessnutrition.com // @tomfitzgerald.ifn Tom Fitzgerald is a Nutritionist and Exercise Scientist based in Kingscliff, NSW. Specialising in general population body recomposition clients, he now runs his own coaching business, Integrated Fitness Nutrition. On top of his Sport Coaching and Exercise Science and Human Nutrition degrees, he’s also a certified Sports Nutritionist through the International Society of Sports Nutrition (ISSN).

LEANNE WARD ACCREDITED PRACTISING DIETITIAN leanneward.com.au // @the_fitness_dietitian Nutritionist, Dietitian and Sports Dietitian, Leanne Ward has nearly 10 years experience in her craft, working in both clinical and online one-on-one coaching settings. Ward specialises in emotional eating, gut health and sustainable weight loss for women. Her qualifications include a Bachelor of Health Science (majoring in Nutrition) and a Master of Dietetics Studies, and she has also completed her Sports Nutrition Course through Sports Dietitians Australia.

WARD When calculating a TDEE, I don’t use a set formula – every client is different. Most formulas take into account your BMR (the amount of calories you need to maintain life even when inactive), NEAT (the activity you perform outside of formal exercise, such as walking around your shopping centre), EAT (exercise associated thermogenesis or the calories burned while you are exercising and after) and TEF (thermic effect of food or the energy used when you consume particular macronutrients, such as protein, which requires more calories to digest than fats). These formulas can become very complicated and people tend to overestimate or underestimate in certain areas.

Mistakes I see People often use a complicated TDEE formula and assume it is accurate. Remember, almost any formula will work eventually if you are consistent and monitor and adapt over time. But you need to do just that. People often overestimate their activity and don’t take into account anomalies. It’s important you take into account your average number of training sessions, and change your calorie requirements when weekends, holidays, sickness and injury arise. I often recommend my clients reduce their energy budget during the week to allow for a little more flexibility on the weekends. For example, if your starting point is 2,000 calories, you might want to aim for 1,900 calories Monday to Friday, and use the additional 500 calories on the weekend on a meal out. It’s also important to note that studies have shown that females’ metabolism can increase by five to 10 per cent in the days leading up to their period, equating for an additional 100 to 200 calories needed during this time. Age, amount of lean muscle mass and medical statutes such as being pregnant, breastfeeding or injured can also increase or decrease your needs. As you age, your metabolism often slows and muscle mass tends to drop. A lot of TDEE formulas also aren’t appropriate for athletes or trained individuals, as they don’t take into account the additional energy requirements of lean muscle.

Important things to note besides TDEE TDEE isn’t the only variable to consider. Just because a food has ‘200 calories’ on the label, doesn’t mean your body will digest all 200 calories. Foods higher in fibre aren’t completely digested – 200 calories of potato chips will be digested and absorbed differently to 200 calories of nuts. Further to this, recent studies have shown that your body absorbs 30 per cent fewer calories than whole nuts contain (depending on the nut). Human or technology errors are also common. Apps like My Fitness Pal used to track calorie intake are fantastic, but you can easily input the wrong food ingredient or amount. Type in ‘oats’ for example, and you get an array of options. Many people also forget that every taste, lick and bite count for calories, and are often not entered into such calorie equations.

Final words Use TDEE formulas to set a ‘baseline’ for yourself then monitor your weight, measurements and skin folds every two to four weeks, and adjust as necessary. If all of these stats remain stable, you have likely found your maintenance requirements and can then adjust calories according to your goals.

ALAN ARAGON EQUATION With clients who are weight training and/or who are athletes, I use the Alan Aragon Equation. His formula is very simple and easy to adjust, and doesn’t overestimate energy expenditure as easily or as often as others. (Hours training per week + intensity factor (8=low 9=med 10=high)) x 2.2 x BW in kg e.g. 70kg female doing 5 x 1 hour resistance/high-intensity sessions per week: (5 + 9) x 2.2 x 70 = ~2,156cals

FITZGERALD The first thing to do when calculating your TDEE is to get clear on its definition. TDEE is the sum of all energy expenditure in your body across the day, which is the same as your ‘metabolism’.

Don’t fixate TDEE is most accurately measured using a calorimeter, which involves placing you in a chamber and measuring your heat expenditure over the day – not practical for most people. Instead, we rely on estimates produced by formulas. The energy expenditure from your fitness tracker or smartwatch is measured by plugging variables such as your gender, height, weight, age and heart rate into a formula. The estimations are not necessarily accurate, but they are consistent, which makes them reliable to use to gauge changes in TDEE. Any form of TDEE estimate should be used in conjunction with other measures such as changes in body weight. If your tracker says that you burn 3,500kcal per day and you are gaining weight while eating 3,000kcal per day, it is likely to be over-estimating your TDEE and you will need to adjust.

How I calculate TDEE I estimate my clients’ TDEE by using the Harris Benedict Equation (BMR multiplied by activity level. See bmi-calculator.net) as a starting point, and then use their activity level, energy intake and changes in weight to estimate where their energy balance sits (where energy intake matches TDEE). This allows me to make changes to their training or nutrition that will impact their energy balance in line with their goals. I use this approach for general population clients to elite athletes.

How to increase TDEE There is little you can do to increase your BMR on a dayto-day basis – lifestyle doesn’t change it much – while TEF can be increased by consuming a higher proportion of protein in your current diet. NEAT can be increased through more low-intensity activity throughout the day such as walking instead of driving, walking meetings or using a standing desk. Exercise associated thermogenesis (EAT) can be increased by increasing the frequency, intensity or duration of your training sessions.

Avoid these mistake One mistake that I think people can make is to focus too heavily on increasing NEAT when it is more effective to increase EAT. For example, instead of parking 20 minutes away from work and walking into the office, you could park on-site and use the time saved to complete a 30-minute high-intensity workout before or after work. I also see ‘metabolism’ and BMR used interchangeably by many of my clients. Lifestyle changes – such as eating more protein – will help increase your TDEE. But it won’t change your BMR or how much energy you expend at rest.

Final words While it’s useful to understand TDEE and all of its variables, instead of focusing your energy on estimating each component, work on finding strategies to increase each component. In my opinion, the lifestyle behaviours are far more important than number-crunching.

WALKER To explain the maths behind individual energy requirements and energy expenditure you need two things: a calculator and a high tolerance for acronyms (a strong coffee wouldn’t go astray either). TDEE refers to the amount of energy (calories or kilojoules) you need to consume in a day to fuel the activity you perform. Individual energy requirements vary according to your size, age, body composition and activity levels, as well as your specific goals. We can break overall energy expenditure into four components: resting metabolic rate (RMR), which uses up around 60 to 75 per cent of daily energy, thermic effect of food (TEF), which uses up around 10 to 15 per cent of daily energy, and non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT) and exercise associated thermogenesis (EAT), which use from 10 to 20 per cent of daily energy respectively. NEAT and EAT will vary most from person to person according to how active their lifestyles are. NEAT encompasses daily tasks such as standing up, fidgeting, walking to the car and other basic daily activities, while EAT refers to the energy cost of structured exercise, which depends on the type, intensity and duration of the workout.

The equation game Two commonly used equations for calculating energy expenditure are the Harris Benedict Equation and the Schofields Equation. These equations use parameters such as weight, height and age to predict RMR. Estimated Energy Requirements (EER) are then calculated by multiplying RMR by a number that reflects their activity level – usually between 1.1 (rest) to 2.2 (very high energy output). When planning for clients, I will start with estimating their RMR and EER and calculate their ranges for macronutrients (carbs, fats, proteins) using grams per kilogram of body weight figures. I’ll make recommendations about the types of foods that will help them meet these targets, while also meeting micronutrient (vitamins and minerals) requirements. For more advanced athletes, I may also manipulate these numbers to account for higher and lower energy output days.

Common mistakes I often see people putting all of their focus on planned exercise, while not accounting for NEAT (incidental movement). Active people who also clock up well over 10,000 steps might not realise that their incidental movement has pretty much burnt the equivalent of another workout, and are often unintentionally under-eating. While other people in more sedentary jobs may need to actively seek out more opportunities to walk in order to stay on track if their goal is to lose fat.

Remember… It’s also important to plan and review. Having a well-informed plan is important, but, regardless of the numbers you’re using, EER and macronutrient targets are just a starting point. There are so many factors that impact the ‘energy in’ and the ‘energy out’ of the ‘energy balance’ equation, and it’s vital to monitor what happens when these numbers are applied in real life. Short of being hooked up to a metabolic cart 24/7 and being served up meticulously measured meals, it is unlikely that anyone can tell you exactly what is going to happen inside your body. Looking at multiple objective and subjective measures such as energy levels, hunger, menstrual cycle, sleep, training data, food attitude, wellbeing and changes to body composition will help build a more comprehensive picture of your progress. S