You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1
You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1

This post is the first part of a two part series entitled You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1.

 

You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1

For some reason there is a lot of misconception about how much you can gain or not gain from eating certain foods. For instance, one person may think they can gain two pounds from eating that extra piece of apple pie for dinner last night; but that is not necessarily true. In this article, I am going to explain as clear as day what exactly you need to know about calories and weight gain.

I have written over 100 articles explaining different kinds of exercises, diet tips, nutrition tips and some pretty advanced stuff like resting metabolic rate and high intensity interval training. What I have not explained is how all these articles tie together. Because there are a lot of new visitors to this website, I think you should know the basics before you try and tackle Steady State Caloric Burn Runs. Think of this as a chef trying to make Citrus infused Chukar in an Aleppo Pepper Grand Reduction but does not know how to scramble eggs, kinda lame eh? Or like an amateur cyclist that wants to ride in the Tour de France but gets tired walking to his cupboard trying to find a bag of Doritos.

The 10 Cookie / 1 Pound Example

You cannot gain what you don’t eat – First thing you need to know is you cannot gain two pounds from eating one regular-sized cookie. One pound of body weight is the equivalent of 3500 calories. No matter what kind of shape you are in, if you eat one cookie that contains 350 calories, there is ZERO possible way to gain 1 pound. Why? Because there are not enough calories in that cookie to cause you to gain one pound. You’d have to combine it with everything else you’ve eaten throughout the day.

So let’s just say you were on a pure cookie diet; meaning that the only thing you ate for one full day was 10 cookies at 350 calories per cookie, for a total of 3500 calories consumed that day (1 Cookie x 10 = 3500 calories.)

Point #1 – You burn calories to stay alive

You burn calories just by waking up, walking to the refrigerator, and sitting back down, even if you are currently out of shape. Your body needs calories to stay alive.

Point #2 – Any amount of exercise burns calories

The reason you should exercise is not only to be healthy, but to burn the extra calories you eat. For this article, I won’t get into what kind of foods you need to eat, just know any exercise keeps you healthy and burns calories. Walking from your door step to the mailbox burns calories.

Now that you got Point #1 and Point #2, let’s go back to my example of the cookie diet. As I previously mentioned, one pound of body weight is the equivalent to 3500 calories. So, if you eat 3500 calories in one day and your body uses 1800 calories per day just to stay alive, and you do normal daily activities, the remaining unused calories is 1700.  So 3500 cookie calories is now equivalent to eating 1700 calories (3500 calories eaten – 1800 burned = 1700.) This is the reason you can’t gain one pound from eating a pure cookie diet for one day.

The problem that gets people into trouble.

As you can see, there are still 1700 calories left over from your 3500 cookie calories. If you do this same diet again the next day and do the same amount of exercise, by the end of the 2nd day you will have an excess of 3400 calories, which is very close to the amount of excess calories you need to gain 1 pound of body weight.

For the sake of this Basic Series, I am keeping these articles very simple so I don’t overload your brain with information. I know some of you guys are crying foul and are thinking about different types of calories, sugars, saturated fats, unsaturated fats and numerous other things. For now, we are not going to worry about any of those things. Remember, there are lots of newbie’s out there that are just starting out and don’t really know where to start. This article is for them to keep things very simple without information overload. It’s called the KISS principle; Keep It Simple S____.

You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1

In conclusion:

Know that 3500 calories is necessary to gain one pound of body fat. Also know that your body needs calories just to stay alive. The key is to provide the proper daily requirement of calories so they don’t stack up and turn into unwanted pounds. In this case, the principle of use or lose it doesn’t work.

This is the end of part one entitled You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1.

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Charles Lloyd
Charles Lloyd

Self processed fitness missionary and author of most of the ridiculous fitness articles written on Charles Lloyd Fitness.com. I am not really a writer, but a workout fiend who happens to have a blog. The single mission of this website is very simple: Get You In Shape. I have been blessed with the gift of good health and want to share it with you. Join Me.

    1 Response to "You cannot gain what you dont eat The Basics Series 1"

    • Chris

      Agree with you totally, very well written article..

      Keep up the good work…

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