The Marble and the Sculptor
Introduction
Fitness is a part of everyone’s life, whether you like it or not. Your physical ability impacts many aspects of your life: from lifting your sofa when you’re rearranging your living room to taking a walk on the beach on vacation. The pressure to look good is also increasing in today’s society. A recent study among female British students showed that 16 % would trade one year of their life for their ideal body, and 10 % would trade two to five years of their life (MacRae, 2011).
Both men and women are constantly being bombarded with images of beautiful people, fad diets and expensive home gym apparatus, but what is the real science behind changing your body? How do you lose or gain weight in a safe manner? Are supplements truly necessary? What does a beginner really need to know?
The science of fitness is something that has been something that has interested mankind for centuries. From famed Wrestler Milo of Croton, who, nearly 3000 years ago, was known for eating vast amounts of beef, to today’s professional bodybuilders and researchers in laboratories, we have long been searching for ways to gain complete control over our bodies. This article will attempt to show, from a scientific point of view, how your body works and what you can do to change it.
Here is a very quick summary of this article:
Looking into how to lose weight we find that the hype behind low carbohydrate diets is not necessarily warranted, and that a simple caloric deficit is enough for you to see weight loss. Conversely, gaining weight requires a caloric surplus, and the optimum amount of protein for building muscle tissue seems to be around 1.6-2 grams of protein per kilo body weight. Dietary supplements, though not strictly necessary, can help you reach your goals. Protein powder is a quick, clean source of protein, creatine will increase your strength, and Vitamin D is a good supplement for overall health.
This article is over 3000 words, and sources are provided at the end. Strap in, kids. It's gonna be a long one.
Losing weight
In order for us to look at changes of mass in the human body, we have to first take a look at the laws of thermodynamics. All beings, machines and other thermodynamic systems are subject to these universal laws, which predict how systems behave under certain circumstances.
“The first law of thermodynamics (law of conservation of energy) states that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the sum of the heat added to the system and the work done on it.”
Dictionary, 2009
In layman’s terms this means two things. Firstly, energy cannot be created or destroyed, meaning that “you can’t get something for nothing”. All the energy your body uses will have to come from somewhere. Secondly, energy can only be transformed or transferred. Put simply, this means that any excess energy you provide your body with through caloric consumption will be transformed into body fat and stored in your body.
For humans, the transfer of energy is simple. We get it through food and lose it through energy expenditure. Using energy is simple. Most of it is involuntary; all of your organs need energy in order to function. Even though you sleep, your brain, liver, heart, kidneys, lungs and so forth are still slaving away to keep you alive, and this process demands energy. In fact, the mere fact that your organs are working represents anywhere from 45 % to 70 % of your daily energy usage (World Health Organization, 2004: Basal metabolism).
So how do these laws relate to losing weight? It can seem complicated, but it’s really quite simple. First we have to find our basal metabolic rate. This is the amount of energy your body requires when resting. To do this, we will use the Mifflin-St. Jeor formula, which has been found to be the most accurate equation to determine basal metabolic rates (Frankenfield, Rowe, Smith & Cooney, 2003).
Men: (10 x weight in kilos) + (6.25 x height in centimetres) – (5 x age) + 5
Women: (10 x weight in kilos) + (6.25 x height in centimetres) – (5 x age) - 161
(Free Dieting, 2012)
After completing this equation you have successfully found your basal metabolic rate, but you also need to take your activity level into account. This is commonly done with the Harris-Benedict equation:
Little to no exercise: BMR x 1.2
Light exercise (1-3 days per week): BMR x 1.375
Moderate exercise (3-5 days per week): BMR x 1.55
Heavy exercise (6-7 days per week): BMR x 1.725
Very heavy exercise (Twice per day, extra heavy workouts): BMR x 1.9
(Gotta Sport, 2013)
You have now found the number of calories that your body needs to consume in order to maintain itself. This is called your caloric maintenance.
Now you need to determine how much weight you want to lose per week. This, of course, is highly individual and your goal depends on a lot of factors, but 500 grams of body fat equals about 3500 calories. Certified personal trainer Melissa Ross writes “You must burn 3,500 calories to lose 1 lb. of body fat. The American Council on Exercise suggests burning 500 calories per day for a weekly weight loss of 1 lb. Burning 1,000 calories per day results in a weekly loss of 2 lbs.” (Ross, 2011).
By lowering your caloric intake by 500 calories each day, you will lose 500 grams of body fat each week. This is most easily done by drinking and eating less calorie dense food, including white bread, soda, pastries and other processed foods. This seems complicated, but luckily for you, there are several apps and websites where you can track your calorie intake.
Another way to lose the same amount of body fat would be to eat what is required for you to stay at caloric maintenance and adding in exercising that will burn 500 additional calories. This could for example be walking, running, swimming, lifting weights, et cetera. Alternatively, you could do a combination of the two, or even eat above your caloric maintenance as long as your activity level also is appropriately high.
The reason you will lose weight on a caloric deficit comes back around to what we discussed earlier: thermodynamics. Since energy cannot be destroyed, excess calories you consume will be stored as body fat in your body. Since energy cannot be created, when you are eating less than what your body needs, your own body will break down stored body fat tissue and use it as fuel.
There are hundreds of different diets and “tricks” to help you lose weight, but it seems that the simplest answer is the correct answer. As long as you burn of more calories than you consume, you will lose weight.
“The results of this study showed that it was energy intake, not nutrient composition, that determined weight loss in response to low-energy diets over a short time period.”
(Golay, Allaz, Morel, de Tonnac, Tankova, Reaven, 1996)
Despite what the diet industry says, there is a myriad of other research papers that show the same as Golay et al. (Examine, 2013a). This was perhaps demonstrated in the most drastic way when Mark Haub, professor in human nutrition at Kansas State University, lost 12 kilos over 10 weeks by eating pastries and sugary snacks, but still maintaining a caloric deficit (Park, 2010).
In terms of keeping as much lean body mass as possible (muscle tissue) while losing body fat, some research does indicate that a high protein diet will aid in this regard (Leidy, Carnell, Mattes & Campbell, 2007). It is also worth mentioning that research has found that “spot reduction” is a myth; you cannot lose body fat in one specific area at a time (Kostek, Pescatello, Seip, Angelopoulos, Clarkson, Gordon, Monya, Visich, Zoeller, Thompson, Hoffman, & Price, 2007).
Gaining weight
One might naturally assume that weight gain would be the exact opposite: eat more to gain weight. Following the laws of thermodynamics, as described above, this assumption is correct. Since energy cannot be destroyed, your body will be forced to store any excess calories you consume as body fat.
However, the topic of weight gain is almost always slightly more complicated. Unless the person in question is severely underweight, someone that is looking to gain weight will first and foremost be looking to gain lean body mass: muscle. This chapter will therefore be written with that in mind.
While you can lose weight by counting calories and not looking too much into where the calories originate from, this is much more important when looking to gain weight. We get almost all of our calories from a group of nutrients called “macronutrients”, as described by the McKinley Health Center at the University of Illinois:
“Macronutrients are nutrients that provide calories or energy. Nutrients are substances needed for growth, metabolism, and for other body functions. Since “macro” means large, macronutrients are nutrients needed in large amounts. There are three macronutrients: Carbohydrate, Protein and Fat“
(McKinley Health Center, 2008)
When working out you cause small tears in your muscle fibres called micro trauma. This causes what is commonly known as “DOMS”; delayed onset muscle soreness. According to Sophie Chargé and Michael Rudnicki’s (2004) article on muscle regeneration from the American Physiological Society’s Physiological Review, the body reacts to these micro traumas by overcompensating. Not only will the body repair the damaged muscle fibre, but it will also create more in order to protect the muscle from future damage.
This is how we cause growth in muscle tissue, but the body also requires something else to facilitate growth. In a paper printed in Journal of Applied Physiology, researchers Drummond, Dreyer, Fry, Glynn & Rasmussen (2009) found the following:
“We show that essential amino acids and an acute bout of resistance exercise independently stimulate human skeletal muscle protein synthesis. It also appears that ingestion of essential amino acids following resistance exercise leads to an even larger increase in the rate of muscle protein synthesis compared with the independent effects of nutrients or muscle contraction”
For humans, most essential amino acids required for muscle protein synthesis, and thereby tissue repair and muscle growth (McKinley Health Center, 2008), comes from the aforementioned macronutrient protein. Protein is found in all types of meat, dairy products, and, to a lesser extent, in some vegetables like beans and lentils (McKinley Health Center, 2008).
While there is no doubt about whether or not we need protein to grow muscle tissue, there are some different results in research regarding what amount of protein is needed to maximise efficiency, but all research papers do seem to land around the same number. Lemon, Yarasheski & Dolny (1984) recommend over thirty years ago that an active person should consume around 1.8-2 grams of protein per kilo body weight, and newer research from Lemon (2000) and Phillips & van Loon (2011) respectively recommend 1.6-1.8 grams per kilo body weight and 1.3-1.8 grams per kilo body weight.
Let’s say you weigh 75 kilos and aim for 1.6 grams of protein per kilo. You will then be looking to consume 120 grams of protein. In order to get all your required protein from chicken breast alone, you would have to eat 500 grams each day (Prior, 2013). This seems like a lot of chicken, and it is, but in this example we did not account for every other source of protein in your diet. As long as you try to incorporate some form of meat or dairy into your meals, you should have little problems with reaching a goal of 120 grams protein each day.
Studies have also proved that protein rich diets at 3 grams protein per kilo body weight are not dangerous, and will even improve reaction time in young men (Jakobsen, Kondrup, Zellner, Tetens & Roth, 2011).
Dietary supplements
In order to reach their individual goals, a lot of people use a number of different supplements. In this chapter we will look at some of the most popular supplements, their effects on the human body, and how effective they are.
Protein powder
Protein powder is supplemented to help a person reach their desired grams of protein in their diet. Protein powders are generally whey or casein proteins, the two proteins found in milk.
The most commonly used protein powder is whey protein, and it has been proven to increase muscle protein synthesis (Examine, 2013b). Another curious thing about whey protein powder is that it absorbed quicker than other types of protein when taken in a fasted state:
“Whey is touted at being faster absorbed than other forms of protein, and this is demonstrably true. However, this increased speed does not seem to transfer well to increased Muscle Protein Synthesis when the body is already in a fed state. Whey may be better than other protein sources at inducing protein synthesis in a fasted state (first meal of the day), but does not seem to be significantly better when protein is added to a long-term exercise regimen.”
(Examine, 2013b)
Other than being a good source of protein and a quick alternative to cooking chicken, beef, or other protein rich food sources, protein powder has no special functions. It will be beneficial for people looking to gain weight and specifically muscle mass.
Creatine
Creatine is one of the most heavily researched supplements in the world. Creatine is a substance that is naturally produced by the liver and is also be found in red meat (Bemben & Lamont, 2005). It is a type of energy stored in your muscles that will be released quicker into your system under strenuous exercise than your other energy storages, for example glucose (Examine, 2013c).
As Bemben and Lamont (2005) from the department of Neuromuscular Research Laboratory at University of Oklahoma write in their review of creatine: “it generally appears that Cr does significantly impact force production regardless of sport, sex or age”, and the notion that creatine makes you stronger has been echoed in numerous other studies (Examine, 2013d). Leading supplement researchers Examine.com show that there also is evidence for creatine increasing your weight through water retention (Examine, 2013d), so creatine supplementation could be less than ideal for those who look to lose water weight.
One side effect of creatine use at the standard dosage is that it could increase hair loss in men.
“Creatine has been shown to increase DHT (dihydrotestosterone) levels by 40% with a dosage of 5g per day. DHT is directly involved in hair loss in men, so long-term creatine usage could accelerate hair loss.”
Examine (2013c)
Though extensively researched and deemed very safe, Bemben and Lamont (2005) also point out that there have been no studies that look at the long term effects of creatine usage.
Vitamins
Though taking vitamins might seem out of place among supplements used by bodybuilders and professional athletes, it is probably the most commonly used dietary supplement. A multivitamin pill or tablet will contain several essential vitamins and minerals (Examine, 2013e), which are micronutrients, as opposed to macronutrients. Though widely used, they are not necessary per se, and are only useful if you do not get your required vitamins and minerals through a healthy and balanced diet (Examine, 2013f).
Some vitamins truly are worth supplementing into your diet. Vitamin D is a vitamin your body produces from cholesterol given that it has been exposed to sufficient direct sunlight (Examine, 2013g). This means that a lot of people could suffer from Vitamin D deficiency, especially during the winter months. Vitamin D has a number of scientifically proven effects, like decreased risk of colorectal cancer and cardiovascular diseases while increasing bone strength (Examine, 2013h).
Herman Gill, co-editor of Examine.com and bachelor’s degree graduate in science from McMaster University (Examine, 2013i), has high praise for Vitamin D supplementation:
“If there's only one supplement you're taking for your health and your diet is decent, it should probably be Vitamin D. I highly recommend taking Vitamin D instead of a multivitamin most of the time.”
Conclusion
As suspected prior to the start of my research, macronutrients do not matter all that much when looking at the big picture of weight loss. The number of carbohydrates consumed, for example, does not matter as long as a person eats at a caloric deficit. On the other side, if you wish to conserve as much lean body mass as possible when losing weight, you will want a larger percentage of your calories to come from protein. It was also shown that “spot reduction” is a myth, and that you cannot choose where to lose body fat. A good metaphor for this would be that in order to lower the water level in one area of a pool, you will have to lower it everywhere.
When trying to gain muscle mass, there are three important factors: exercise, protein consumption and eating at a caloric surplus. All hard exercise will cause small tears in your muscle fibre. This is especially true in weight lifting, as you will always be able to adjust the strain put on the muscles through the weights you work out with. Using essential amino acids derived from protein, your body will then overcompensate when repairing the tissue and it will grow back bigger and stronger than before.
In the chapter on dietary supplements, we find that creatine is an excellent supplement if you are attempting to get stronger. A big concern with creatine, however, is that it can cause or speed up hair loss in men.
As expected, protein powder supplements are a good source of protein. If consumed in a fasted state, there seems to be evidence that whey protein can be absorbed more quickly than other types of protein. Multivitamin tablets can have a role to play in your diet if you cannot get essential vitamins and minerals from your regular diets, but otherwise they seem unnecessary. Vitamin D is a good supplement for overall health, especially in countries with long winters, as it reduces risk for several diseases including colorectal cancer.
The overarching goal of this article was to provide a complete beginner with the tools to comprehend how his or her body works and what they can do to change their bodies, should they want to. I feel like I have been able to convey some very complex biological functions in a way that most people can comprehend them. Best of luck to you all.
The sources for this article can be found HERE.
This article was originally written as a term paper for Østfold University College. It has been altered for publication at Pick Your Passions.
