With summer on the horizon and getting in shape highly prevalent, The Training Room invited several lifestyle bloggers down to our David Lloyd training academy in Cheam (South West London), for a pre-summer boot camp session. Taking place over four hours, the bloggers received a crash course in nutrition and why yoyo dieting is a prevalent problem, as well as completing an intensive, fat burning workout.
The Causes of ‘yoyo’ Dieting
The first part of the day was led by TTR's Personal Training Tutor Nick Hewitt, who explained exactly how yoyo dieting becomes a habit, and how it ultimately leads to faster weight gain once a calorie restricted diet is stopped. He informed the bloggers that while low calorie diets sound like a good idea on paper, they can actually cause essential muscle loss. This is because if you are not providing your body with enough energy to function, it will start burning weight elsewhere - not just fat that you are trying to get rid of. With less muscle, your body consequently doesn’t need as much energy to function as it did previously, so when you stop dieting and begin to eat normally again, you’ll pile the pounds back on. To avoid this instant weight gain, make sure you are eating enough calories to sustain your BMR while dieting.
Calculating your BMR
To work out how many calories your body needs to function per day when you are at rest (i.e. relaxing at home or sat at a desk at work), you need to calculate your Base Metabolic Rate (BMR). The boot camp bloggers were shown in their session how to do this using the calculation below:
Men: BMR= 66 + (13.7 x weight in kg) + (5 x height in cm) – (6.8 x age)
Women: BMR= 665 + (9.6 x weight in kg) + (1.8 x height in cm) – (4.7 x age)
To work out what your recommended calorie intake is in relation to the amount of exercise you do, multiply your BMR score accordingly using the following Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE)guidelines:
Sedentary (little to no exercise): BMR x 1.2
Lightly active (light exercise or sport 1-3 times a week): BMR x 1.375
Moderately active (moderate exercise or sport 3-5 times a week): BMR x 1.55
Very active (hard exercise or sport 6-7 a week): BMR x 1.725
Extra active (hard daily exercise or work in a physical job): BMR x 1.9
This shows you how many calories you need each day to sustain your body weight. To lose weight, no more than 500 calories per day should be cut off your TDEE. If you consume fewer calories than required by your BMR, you will lose muscle mass.
The Metabolic Training Session
After their lesson in nutrition, the bloggers were invited to take part in an hour of intense HIIT style training. This variety of exercise that incorporate short bursts of cardio with weightlifting is ideal for improving your metabolism and building up muscle. Nick stressed how important it is to use weights in your exercise routines to add to your lean muscle mass and therefore increase the energy output of your body. This active session was followed by a balanced and delicious lunch before the bloggers left to create vlogs and blog posts of their educational and productive day, as well as posting on their various social channels. For more insight on The Training Room’s fitness blogger boot camp, take a look at Face Up Beauty’s blog post below:
faceupbeauty.com