What Does Eat Less, Move More Mean?
Eat Less, Move More. Let’s start with this. I’m sure you’ve heard this slogan before. It’s the slogan that suggests that losing weight or getting lean is as simple as eating less and moving more. Technically it is. It’s kind of true, but let’s talk about what makes this concept so hard to follow for most people.
The problem is that most people take the phrase literally. Meaning, people think they should literally eat less food than they currently eat and do more exercise. But, if losing weight and getting lean were as easy as “eat less, and move more” everyone would be successful at getting lean, right? Yet, millions of people struggle with the concept of getting lean every day, because they have no idea what “eating less and moving more” really means?
What does “eat less” really mean? Eat less than what? What does “move more” really mean? Move more than what?
There are many folks who are very active in the gym and will look you in the face and swear to you they don’t eat a lot. You may be one of these people. And technically you may be right. The truth is, you’re going to soon find out that you don’t have to eat a lot of food to keep or gain more fat than you want on your body. One bad meal, once per day, can be way more food than your body requires.
Losing Weight—Basic Concepts
The term “eat less” for our purpose simply means eat fewer calories than what your body needs to function on a day-to-day basis. It doesn’t mean eating less food.
Your body requires calories, and where do our calories come from? The foods we put in our mouth, right? It’s the only way we can get our calories. But how does this work?
Another way to look at calories is to see them as the amount of energy your body needs. If you give your body the number of calories it needs, your body will be happy. But if you give it too many calories, the body will convert these extra calories into a mass of fat.
A 1-pound replica of muscle tissue on the left. A one-pound replica of fat tissue on the right.
The above image shows a 1-pound mass of muscle tissue versus a 1-pound mass of fat tissue. Your body will “burn” or use this stored energy fat mass only during times when you don’t give it the number of calories it needs. This is what the fat burning process is. If you continuously give your body more energy than it needs, it’ll never have a reason to use the existing energy or accumulated fat mass that it has. Does this make sense?
So, if you give your body more calories than it needs daily and over time, the extra energy will be stored as fat mass, and you’ll see this on a body weight scale as weight gain.
If you give your body fewer calories than your body needs and over time, your body will be forced to use your existing energy stores, burn it, and you’ll see this on a body scale as weight loss. Your body literally loses mass.
But, if you give your body on average only the number of calories it needs, theoretically you will never lose or gain weight because the body will have all the fat it needs for its energy.
The number of calories you need to eat so you don’t gain or lose weight is called your maintenance calories. Technically speaking, your maintenance calories are also called your body’s TDEE or Total Daily Energy Expenditure.
So, when you hear the term, eat less, it really means to eat fewer calories than your maintenance calories or TDEE, which is just the number of calories your body needs to maintain its existing weight. This is the biggest missing and misunderstood piece of information that you need to understand.
So many fitness programs sell weight loss exercise programs without even a mention of maintenance calories. If you’ve ever tried to lose weight but never heard of this concept, this is very likely the reason why you’ve never been successful keeping your weight off.
Losing weight and staying lean is difficult to do if you have no idea what your maintenance calories are. So, let’s talk a little more about what maintenance calories are and then see how to estimate your own maintenance calorie levels. If you want to lose weight, get lean, and keep your weight off, you 100% need to have a starting estimate of your maintenance calories.
