What Is Energy Balance and How to Use It To Gain or Lose Weight

Using our nutrition to gain or lose weight doesn’t have to be hard.

In this article, you’ll learn about the basics of metabolism and how to use the time-tested principles of nutrition to gain or lose weight without fads like intermittent fasting or going low-carb.

Let’s start with Energy Balance.

ENERGY BALANCE  

Sounds like we have 2 pieces here: 

1. Energy

2. Balance

ENERGY

Just like our homes and cars use gas and electricity for energy, our bodies use calories for energy.  

We get those calories from our food. You can read much more on that subject in THIS blog post. 

We burn the calories in food to accomplish all of life’s tasks. Everything from blinking to breathing to bicep curls.  We’ll get into that more soon. 

BALANCE

Since we’re not constantly eating, our bodies have evolved a system that keeps us alive even when we’re not chowing down or sipping on calories.  

Behind the microscopic scenes, we’re always moving nutrients/energy through our blood, in and out of cells and tissue.  This includes our fat cells.

This whole process gives us balance, and a steady stream of energy while we’re asleep and awake.  

But just like the teeter totter you played on at recess in 3rd grade… sometimes things can get out of balance.

FAT CELLS

Remember those pesky fat cells I mentioned?  Those suckers serve a purpose other than making our belts tight. 

They hold our reserve energy!  

Think about this…

Getting food wasn’t always as easy as opening an app on your phone and ordering a large meat lovers. 

We used to have to look for it.  Hunt it.  Kill it and then eat as much of it as we could in a day before it rotted. 

It might be days or weeks between meals.  Talk about getting hangry.

We developed body fat as a way to store excess energy (calories) for times where we just didn’t have any food for extended periods. 

Back to Balance…

So here’s the way this whole balance of energy (calories) works nowadays in non-hunter gatherer days.

Remember….We eat calories and we burn calories…Calories in vs. Calories out

When we eat about the same number of calories as we burn over the course of time our weight remains largely unchanged save for daily fluctuations in water weight and undigested food in our guts.

We shuttle nutrients and fat in and out of our cells throughout the day to meet our needs and over the course of the day, the week and the month as long as “calories in = calories out” we stay about the same.

Calorie Surplus

When we eat more calories on average over the course of days, weeks, and months we have an overabundance of energy called a Calorie Surplus.

To prevent future starvation, our bodies pack away that extra energy in our reserve tanks.  Fat cells!

Yes, our bellies, thighs, extra chins, and love handles.  

It really is that simple as much as I wish I could tell you differently.  

If you don’t burn the calories from 6 beers, 5 slices of pizza, and 4 Jack in the Box tacos, your body will store those calories as fat. 

Keep in mind... one high-calorie meal isn’t so much the problem.  

A steady flow of high-calorie processed food, snacks, and drinks is the real smoking gun when it comes to fat storage.

Calorie Deficit

Ok, so eat the “right” number of calories and your weight stays the same.

Eat “too many” calories and they’ll be stored as fat for later. 

So what about getting rid of some of that stored fat that we already have?   I mean, is there some kind of “locks of love” donation for fat?

Sadly no, but there’s still a way to get rid of that unwanted fat.

You need to deprive your body of energy so that it’ll go attack your fat for energy.  Remember, fat is reserve energy.

So how do we do it?  

We eat less calories on average over the course of days, weeks, and months than we’re burning.  

We call this being in a Calorie Deficit.  

Just like one heavy meal doesn’t “make you fat”, one low-calorie salad probably won’t give you the fat loss results you’re looking for. 

You’ve got to be in a calorie deficit for an extended period of time to really start burning fat.  

I know what you’re thinking.

It’s got to be more complicated than that right?  What about carbs?  My uncle lost 50 pounds on the “all meat” diet…What about insulin, fasting, eating before bed and doing crunches?

Let me be clear.

ANY “DIET” THAT CAUSES YOU TO LOSE FAT DID SO BECAUSE IT CREATED A CALORIE DEFICIT.

Yes, even that diet.  And that one too. 

I hope I’m not unclear!

Ok, now you understand how energy balance via calories is THE THING that controls whether you’re burning fat, gaining fat, or staying the same. 

Let’s move to:

1. What our body does with all of those calories that we eat 

2. Why focusing on burning more calories doesn’t work

WHAT OUR BODY DOES WITH THE CALORIES THAT WE EAT

Remember “calories in vs calories out”?  (CICO)

Those 2 things make up the teeter-totter of energy balance.

So what exactly are we using all of those calories for?

I’m so glad you asked. 

Where do our calories go?

The totality of calories we burn per day is summed up as our Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE.

People smarter than us have done studies that measure how much energy we burn on different functions and tasks throughout the day.

Here’s how it breaks down on average:

Most of our energy goes toward our Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).   Think of this as the cost just to keep the lights on.  Stuff like circulating blood, making your heart beat, and the like.  

Next on the hit list is our non-exercise activity or our “NEAT”.  This is all the things like fidgeting, walking from place to place in the house, blinking, and tapping your foot to your favorite tune.  

If you exercise, the next on the list of calorie burners is exercise activity.  If you don’t know what this means I can’t help you.

At the top of the pyramid, we’ve got the energy that gets burned in the process of pulling nutrients out of our food during digestion.  It’s called the Thermic Effect of Food. Bet ya never thought about that right?  It’s a real thing! 

What can we control?

Let’s zoom out and think about these in the context of “what we can control and what we can’t”.

BMR

Your BMR is largely a function of your age, height, and weight.  Bigger people generally need more calories for this reason.  So if you lose a bunch of weight you’ll need less calories.  But other than that, your BMR is mostly out of your control.  

NEAT

How about NEAT? We have some control over this one if want to take it.  

You can blink really fast all the time to burn extra… just kidding.  

But really, things like using a standing desk vs. sitting, taking the stairs instead of the escalator on your way to The Gap can all add up to a couple extra hundred calories on the “calories out” side of the equation through NEAT.  

Your body also uses NEAT to prevent you from losing weight when you’re in a calorie deficit.  Since NEAT is mostly involuntary, your body will make you subconsciously slooooowwwwww down to conserve energy.

In 2019 we did a photo shoot and got pretty lean via a calorie deficit leading up to it. Tell you what… It almost took an act of Congress to get me off the couch toward the end of it! #lazy

TEF

Believe it or not, we actually have some control over the thermic effect of food.  Protein requires more energy from our body to digest than carbohydrates and fat.  Ever heard of the meat sweats?  Yeah, that’s a real thing.  

EXERCISE

How about exercise?  When I learned about TDEE I was surprised that exercise accounted for such a small percentage of our daily calorie burn.  Sad.  Of course, not everyone who exercises burns the same number of calories.  There are a ton of factors at play.  

Your weight, your body composition, the exercises you’re doing, the amount of work you’re doing, and how hard you’re doing it. 

The bottom line is that even if you’re working hard, exercise doesn’t burn a bazillion calories.  

WHY CALORIES OUT ISN’T ENOUGH

So.  All in all, we don’t have a ton of control over the “calories out” side of energy balance.  

We can try to keep our NEAT activity high by not being lazy.  We can exercise, and we can eat a high-protein die. But if these are our only plan of attack for weight gain or loss we’re going to be in trouble.

I wear a watch that tracks how many calories I burn throughout the day.  

I can tell it when I’m starting to exercise and it’ll separate out those calories for me too.  

You wanna be depressed? I can lift weights AND do some intense cardio for about an hour and only burn 200-300 calories according to my watch.  

I don’t put a ton of stock in the accuracy of these devices, but even if it’s 20% off, I’m not thrilled with the news.  

Why so?  Well for starters 300 calories is only like 1 piece of pepperoni pizza or a venti “fancy ass coffee” as Blakley calls it. 

Ever had a moment of weakness and eaten a few extra handfuls of cashews or chocolate chips?   Yeah me too, and there goes the calorie “progress” we made in the gym.  

You’ve probably heard the expression “You can’t out train/exercise a bad diet”.  It’s true.

I verified it.  It doesn’t work.  Pretty sure some of y’all have verified it too. 

So what do we do?

If we truly want to change our body composition and lose fat or build muscle we need to switch our attention to the other side of the energy balance equation.

The hard part.  

The part that takes discipline, good habits, some know-how and long term consistency. 

THE IMPORTANCE OF HOW MANY CALORIES YOU EAT

So if focusing on “calories out” isn’t the answer, what is?

First off, don’t take this as “you shouldn’t exercise”.  You should.  Matter of fact you should do it most days.  

You should lift weights and do cardio to improve your strength, bone density, connective tissue health, your conditioning, your confidence, and your overall health. 

But like we said, you’re not going to outrun the calories you’re eating by exercising.  

If we truly want to change our body we’ve got to get serious about the other side of the energy balance teeter-totter.

I know, I wish it weren’t true either.  

I wish we could just eat however much of whatever we want and it not have an affect on our body.  

“Lord please send the calories in this 4th piece of fried chicken into heaven instead of to my love handles.”

I suppose if you have more pull with God than I do that might work, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

We have got to control the amount of food we put in our bodies if we want to gain or lose weight. 

Not for one day, not for one week, but for as long as it takes to reach whatever our goal is.  

We need to harness the power of energy balance for as long as it takes to gain or lose the amount of weight that we need to. 

TDEE

Before we get to harnessing… Remember TDEE?  The total number of calories you burn on average over the day?  

We’re going to need to figure out what yours is. 

Why so? Keep reading to the end! 

LOSING FAT

If our goal is to lose fat we need to get ourselves into a calorie deficit. 

We need to take our TDEE and eat LESS calories on average than that so we’ll start burning body fat for energy.

How big of a deficit?  

While big calorie deficits can cause fast WEIGHT LOSS, we’re after lasting BODY FAT LOSS.

And since we need this to be sustainable and we want to have the least amount of negative effect on our metabolism we prefer a more conservative calorie deficit.

Somewhere between 10 and 20% for most people depending on how much weight they have to lose.

GAINING WEIGHT/MUSCLE

If our goal is to build muscle we need to get ourselves into a calorie surplus.

We need to take our TDEE and eat MORE calories on average than that so that we’ll build muscle.  

How do we keep from just storing fat when we’re eating in a calorie surplus?  

We do that by “lean bulking”.  

That’s just a fancy way to say that we don’t use a large surplus, we pay close attention to our training and we make sure we’re getting the right amounts of protein, carbs, and fat most days. 

But let me be clear… Unless you’re brand new to training with weights you will gain SOME body fat while focusing on building muscle.  

SUMMARY

Let’s wrap this up and I’ll leave you with a free tool you can use.

Let’s talk about how we’re going to put all of this energy balance knowledge into practice to change our bodies.

There are three things that are obviously going to have to happen if you want to use all of this info to lose or gain weight.

1. You’ve gotta decide what your goal is.  Do you want to lose fat?  Build muscle?  Your goal determines your action.

2. You’ve gotta figure out your TDEE and then set your calories.(We can help here)

3. You’ve gotta track your food intake to actually know how much you’re eating.  Luckily there are a host of apps and websites like MyFitnessPal out there to help with this.  

There are a couple of different ways to find your TDEE.  You can use an online calculator or you can track your food intake for about a week to see how many calories you’re already eating on average. 

Once you have that you can go about setting your calorie goal above or below that depending on your goal.

Or…… 

You can take a shortcut and use a nifty little free download we put together.

A handy dandy calculator you can use that will help you set your calories AND target pro/carb/fat based on your current body weight, sex, and goal.  

It’ll also tell you how to make adjustments if things aren’t working out for you.  

Pretty slick right? 

Grab yours HERE.

You can always reach out to us if you hit a snag too.

If you’re ready to take action but the thought of going at this alone makes you want crawl back in bed… Why not hire us to coach you 1 on 1 on your nutrition?

It’s an investment in yourself that will pay off for the rest of your life. 

If nothing else, remember what you’ve learned today about the basics of energy balance so that the next time you hear about some magical diet you’ll know what’s really going on behind the scenes causing that weight loss. 

Have a great day!