Today, I was asked the following in a private message:


Before I answer the question, a little about my background: I am a graduate-trained nutritional epidemiologist. What that means is that I am trained in the design, analysis, and interpretation of nutritional research studies with human subjects. I've read a good deal of the research on weight loss and am currently working on a paper on the effects of certain diets on body weight for eventual publication. I am also a climber, who, when he decided 4 years ago to get serious about sport climbing, lost 20 lbs. Now, to the question of losing weight without losing strength.

The bottom line for losing weight is that you must create a caloric deficit. That means you must consume fewer calories than you burn. You can do this in two ways: consume fewer calories in your diet or increase the amount of exercise you do. The most effective way is to do both simultaneously.

How to reduce your caloric intake.

In principle you could reduce your total caloric intake in one of two ways: either by eating the same foods you currently do and reducing portion sizes or by reducing intake of certain macronutrients (ie, fat, carbohydrate, or protein). However, one of the challenges of dieting is that when your body senses that it is receiving fewer calories than it is burning, it responds by breaking down both body fat and muscle. For an athlete (and if you are rock climber, you should start thinking of yourself as an athlete), this is disastrous because when you diet you can potentially lose strength. Since we want to increase our strength-to-weight ratio, we want to maintain our muscle mass and lose weight in the form of body fat. The way to accomplish this through diet is to maintain carbohydrate intake, increase protein intake, and reduce fat intake enough to produce a caloric deficit.

We want to increase protein intake because the additional protein offsets the body’s increased rate of muscle breakdown while dieting. The reason it is important to maintain high carbohydrate intake is that the higher the carbohydrate intake, the less muscle tissue is broken down for energy (that is, dietary carbohydrate is muscle sparing). Dietary fat, on the other hand, is not muscle sparing; consequently, your entire reduction in calorie intake should come from reducing your intake of fats.

Let’s assume you are doing aerobic exercise for a half-hour 3 days a week and climbing indoors or out 3 sessions per week (If you are not getting at least this much exercise, you should start. You will find it much easier to lose weight by a combination of diet and exercise than by just dieting). The average female at this level of exercise will probably require about 2000 calories/day to maintain her body weight, while the average male will require about 2500 calories. You should try to consume about 500 to 750 calories per day less than you burn. This should result in losing 1 – 1½ pounds per week. This may seem too slow to some; however, more drastic diets do not work – they are virtually impossible to maintain.

OK, so now you have an idea about how many total calories to eat each day. The next question is how should these calories be distributed among protein, carbohydrate, and fat. My recommendations are the following: 25 – 30% of the total calories in your diet should come from protein, 10 - 20% from fat, and the remainder from carbohydrate. This is a low-fat diet that is relatively high in both protein and carbohydrate, as required to promote retention of muscle tissue. In order to operationalize this diet, you need to become savvy at reading nutritional labels and know that protein and carbohydrate contain 4 calories per gram and that fat contains 9 calories per gram (for those who need to know, it’s 7 calories per gram for alcohol).

So, what to eat.

The challenge in this diet is keeping the protein intake high and the fat intake low. Therefore, you need to look for foods that are very low in fat and high in protein. Ideal foods are the following: beans, white-meat poultry, low-fat fishes (eg, halibut), canned tuna, and soy-based non-fat mock meats (hint: think Trader Joes). You can eat essentially unlimited vegetables, since they are very low in calories. Fruits are essentially all carbohydrate and water and low in total calories, and can (and should) be eaten in moderation. Any grain products you eat should be whole grain, since they are higher in protein, fiber, and micronutrients than their processed counterparts.

Try not to add fat to anything. Throw away your mayonnaise, margarine, butter, and cooking oils. Pure oils such as these contain 120 calories per tablespoon. It is all too easy to turn a healthy, low-calorie salad into an abomination by adding excessive dressing. Instead of mayonnaise on sandwiches, substitute mustard (which is virtually calorie free), or just go without.

Keep a diary of everything you eat. Specifically note the total calories you consume and the total grams of protein in each meal. If, at the end of the day, you didn’t consume enough protein, have a blended shake made from a protein supplement and a piece of fruit in the evening. Buy the cheap soy-protein powder. Let the muscle heads waste their money on designer whey peptides.

I realize that this diet is more quantitative than some people would like. However, in my judgment, counting calories and protein grams is the only way to ensure adequate protein intake while maintaining a low-calorie diet. This is critical for athletes.

Good luck.

-Jay

When someone is in caloric deficit and beginning to burn muscle. Does anyone know whether the muscle burned is spread throughout the body, the main muscles at work at that time, or muscles in a hypertrophic state?

A diet so low in carbs is probably not the best choice for losing weight while attempting to maximize athletic performance. I would expect that most athletes' performance would decline with so little carbohydrate in the diet.

-Jay

i recently gained some leg muscle from mtn biking and want to get rid of it.

Stop mountain biking.

-Jay

i was living in camp4 with no car, it was my way to get around...still interested in learning how to lose muscle...btw im not biking anymore :)

Has anyone tried using supplements to lose weight, like creatine or some others. I have heard a lot of creatine but have never tried it.

I have been losing weight but havent been gaining muscle in return.

Jay - Does Horst's plan fit the bill?

Breakfast - whole grain cereal or oatmeal, piece of fruit, daily vitamin, and a whey protein shake mixed in skim milk. Good coffee. :-)

Lunch - Salad and bagel, or low glycemic index energy bar (such as Balance bar), piece of fruit or yogurt, whole grain bakery item, whey protein drink or glass of skim milk.

Dinner - serving of lean meat (chicken, fish, lean red), pasta dish, salad or veggies.

Bedtime - Whey Protein drink in skim milk.

Drink lots of water throughout the day and eat extra energy bars and fruit if out climbing. It's a fairly narrow diet, void of fast foods, fried foods, etc. Yes, an "open eating" day is good every now and then as a reward! But we strive to keep fat moderately low, and protein and carbo intake fairly high. (Thus, I don't advise fad diets like the "Zone" for serious athletes)."

I have a solution for the whole fruit thing. Buy a dehydrator like i did and then the fruit won't fill you up as much, and you can still eat healthy.