In general, we have an oversimplified understanding of our energy intake and our energy expenditure. Only thinking about calories in and calories out does not assess your daily energy needs from a complete point of view. There are many nuances that go into the energy balance discussion for athletic women, and this episode is the place to start.

If You Want to Understand Your Daily Energy Expenditure Better, You Should:

1. Remember that energy balance is a more nuanced concept than just saying calories in and calories out
2. Pay attention to your protein energy and non-protein energy rather than your total calorie intake
3. Work to understand your total energy expenditure from a complete daily point of view

Where Women Athletes Go Wrong

Often times athletic women get into trouble by trying to match a low daily energy calorie intake with a high energy output of training. This approach to fueling is where athletic women tend to go wrong and see negative outcomes.

Your metabolism and your energy consumption need to work together in order to find the energy balance that is right for you and your training. Understanding how your energy is influenced when you are at rest when you are breaking down your food, and when you are engaging in non-exercise and exercise activity is the key to getting into balance and moving past oversimplification.

The 4 Pieces of Total Daily Energy Expenditure

There are four key pieces that affect your total daily energy expenditure. How your body processes energy during these four phases is the key to being in energy balance and avoiding an energy deficit. Your resting energy expenditure, the thermic effect of food, your non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, and your exercise activity thermogenesis, or purposeful activity, all play a role in how your metabolism works together with your body.

Maintaining an appropriate energy balance is the only way to see the improvements you are looking for in a sustainable and healthy way.

Do you feel as though your energy is in balance? Share your thoughts with me in the comments on the episode page.

In This Episode

• The problem with applying basic principles of thermodynamics for athletic women (5:58)
• Understanding the difference between energy intake and calories (9:59)
• Which numbers are the most important to pay attention to as a female athlete (16:02)
• How your total daily energy expenditure is impacting your metabolism (19:45)
• Why you need to stop listening to the mindset of eating less and moving more (27:27)

Quotes

“Of course, you are a biological system, and when we strip biological models of all of their complexity and nuance and strip them down to pithy one-liners like ‘eat less move more,’ this simplicity at best can lead you astray as an athletic person, and even at worst, do some harm to your health and wellbeing.” (9:03)

“Saying a calorie is a calorie is like saying an inch is an inch or a pound is a pound. It quantifies things, but it doesn't qualify things.” (11:29)

“It is important to understand how metabolism and energy balance and so on work together, specifically when we are talking about why building muscle is so freaking important, and how does that affect our basal metabolic rate.” (20:44)

“I am not here to teach you intentional fat loss. What I am here to highlight is some of the ways we go astray in our thinking.” (22:01)

“I think it is important for you to understand how some of these factors are going to affect your training and why my primary goal here is to get you to understand that eating enough food is so incredibly important to your training and your health and well-being.” (30:42)

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