Considering food is such a huge part of our health and wellbeing, the majority of the population know very little about what they’re eating. What we consume can have a huge impact on not just how our body looks, but also how it performs.
When I started really getting into fitness, I was performing high intensity workouts about six times per week. I was probably burning about 400 calories each session. It felt like I was doing a lot so when I didn’t see any massive changes in my body composition, it was pretty demotivating. Why? Because of my diet.
I was eating what I considered to be ‘clean’ and ‘healthy’. It genuinely was those things, full of fruit, veg and good nutrients, but at the end of the day it wasn’t what my body needed if fat loss was my goal.
At the end of the day, fat loss is very simple. We love to over complicate it. This plays directly into the hands of corporations who use this to make money off us with bullsh*t like skinny teas, hunger supressants, weird stomach wrap things and weight loss programmes. This is because people what the simple and easy route.
The route is absolutely simple, but I’m not gonna say it’s easy.
The answer? Two words – Calorie deficit.
That’s it.
If you don’t know what I mean by that, I’ll explain. In order for our body to lose fat, we need to be consuming less calories that we are burning off. We can create a deficit in two ways: decreasing food, increasing exercise. For me, the best thing to do is impliment both these methods, that way you won’t have to go to the extreme in either.
That’s why I recommend EVERYONE should track their eating at least for some period of their lives. It’s a pain in the ass, yes. But you will be surprised at the amount of calories you’re consuming and that’s the reason you can’t loose fat.
This doesn’t mean you should suddenly cut your calories by 1000 and stay like that for a while. Not only is this not sustainable, your metabolism will be screwed and your body won’t be able to burn fat as it will be clinging onto it as it goes into survivial mode.
1. Find out how many calories you should be consuming
You can do this through a calorie calculator online. All you need to put in is your weight, height, age, how much you exercise and how active you are. This all affects how many calories you burn each day.
These are the various ways we burn calories:
- BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): This is how much we burn by just our organs keeping us alive
- Physical activity: Exercise, walking, moving
- TEF (Thermic Effect of Food): Our body burns calories digesting our food! That technically means the more we eat, the more calories we burn in this category!
- NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis): Fidgeting, small movements, even things like using our hands when talking etc. Increase this by moving more during the day! When people dramatically cut their calories, the amount of NEAT calories we burn tends to go down as we will subconsiously move less to reserve energy.
2. Find out how many calories you should be consuming for your deficit
The calculator will give you a ‘maintainance’ calorie figure. This is how much your body needs in order for it to stay in a place where there will be no weight gain or fat loss. Calculate around 10-15% of this number, and subtract it from the maintainance. That’s how much you should be consuming for fat loss.
For example, if someone’s maintainance is 2,000 calories, 10% of that is 200. Therefore, they should be consuming 1,800 calories per day for fat loss. In my experience, the best thing to do is help boost that deficit a wee bit more by upping your exercise. It doesn’t have to be anyting too dramatic.
3. Download a food tracker such as myfitnesspal and track EVERYTHING
The best thing to do is use it with your normal diet for a week. Then you’ll see how much you’ve been eating, what the problem meals are, what’s good and what’s bad.
Remember to track things like coffee, soft drinks, cooking oil and juice. These tend to rack up your calories so much so be wary!
4. Allow yourself cheat meals/days!
Unless you’re a physique competitor wanting to step on stage, you’re not going to want to make your life revolve around your calorie deficit and myfitnesspal. Allow yourself to be flexible and go over your calorie allowance once a week or so. The key here is to not get a taste for the binge and ending up consuming 4000 cals in one day and completely undoing that week of counting. This ABSOLUTELY has to be done every once in a while, I know that very well! But if you’ve got a nice dinner, or social event coming up, don’t feel guilty about the few extra calories, and don’t bother tracking.
I find it so much easier to stay sane and stay motivated this way. Otherwise it just seems like an endless road of forbidden foods.
5. Figure out what foods work best for you and what you enjoy the most!
This is the best thing about counting your cals to lose fat. A lot of people refer to it as flexible dieting. If it fits in your calorie allowance, go for it! No food is a ‘sin’ or any of that rubbish. If you want something higher cal, then you’ll just have to have lower cal things thorughout the day.
It very much takes a while to get into a routine of it and find the foods that work best for you, that taste the best and keep you feeling full. I’ve never felt hungry when I’m in my calorie deficit, and I never feel like I’m missing out on things.
Once you get into the swing of things with this – I would then recommend looking closer at your macronutrients. That’s a post for another day 🙂