Fat Loss Explained
In this article I address some key principles to focus on when your goal is fat loss-
1, You must create a calorie deficit
In order lose body fat you must create a deficit to your energy intake.
This can be achieved through changes to your eating or increases in your activity levels. I find changes to your eating the most efficient as it’s a lot easier to consume calories than it is to burn them.
As a diet progresses and you lose fat you will have to gradually keep reducing the amount of calories you consume in order to continue to lose fat.
A lighter body expends less energy to move around in everyday activities and so your body as part of its survival mechanisms will attempt to balance this out by reducing your metabolic rate.
This is temporary and after a period of dieting this will gradually return to normal, you are not creating any long term damage.
Keep these adjustments downwards small, no more than 5-10% at any given time.
You want to lose fat on as many calories as possible as this helps to maintain you energy levels for exercise and everyday life and combat levels of hunger.
You want to avoid you getting too ‘hangry’ as this is going to make you and probably others around you feel miserable and more likely to lead you to falling off of the wagon and binging.
2, Strength training
You lose fat by creating a calorie deficit. Now in order to get your body to loose body fat rather than lean body mass (muscle) you have to give it a reason to retain that lean body mass. Strength training provides this stimulus and will help you ultimately achieve that ‘toned’ look once your body fat is low enough.
Creating a deficit to lose fat without this concurrent strength training means that a greater proportion of the weight you lose will come from lean body mass and whilst you will certainly over time still lose fat you’ll also lose lean body mass which will likely leave you with a less than aesthetically pleasing ‘skinny fat’ look.
Now this doesn’t mean that you have to go all in and start training like a bodybuilder, far from it. This is a common misperception that puts many people off of lifting weights. Bodybuilding is a very specialised pursuit and it takes years of consistent focused training to achieve that ‘look’.
For the average person weight lifting in addition to preserving lean mass when dieting will make your body firmer and you’ll look & feel better naked.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28507015/
3, Keep your overall daily activity levels high (NEAT)
Creating a calorie deficit is in nutshell subjecting your body to a small famine and body has some very clever in-built survival mechanisms to try to fight this.
One tactic it uses it to subconsciously encourage you to reduce what’s called your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). NEAT can account for quite a number of calories burned during a day on top of your BMR (Basel Metabolic Rate, the amount of calories you burn just to survive doing nothing).
Say you create a calorie deficit through food of 250 calories but at the same time subconsciously you start walking less, taking the elevator, lying down more etc. you’ll find that you can start to quickly make inroads on that calorie deficit and mint end up unconsciously sabotaging your results.
One easy way to counteract your levels of NEAT dropping is to monitor your daily step count. Say your average is 5,000 then aim to keep that constant throughout the ‘diet’, You may actually find upping this to 7,500 or even 10,000 steps per day as your bodyweight reduces will continue to help you lose body fat. A lighter body burns less calorie in every day activities.
Get off a stop early or walk to work
Use the stairs
Get a stand up desk
Manually clean things rather than using ‘labour saving’ devices.
Plan a long walk at the weekend
Find activities outside of the gym that get you active - Martial arts, dancing, climbing, swimming etc.
4, Optimise your Sleep Quality & Duration
Tigger knew the secrets to staying lean
A study highlighted to me in the book ‘Why We Sleep’ by Matthew Walker showed the amount of sleep you have directly impacts what weight is lost when on a diet.
In a study, 2 group of people were put on a calorie deficit. One group in addition to this had restricted sleep.
Both groups on average lost a similar amount of weight.
However, for the participants who got only 5 1/2 hours sleep the amount of fat mass relative to lean body mass was significantly reduced- 1.3 pounds of fat and 5.3 pounds of fat-free mass compared to the group who got 8 1/2 hours sleep- 3.1 pounds of fat and 3.3 pounds of fat-free body mass.
In addition to this the sleep restricted group had increased levels of hunger as their Ghrelin levels (‘hunger hormone’) increased.
This very starkly illustrates the importance of getting good sleep. This should be an areas in addition to neutron that you should invest time in.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/10/101004211637.htm
Here’s an article I wrote on improving your sleep - 15 Tips to Better Sleep
5, Set realistic goals and be patient
You don’t get out of or into shape overnight
Fat loss in order to make it sustainable and create a healthy relationship & lifestyle shouldn’t be a sprint.
Yes certainly you can have brief periods of dieting with a large calorie deficit but these should only be used for short periods of time and are unsustainable. From my experience of helping hundreds of clients, a slower more consistent timeframe for fat loss wins the day.
Adherence is ultimately the key. It’s all well & good creating a deficit for 5 days of the week but then at the weekend if you fill your boots on high calorific food and especially liquid calories (alcohol, with an added effect of reducing sleep quality) it’s very possible to sabotage the very deficit that you’ve created over the week.
A useful strategy is to set your calories slightly lower during the week to allow for more of a ‘buffer’ of calories at the weekend which will enable you to be social when eating out or cooking with your friends & family without ruining your deficit. This doesn’t mean you give yourself permission to eat in a gluttonous fashion.
