The Hierarchy Of Fat Loss

Type in how to loose fat into a search engine and you’ll get a flood of articles telling you different 100 different things.

Most go out on massive tangents, either trying to sell you some magical fat loss product focusing on minute things that probably won’t help fat loss at all unless you first have the fundamentals in place.

Here are 3 key fundamentals to stick to-

1, The Energy Balance Equation And Creating A Calorie Deficit

At the most basic level we have the 1st rule of thermodynamics. Energy cannot be created or destroyed so it has to be accounted for.

In order to loose fat you must be expending more energy than you are intaking.

but the insulin’s brah!?!….

A word on Insulin

Now there are people out there who claim that this law doesn’t apply and that its all about keeping your insulin levels low. These same people a lot of the time with also be promoting the idea that the solution to your fat loss woe’s is in a pill or powders to help control your insulin levels. Beware these snake oil salesmen!

Now It is true that when someone does get to a certain level of obesity that they might experience some insulin resistance. Obese people often develop pre diabetic symptoms and eventually type 2 diabetes. Research has shown is that type 2 diabetes can often be reversed by loosing a lot of weight.

For someone who is obese, a lower carbohydrate approach may well be the best initial approach to loosing fat. Swapping out processed heavily calorie ladened foods for more whole-food options is a simple way to quickly cut back on calories. As average chocolate bar contains around 200-250 kcal compared to a piece of fruit that typically is 80-100 kcal.

I do not recommend one type of diet, the best diet is one that you can stick to for a prolonged period of time. Consistency is what really counts.

A common pitfall is underestimating the amount of calories you are consuming. Type 2 diabetes of not, if you put someone in a completely controlled environment and ensure they are in a deficit they absolutely will loose weight.

 Protein needs are increased during a diet in order to help protect lean body mass and increased fibre has been shown to help keep the feeling of hunger at bay. So the age old advise on eating your meat-fish & greens is a good foundation to build upon.

In order to create a calorie deficit you can do this via changes to your diet and also increases in activity to expend more daily calories.

If you want to exercise for the sake of burning calories I’d recommend choosing something steady state with minimal movement complexity. Brisk walking, cycling or a cross-trainer are good options.

The energy cost of pure strength training is largely overestimated and that it also requires an extra level of movement complexity. In my opinion weight training under fatigue whilst trying to keep your heart rate up is a quick recipe for injuring yourself. The cost to risk ration is too great, it’s too easy for form to start breaking down.

This is a nice segue onto the reason it is however important to still strength train whilst loosing weight-

2, Strength Training To Preserve Lean Mass, Not Burn Calories

One of the issues when creating a calorie deficit is that your body doesn’t just discriminate to only burning off body fat. It will also start to break down muscle mass and bone density over time unless you give it a reason not to. Lean body mass is an important factor in how many calories your body burns at rest.

The common quagmire I see repeated dieters get into goes something like this-

The dieter creates a calorie deficit and looses some weight, but because strength training wasn’t incorporated concurrently a proportion of the weight they lost was lean body mass. After a time they resume their eating and steadily put the weight back on but this time with less lean body mass.

This repeats for several cycles and eventually you get a person who has high body fat, very low lean body mass and thus a much lower energy requirement to maintain their weight. They literally can end up being able to put on body fat on the amount of calories that a few years ago would have simply maintained their weight.

Does this sound familiar to you?

Don’t despair, there is a way to counter act this!

This is where the role of strength training comes in. Strength training gives your body a signal to hold onto lean body mass even when in a calorie deficit.

Calorie deficit + Strength training = Greater proportion of fat loss

I’d recommend 3-4 strength training sessions a week when in a calorie deficit to optimise your results For a complete beginner I’d recommend to start with 2 and gradually increase as you become accustomed to it.

3, Better Sleep, Better Fat Loss

Better sleep helps you loose more fat

In a study, 2 groups 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.

It is well known that when we are sleep deprived we often get more cravings for foods, most commonly something sweet. This is a potential landmine when it comes to sticking to a diet if you are hungry and craving sweet things all the time.

Wrap Up

Focus on these three key areas first before considering further optimisation of what you are doing, anything else is just a waste of time and money.