Everything You've Ever Wanted to Know About Eating For Fat Loss
Fat loss can feel like a minefield of confusion and contradiction sometimes. Spend too long scrolling through fitness social media and you're likely to come away with more questions than answers. The truth is, the science of fat loss isn't overly complicated, it's the psychology of it all that tends to trip most of us up.
Our fitness director and certified nutritionist Andrew Tracey opts for a simplified, balanced, intuitive approach, that still takes heed of the science. Here he answers seven of your most burning fat loss questions.
Do I Have to Count Calories to Lose Weight?
Calories always count, but that doesn’t mean you have to count calories. Precision calorie tracking is the best way to ensure you’re in the all-important energy deficit necessary to coax your body into using body fat for fuel, but there are plenty of methods and constraints that promote calorie reduction as a byproduct. For example: reducing portion sizes, having dedicated mealtimes or an ‘eating window’ or building your meals around highly satiating high-protein, high-fibre foods, are all behaviours positively correlated with weight loss.
The best approach in our opinion is a halfway house where you find a manner of eating that allows you to eat intuitively in a sustainable, energising and enjoyable manner, but where you have enough awareness of what you’re eating that you can adjust incrementally to keep you moving towards your goal.
How Many Calories I Need?
In simple terms, if you’re gaining weight (and don’t want to), you’re consuming too many calories for the lifestyle you’re living. It might sound reductive, but the only way you’ll truly know if you’re in a caloric deficit is if you’re losing weight. That being said, establishing a baseline to aim for is a wise place to start.
Many calorie calculations use your current bodyweight as a basis, but depending on how much weight you have to lose, this could skew your calorie target too high. Using your goal weight is a safer metric to start from, but even this can be confusing, as a ‘goal weight’ is often an arbitrary number that won’t always reflect how we want to feel and perform.
Personally, I recommend using your height; there’s less variance than you might think in weight at healthy body-fat levels across people of a similar height. Does having extra muscle mass increase your calorie burn? Yes. But the effect is not nearly as dramatic as you might have been led to believe
Nutritionist and author Brad Pilon recommends that to establish your maintenance needs, you begin with 2,000 calories and add 70 calories for every inch you stand above 5ft. So, a 5ft 11in man would require 2,770 calories. From here we can subtract 10-20% to get us into a deficit, monitoring our progress and performance in the gym (and in life) to tweak that number up or down.
Do I Need to Eat the Same Number of Calories Every Day?
Absolutely not. Like a lot of things, what matters most is the average sum of your efforts over time. Some people find it beneficial to think of their calorie target as a larger, weekly number to be managed, which allows a greater degree of flexibility. I sometimes like to think about ‘calorie waves’: beginning with a lower-calorie day, followed by a day at your target weight loss calories, followed by a day above your target weight loss calories, and repeating this cycle. This way you’re always just a day or two away from a higher calorie day, which can ease feelings of restriction and put an end to yo-yo dieting cycles and any misplaced feelings of moral ambiguity around ‘cheat meals’ or ‘bad foods’. Methods like this do require a little bit more diligence in terms of monitoring your intake, but in time- and with proper awareness, adjustment and intention, you’ll get the hang of this structure to the point it becomes habitual, and your natural pattern of eating.
Does the Quality or Quantity of Food Matter More?
Despite many an internet argument to the contrary, the quality and quantity of the foods you eat are inseparable topics. Yes, for weight loss the ultimate determiner will be how many calories you consume, but your ability to sustain that intake – as well as your overall health and energy levels – will be determined by where those calories come from.
Aiming to consume foods rich in micronutrients (think vitamins and minerals) is a noble aim, but that’s not to say ‘packed full of goodness’ can solely be defined using a food’s micronutrient or macronutrient (proteins, carbs and fats) content.
‘Food as fuel’ is too reductive, why we want to eat what we want to eat has as much to do with our upbringing, environment and culture as it does our biological needs. If there was a cheat code for long-term weight loss and sustainable health it would be finding a way to eat that meets your needs calorically, nutritionally and emotionally, without any one of those aspects taking centre stage.
How Important Is Protein for Weight Loss?
More important than you'd think. Several clinical studies have concluded that consuming more protein than the recommended dietary allowance (around 50-60g per day) can induce weight loss and improve body composition, even when total calorie intake isn’t accounted for. What does that mean? It means the simple act of eating more protein alone has been shown to help reduce body fat.
What makes protein so special? It’s a high-satiety food, meaning it keeps you fuller for longer, it has a high ‘thermic effect’, meaning it costs your body more calories to process than fats and carbohydrates, and it helps to preserve lean muscle, keeping your metabolism up helping to keep your training effective. Needless to say, once you’ve got your calories in check, protein is the next most important factor for successful fat loss.
While protein recommendations very, even amongst scientists, a safe bet is to ensure you’re consistently getting between 1.6-2g per kilogram of bodyweight, each day, without being afraid to go north of this target.
Should I Cut out Carbs for Weight Loss?
Once you’ve got your calories and protein in order, you’re just left with carbs and fats to divvy up. So long as you don’t veer over your calorie target, how you do this can largely be left up to personal preference. If you’re big carb-eater now and are struggling to lose weight, there’s every likelihood that you’ll have to reduce carbohydrates, not because they’re inherently any worse than fats or protein, but simply because if they make up the largest part of your diet, they’re the easiest thing to reduce.
However, this doesn’t mean eliminate completely, or restrict at all, for that matter. In fact, containing only 4 calories per gram versus fat’s 9, carbohydrates are mathematically the better option for getting the most grub per calorie, and with fibre (a type of carbohydrate) being strongly linked to better weight loss and health outcomes, we’d advise that you have a long hard think before considering going down the low-to-no carb route.
The key is to strike a balance of fats and carbs that allows you to consistently see progress, while feeling energised and unrestricted. There’s no one size fits all answer here, so don’t be afraid to experiment to find the right balance for your body.
What’s Better: Six Small Meals or Two Big Ones?
We’re getting into the weeds a bit now, and it’s at this point that I have to start flagging the difference between 'optimal' and 'sustainable'. While there are some studies to suggest that spreading your calories – and particularly protein – throughout the day can have a beneficial effect on body composition, ultimately these effects pale into insignificance when compared to the results you get from simply hitting the numbers. There’s a bit of a recurring theme here, but finding a routine that enables you to consistently hit your protein and calorie targets will always trump trying to optimise your efforts, only to fall short of the mark and drift back into old habits. If it suits your lifestyle to eat smaller meals, more often, then have at it. But if you prefer (or are forced, by time constraints) to eat 2-3 bigger meals each day, that's fine too. The real goal is to feel energised and fulfilled, eating in a way you could see yourself continuing on with for the long term, even once you return to ‘maintenance’ calories. Everything else is just ‘nice-to-haves’.
Remember, sustainable beats optimal when optimal isn’t sustainable.
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