Our Fitness Director and Nutritionist Gives His Top Tips for Making Fat Loss Easier (Without Counting Calories)
Fat loss, on the surface, is simple. Energy in versus energy out. But simple rarely means easy. The science and physiology of losing weight can be summed up fairly quickly, but understanding the psychology of behaviour change is the key to making your fat loss efforts not only easier, but sustainable.
In order to change the way you eat, you first need to change the way you think. Reframe your attitude to food with these pointers from MH's fitness director and certified nutritionist Andrew Tracey.
RETHINK ‘MEAL PREP’
The idea of bulk-cooking and packing up all of the meals you plan to eat throughout the week (while snapping a quick pic for the 'gram) has possibly done more to cultivate an all-or-nothing mindset than all other nutritional hacks and hashtags combined.
Yes, there’s truth in the saying ‘failing to plan is planning to fail’, but planning ahead doesn't have to mean filling up your fridge with plastic pots of sweet potato and chicken. ‘Meal prep’ can simply mean thinking about what you want to eat ahead of time, rather than making an on-the-spot decision. Sometimes this might mean a lunchbox full of prawn salad, other times it might mean a strategic supermarket dash or knowing ahead of time what the smartest but most enjoyable menu option is going to be on an evening out.
The key point of difference comes in knowing that wherever you find yourself, you can always make choices more aligned with your aspirations, and that ‘mentally meal prepping’ by deciding the types of foods you’re going to reach for beforehand, even if this means food combinations that may look odd to the average meal-deal connoisseur, saves you from falling into that all-or-nothing trap that might otherwise see you eating reactively and emotionally, because your ‘perfect plan’ that revolved around reheated fish and rice, ‘failed’.
Yes, back yourself by preparing as much as is convenient beforehand, but also prepare for when you’re unprepared, so that you can make more skilful, health-promoting choices, wherever you are.
GO HEAVY ON HYDRATION
Ensuring you’re drinking enough is right up there with the best of them in terms of ‘obvious things that people don’t actually do’. But, if 'not dying of thirst' isn't a convincing enough motivation for you, studies have also shown than 37% of people commonly mistake thirst for hunger, which can lead to overeating. Ensuring you’re adequately hydrated throughout the day (the government recommend around 2.5 litres for men, plus more if you need to replace fluids lost during exercise) is a no-brainer, but it is easy to overlook. Making it a non-negotiable to have at least 500ml with each meal or snack will not only help you to hit this target, but a pause to take sips between bites could also aid you in recognising when you’re actually full.
Wherever possible though, lean into low-to-no-calorie hydration: high calorie sugary drinks have been closely linked with weight gain and obesity risk. In fact, if you’re not gaining weight now but have body fat you'd like to lose, simply switching to diet alternatives, or even better- water, could be the low hanging fruit of weight loss progress.
MAKE EATING A RITUAL
This might sound left-field, but it's another one that's simple, but rarely implemented. When you eat, just eat. We’re all busy and terminally distracted, we’re all constantly rushing to get onto the next thing, and sometimes eating meals feels like something that we try to fit in between the more 'important' bits of life life. . But research has shown that eating whilst distracted (ie. doomscrolling social media or binging Netflix) leads not just to a moderate increase in calories consumed during that meal, but also a greater increase in calories consumed later on. Add to this that eating a meal at a slow pace, versus inattentively speed eating has also been shown in research to cause a 25% reduction in snacking later on in the day, and it’s pretty clear that when we say ‘give your diet some attention’, we don't just mean generally, we mean each and every bite.
Here are some simple tips to turn each meal into a fulfilling ritual where you don’t just tick all of the boxes we mentioned above to quell your appetite properly, but also actually get to enjoy your meal:
Take your meal somewhere away from distraction.
Take 3 or 4 deep breaths as you sit down to eat, consciously setting the intention to pay attention to, and enjoy your food.
Put your cutlery or food down between bites.
Chew deliberately and make a mental note of what each bite actually tastes like.
Take a sip of water every two to three bites.
As your meal wears on, begin to ask yourself simple prompts after a each bite, ‘was that bite better than last?’ ‘Am I getting fuller?’ ‘Am I still hungry, or eating for the sake of it?’
All of this might sound like a lot, and possibly even a recipe to ruin a meal time, but try it, just once. Weight loss aside, nothing makes a meal taste better than actually noticing what you’re eating.
STOP CHASING THE PERFECT DIET
When it comes to staying ‘on track’, the first thing you needs to realise is that the track is almost never a straight line. It’s nice to sit down and plan out our ideal day of eating, but we don’t live in an ideal world, so it’s probably far more effective to instead plan for your worst day. When life derails your plans, try turning frustration into curiosity. Experimenting with different ways of eating in dozens of different scenarios will ensure you develop the mental flexibility to maintain those eating habits in the long run.
Usually eat little and often, but find yourself hungrier than usual, or having to go a long time between meals? Get curious about what your go-to ‘big meals’ would be, if you could only eat twice a day.
Find yourself away from home, without a kitchen to prepare food in? Get curious about what delicious high-protein, high-fibre, calorie- appropriate food combinations are available nearby, forgetting all about what foods ‘traditionally’ go together, and searching for what works for you, right now.
Big meals, small meals, snacks, having a supermarket sweep back-up plan of a protein shake paired with a sandwich and a piece of fruit. Try it all. Just because you ate one way last week, doesn’t mean you have to eat that way today. Forget everything you think you know about what a day of eating ‘should’ look like, and get curious about how you can make the principles of fat loss work for you, no matter the circumstances. The same goes for your workout regime, forget ‘perfect’ and aim for ‘done’, forget ‘optimal’ and aim for ‘sustainable’.
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