Losing Weight Is About Smart Nutrition, Not Cool Sounding Diets
So one thing I notice about weight loss nowadays, is that everyone makes it so dam complicated. But here is the kicker, weight loss is actually a very simple process! Many diet gurus would have you believe that weight loss needs to be overly-complicated, restrictive, horrific, torturous, extreme and well, you get the picture! The truth of it all, is that losing weight is actually easier when everything is kept simple. Let me repeat: simple. Ok, simple doesn't sound sexy and might seem boring, but actually, simple simply means, in nutrition terms: optimal! I know I am playing with words here, but you get where I am coming from. What I am saying is, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, then forget about gurus, diet books, diets and the latest diet trends. Forget about them. They don't work for you long-term, they complicate things and, just leave you worse off than when you started. The trick with successful weight loss is always going to be the simple stuff. Nothing fancy, or over the top. So, how do you successfully lose weight?
Time For A Bit Of Maths: Know Your Calories
If there is one thing you need to absolutely know for successful weight loss, then that is calories. Calories are simply energy you consume from food. When you ingest food, it is broken down and energy is released that can be utilised by the body. Simple enough! But even today, not enough people truly understand how calories relate to successful weight loss! Without diving deep into the realm of complex thermodynamics, lets just say that to lose weight, you need to consume less calories than your body expends. That is it! When you eat less and or increase your activity levels, your energy expenditure becomes greater than your energy consumption. The net effect being weight loss! In terms of weight loss, there are a few things you need when it comes to adjusting your calories to optimise weight loss:
1) You need your ¨maintenance¨ calories. Simply, the daily number of calories you need to consume in order to maintain your current body weight. Maintenance is calculated from a few things such as height, sex, activity levels and, current bodyweight. There are many calculators you can use to do this online, but keep in mind, this is just an estimated value. In reality, your maintenance could fluctuate by a few hundred calories every day. Which is quite a lot! Well, our bodies are dynamic that way!
2) Once you have your maintenance calories, then you need to calculate your new daily calorie intake. That is, the new number of calories you are going to consume each day in order to lose weight. Typically to calculate your new daily calorie intake, you would subtract between 300-500 calories from your current maintenance. Ideally, you want to subtract around 300 calories as this will enable you to lose weight SLOWER. Which is better than rapid! Why? This will help you preserve more muscle while you lose fat. Remember, muscle is needed to burn fat, if you lose too much muscle in the process, it becomes harder to burn fat.
3) You need to recalculate your new maintenance every 4-6 weeks of weight loss. When you lose weight, your maintenance will drop. That means that as you get deeper into your weight loss journey, your new daily calorie intake will gradually get smaller over time. That means, you need to eat less and less to keep losing weight. The good news is, if you can keep your hard earned muscle tissue as you try to lose fat (through resistance training and a high protein intake), you are highly likely to keep your maintenance elevated for longer. This is great because then you don't have to drop your calories too low. This makes fat loss much easier!
Don't Cheap Out On Macronutrients
Macronutrients are simply your carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Now, this is where most diets fail: they like to massively restrict or throw away one or two of these macronutrients. When you do this, say goodbye to long-term, successful weight loss. Weight loss just no longer becomes sustainable or even enjoyable when you start taking away whole macronutrients. Let me tell you, research has time and time again found that the extent of weight loss is always the SAME whether you have a diet balanced in macronutrient composition or a diet that massively restricts macronutrients (usually carbohydrates) (Hall et al, 2016, Moro et al, 2016). Really, the success of weight loss comes down to sustainability of a diet, and not the diet itself. In other words, it doesn't matter what diet you follow, if you can't stick to it, it will never work for you.
Get Your Protein In
When we think of protein, we always think of building muscle mass. But actually, getting in enough protein is just as or if not, more important when it comes to losing fat. The key to sustainable and successful weight loss is all about muscle retention. By keeping your hard earned muscle, your potential for fat loss will be even greater. This is because more muscle will keep your body acting as an efficient powerhouse allowing you to burn lots of energy. The more energy your body burns, the more fat you are likely to lose. In fact, a recent article showed that when resistance-trained individuals underwent either an 8-week resistance training program in conjunction with a calorie-restricted diet, those given a pre-, peri- and post-workout whey protein supplement in comparison to a carbohydrate-only supplement, lost significantly more body fat (Dudgeon et al. 2015). Sounds really promising! Although 1.6g of protein/kg body weight per day seems to be the sweet spot for maximum muscle growth, it is likely that this needs to be above 2.0g/kg bodyweight per day in order to optimise muscle retention during fat loss (Morton et al. 2018).
Don't Forget About Your Micronutrients!
When it comes to weight loss, we spend so much time worrying about macronutrients, calories and protein that we often forget about our micros. You know, those good old vitamins and minerals from your fruits and veggies that keep our body functioning at its optimal level? Well, even for efficient fat loss, you need them. Although calories matter the most when it comes to losing weight, how your body utilises and processes those calories is down to your hormones. Hormones (e.g. cortisol, testosterone, estrogen, growth hormone, insulin. glucagon) are simply chemical messengers that turn off and on various processes in the body. If these hormones don't function correctly, than it can make it much more difficult for your body to regulate fat loss (even if you reduce your calories!). Getting in sufficient vitamins and minerals can help optimise your body's hormonal environment and in turn enhance the efficiency at which your body can use calories.
Final Recommendations For Efficient Fat Loss?
Successful fat loss is all about simplicity: sticking to the basics. If you can do this, than you are well on your way to achieving that dream body. Here are some final tips to ensure your fat loss journey is success:
. Stick to a daily calorie deficit of no greater than 300 calories per day
. Make regular weight training a priority over lots of cardio!
. Keep your daily protein intake high, at around 2.0g/kg bodyweight/day
.Get in all your macronutrients! First, set your protein at 2.0g/kg bodyweight/day then fill in the rest of your daily calories with carbohydrates and fats. The amount of carbohydrates and fats should be set to enable you to optimally perform in the gym, maintain good health and, enhance sustainability to the fat loss plan.
.Get in a wide range of fruits and veggies. This will in turn optimise your hormones thus allowing your body to efficiently regulate its fat loss processes.
Article written by Stephen Moreton
