First things first, you need to be in a calorie deficit. You can achieve this by reducing your food intake or increasing your daily movement and exercise. Ideally, you want to be performing both together, as ultimately, they go hand in hand. A calorie deficit is crucial to create a demand for your body to use its energy stores for fuel – i.e. using stored fat, which leads to a reduction in overall body fat.
If the deficit is not sustainable and achievable you are more likely to end up yo-yo dieting.
What‘s important here is the size of the deficit that you create. You want to make sure that the deficit is large enough to ensure you are able to reduce body fat but not so large that it is not sustainable. If the deficit is not sustainable and achievable you are more likely to end up yo-yo dieting.
Regardless of how you split your macronutrient proportions, fat loss will come down to an overall calorie deficit where you are expending more energy than intaking.
As I touched on above, a diet that is sustainable and achievable is key. You need to look at the bigger picture. When embarking on a fat loss journey you need to first understand that it is a journey, it is not going to happen over night.
Be consistent with your dietary and lifestyle changes and the results will happen.
It is better to be consistent over the whole week than having 5 days ‘on plan’ and two days ‘off plan’ each week. Be consistent with your dietary and lifestyle changes and the results will happen. Set yourself mini goals each week and start noting down mini wins each week regardless of how big or small they are. This could simply be swapping out a diet coke for a glass of water, upping your veg intake or smashing a PB in a workout.
When it comes to fat loss and reducing calorie intake, skipping meals is a common mistake made; however, getting a structured meal plan in place is so important. Going for long periods of time without food, particularly when training hard, will lead to a lack of energy, being under-fuelled for workouts and an increased risk for overeating in a meal later on. This can also lead to an increased risk of bingeing on the weekends. Mapping out your diary for the week and structuring in your meals and snacks is a good way to ensure you are being consistent with food intake across the day and not back loading all to the evening. Take home – focus on eating regular meals consistently across the day.
As I mentioned above, fat loss does come down to a total calorie deficit; however, this is no excuse to make up all your calories with processed foods high in saturated fats and sugar. Food quality is a priority. Yes you can continue to eat the things you love but it is important to base your meals and snacks on whole foods in order to get all of your micronutrients in (vitamins and minerals).
Aim to make up the majority of your calories with wholesome nutrient dense foods and minimal processed foods.
Poor quality foods tend to be our pro-inflammatory foods ie. leading to inflammation in the body – halting your fat loss. Thus, aim to make up the majority of your calories with wholesome nutrient dense foods and minimal processed foods.
I mentioned above that regardless of your macronutrient split, fat loss ultimately comes down to an overall negative energy balance. However, it is a good idea to be prioritising your carbohydrate intake around your training. We will dive into the finer details of carbs in a later blog article but for now just ensure you are having the majority of your higher carb meals and snacks around training to maximise energy levels during your workouts to perform to your best and then after to support the recovery process. This will allow you to continue training hard and progressing in your workouts, whilst ensuring you are maximising muscle maintenance.
We can only store a certain amount of carbohydrates; thus, if you are eating too many sugars and carbohydrates at times when you are less active then you are just setting your body up to store the excess as fat. This is why it is important to find the right balance for the level of activity you are doing.
Protein is a crucial macronutrient, particularly when it comes to fat loss. You want to be making sure you are consuming enough, in accordance with the amount of training you are doing as well as other factors such as your age, height and weight.
It is important when in a calorie deficit that you are consuming enough protein to optimize muscle maintenance and prevent the risk of muscle loss due to muscle protein becoming a fuel source. You want to be making sure intake stays consistent across the day, which you can do by ensuring you have a source in all of your meals and base snacks on a protein source.
You will stay fuller for longer following a protein rich meal compared to a meal solely focussed on carbohydrates or fats.
Make sure your protein is coming from high quality complete protein sources and a wide variety of different plant sources if plant-based, to ensure you are consuming all amino acids, which are essential for maximising muscle maintenance.
Another bonus of protein is that out of the three macronutrients it is the most satiating. A higher protein intake is able to increase levels of our appetite suppressing hormones GLP-1, peptide YY and CCK, whilst reducing our hunger hormone ghrelin. This means that you will stay fuller for longer following a protein rich meal compared to a meal solely focussed on carbohydrates or fats. By being fuller for longer, this will reduce overall food intake ie. fat loss becomes easier!
If that wasn’t enough there is another bonus to protein! Protein has a much higher thermic effect (about 20-30%) compared to carbs (about 5-10%) and fats (0-3%), meaning that digesting and metabolizing protein requires more energy than carbs and fats so you are actually using more energy to break down protein, leading to a higher calorie output. If your intake is consistent across the day, you are naturally boosting metabolism and increasing the amount of calories burned across the day.
Being in a calorie deficit will mean you get hungry – this is simply because you are expending more than intaking. There are ways of reducing this such as bulking out meals with vegetables and also looking at your water intake.
Focus on drinking plenty of water consistently throughout the day to help control your hunger hormones. You’ll be surprised, sometimes you may actually just be thirsty rather than hungry.
As well as this, look at what other beverages you are drinking. Sugar sweetened beverages such as fizzy drinks, juices and cordial are high in sugar and calories and offer very little nutritional value. Alcohol is the same too. Simply swapping these drinks out and reducing alcohol intake can help to significantly reduce calorie intake, as well as sugar intake.
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