BEGINNERS guide to fat loss

You’re one week into your diet and you’re absolutely pumped. You went ahead and cleaned out your pantry of tempting junk foods. You created an elaborate grocery list to shop from on a weekly or bi-weekly basis – primarily made up fruits, veggies, whole grains, and lean cuts of meat. You turned yourself into a hermit, crushing your social life to avoid the temptation of party food, soft drinks, and alcohol. You’ve definitely done your diligence in making sure you’ve eliminated any food that would detract you from your goals – because this time you’re putting your best foot forward to achieve your fitness goals. You’ve stuck to the plan – you ate clean and even went to the gym at least 3-4 times this week. There were even a few days when you got by with two small meals, mostly consisting of salad and a little protein. The time has come to step on the scale and see how handsomely you’ve been rewarded in the first week of your diet. As it turns out, you’ve gained 1 pound in the last 7 days. 

Yes – that just happened.

Is dieting a lost cause for you? Should you throw just in the towel now and quit?

As “Fat Amy” would say, “Hmmm, better not.” (shameless Pitch Perfect reference)

Unexpected weight gain could happen at any time during your diet. It could rear it’s ugly head just a few months in or even after just one week. It really doesn’t matter when it happens. The important thing is finding out why, how to fix it, and not letting it deter you from your goals. 

1. Stop focusing solely on "clean eating" as your means to lose weight. 

“I’m eating clean for a while so I can lose a few pounds.”

If this sounds familiar, don't worry - you are not alone.

This is probably said more often than I care to hear and it could not be more misleading. I do understand the logic though – in an attempt to eat “clean” you will see more whole foods consumed in their natural forms, which on it’s own can help cut calories and eventually lose weight. Clean eating is a wildly ambiguous terms used to describe healthy eating by consuming whole, raw, unprocessed, organic, non-GMO foods rather then their counterpart. More importantly, it can provide you various health benefits by receiving an abundance of micronutrients from their natural sources vital to your health. Unfortunately, “clean eating” often is confused as a means to obtaining the ideal physique if combined with exercise. The harsh reality is that you can get just as fat eating too much “clean” food as if you were to eat an equal amount of Oreos, Doritos, and Funyuns.

The fact of the matter is this: It simply does not matter whether your foods are clean, dirty, scrubbed extensively with Palmolive Dish Soap, or picked from a restaurant’s dumpster. If you consume more calories than you burn, you will inevitably gain weight. On the other hand, if you are burning more calories than you consume on a daily basis, weight loss will be the end result. Even on the “Cookie Diet” you can lose weight if you eat less calories than you burn over a period of time. To be clear, the “Cookie Diet” is a real thing, and I personally wouldn’t recommend such a diet for reasons that should be obvious.

To get to the root of the problem of why you are consuming too many calories, it’s important to how many calories your body requires to maintain itself on a daily basis.

Let’s fix that.

2) Find your caloric maintanence and adjust your intake accordingly. 

For the most part, weight loss is nothing more than maintaining a negative energy balance. The exception would be in the presence of metabolic damage and/or hormonal deficiencies – some of which can be corrected through proper dieting. By the very, very unlikely chance you are indeed a special snowflake that didn’t hit the “Genetic Jackpot,” you may require a more elaborate plan for effective fat loss. Otherwise, the following approach to weight loss applies to you.

Let us start by getting a better understanding of how many calories you burn per day, and see where calorie expenditure comes from. This is how many calories you burn in a given day, which comes from a combination of four factors:

-       BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate): This is the amount of calories that your body would require if you practically were comatose, or an inactive lump of human flesh lying in bed every second of the day watching re-runs of whatever soap opera or daytime smut that you enjoy.

-       NEAT (Non-Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): This would be the amount of calories you burn on a daily basis that is not related to exercise such as cleaning, working in the yard, walking, carrying your kids around with you, sex, etc…

-       EAT (Exercise Associated Thermogenesis): These are the calories burned from exercise from resistance training, cardio, etc. The calories associated with actual exercise are often exaggerated – unfortunately most of us are not burning 1000+ calories in an hour of training. That would require the work capacity of a highly trained athlete – something not many of us possess.

-       TEF (Thermic effect of Food): Yes that is correct. You burn calories when you eat food. Hallelujah! Not so fast though – the generally accepted figures are that protein has by far the highest TEF at roughly 20-35%, where carbohydrates are at 5-15%, and fats are at 0-5%. What this means is that if we were to have eaten 1000 calories from protein in a day, that anywhere between 200-350 calories from this protein would be burned up during digestion. Typically, what we’re looking at based on the average macronutrient breakdown of a western diet is about a total of 10% of your calorie intake being burned off during digestion – or a little higher in the presence of a high-protein diet.

Now there isn’t much I expect you to do with these numbers on their own – but this is a good starting point with basic information that you need to know if you attempt to find your calorie maintenance.

The next tidbit of information is quite vital to determining how many calories you should be consuming is understanding your body composition: Lean vs. Body Fat.

A body that has more muscle mass will burn more calories in a given day in order to maintain itself. Assuming we have two subjects with identical age, weight, height, and metabolic function – two untrained males at 30% and 10% body fat respectively - the male at 10% body fat has more muscle mass and thus will be able to consume a significantly higher amount of calories on a daily basis and not have the scale budge in either direction.

Unfortunately, most body fat devices sold in stores (calipers, bioelectrical impedance scales) often are poor indicators and thus you are left playing the guessing game. If you feel like splurging and spending between $70-100, you can get a one-time DEXA scan or Bod-Pod that will reveal body fat %, lean mass and body fat in pounds, bone density, BMR, and maybe a few other less interesting factors. You can either compare your own body composition to body fat charts provided on the interwebz – Thanks Google. Another option would be to enlist the help of a highly qualified individual.

Dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) and the Bod-Pod are considered the gold-standard in body-fat measurements. If you find value in knowing your exact body composition, your $70-100 will be well spent if you chose to invest it here.

Calculating your caloric maintenance (TDEE)

Once you have your body-fat percentage figured out, I’d strongly recommend using the Katch-McCardle calculator to determine your TDEE or “Total Daily Energy Expenditure.” First, in order to calculate your TDEE you will need to calculate your lean body mass (LBM) and then your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).

1) LBM = [total weight (kg) x (100 - bodyfat %)]/100

2) BMR = 370 + (21.6 x LBM) 

3) Calculate your BRM x Activity Factor

This activity factor multiplier is going to be between 1.2-2.2, depending on how active you are. The classifications are as follows:

1.2 = Sedentary

1.3-1.4 = Lightly Active

1.5-1.6 = Moderately Active

1.7-1.8 = Very Active

1.9-2.2 = Extremely Active

It should go without saying, but the sedentary classification should apply to those that do zero exercise and just go about their day breathing, eating, walking, and not doing a whole lot of physical activity.

On the other end of the spectrum, the extremely active classification is meant for highly trained endurance athletes or professional athletes training multiple times per day. For the rest of us regular “Joes,” we probably fall somewhere in between. It’s important not to forget your non-exercise activities into the activity factor. If you’re working a construction job 5-times per week, chances are your activity factor will be significantly higher before calculating in exercise than someone who sits at a desk for a living – like me.

Upon discovering what your TDEE should be, your first step would be to identify your goal, and adjust calories upwards/downwards by 10-20%. If the goal is the lose 10 pounds and your TDEE is 2500 calories, reduce that number by 250-500 calories and consume between 2000-2250 calories while maintaining macronutrient minimum requirements.

3. Avoid extreme calorie deficits - especially at the start of your diet. 

When dieting to lose weight, reducing your caloric intake to an extreme deficit will likely result in a failure. Energy tends to suffer, hormones levels can bottom-out, and fat-loss can stall unexpectedly and indefinitely.

This would net you anywhere between 0.5-1.0 lbs/week. I understand in the world of immediate gratification it’s more ideal to lose weight as rapidly as possible, but let me explain further why crash dieting is a supremely awful recipe for catastrophic failure.

The human body is much smarter than we give it credit for. The body’s natural reaction to a severe calorie deficit is to adapt by adjusting the metabolic rate downward in an attempt to spare as much body fat as possible. Many years ago, our good ol’ ancient ancestors suffered through long bouts of famine while searching for their next meal. Through evolution of the human body, our metabolisms learned how to downshift in times of starvation as a means for survival in an attempt to spare as much body fat as humanly possible. This is awesome and all for human survival, but it really sucks when it comes to losing fat for aesthetic purposes. Basically, as you become more and more lean, your metabolism fights back and fat burning hormones slow their production, making it difficult to lose what we all know as our “stubborn fat” areas.  However, there are nutritional tweaks that you can make that help combat the body’s attempt to hold on to this “stubborn fat,” which I will lay out in a comprehensive guide to fat loss in the near future.

Your efforts to get “toned” or lose any amounts of unwanted fat would be all for naught. This part of the diet is usually the end of the road. On the often-dreaded road to fat loss, it’s much wiser to increase your expenditure (exercise) than reducing calories to extreme levels (>30% from your TDEE). To put it simply, your body will respond much more favorably to an increase in exercise rather than a decrease in food consumption. So if you want to continue to lose weight, or begin to lose weight more rapidly, exercise more consistently and/or intensely.

Don’t eat less food – this is one of the many ways an eating disorder can develop.

The 10-20% reduction of your TDEE is not etched in stone, but as a starting point it should be. Everyone is different and everyone has a unique response to calorie reductions, just as everyone responds different to low-carb, high protein, high-fat, low-fat, and every diet in-between. It’s important to start at a deficit that works for you up to 20% at the very most. I personally prefer a 10% deficit to transition my body into the diet. One thing that these TDEE calculations do not account for is your genetics. To be clear, most people will not be affected much by their genetics, at least not in the beginning of a diet. Some who have failed at dieting want to believe that their genetics are to blame, but the sad reality is they just didn’t know how much food they should be eating – or simply don’t track their food. A failed attempt at dieting is typically nothing more than failure to adhere to a solid, sustainable program rather your unfortunate “genetic predisposition.”

4. Eat more protein and fat to lose more weight. 

When determining your macronutrient intake, they should be measured relative to your body weight. Your body has specific needs based on its mass and composition. Some of the top fitness experts argue that diets should be composed based on the ideal body you want to have – or what your desired end result would be. Others sugggest that you should base your macros and calorie intake based on your current body composition – and use an “adjust as you go” approach. In either case, both methods of calculations can be effective and are meant to find your macronutrient breakdown within your calorie allotment based solely on body weight & composition – not ratios.

Studies show for healthy adults that 0.6g/lb of protein is an adequate amount for maintaining muscle mass and promoting fat loss in the presence of a calorie deficit. If your goal is to lose fat, you could potentially benefit from a higher protein intake. In a caloric deficit, the body tends to search for fuel in the form of lean mass (muscle), especially once dietary sources have been depleted. It’s suggested that it can be beneficial to increase dietary protein to 0.82g/lb in the presence of a larger deficit (600kcal) or if you’re training often and/or rigorously. This will allow dietary protein to be broken down and converted into energy, sparing muscle tissue in the process.

Dietary fat consumption is widely misunderstood – often only behind carbohydrates as the most demonized macronutrient. Fats may be calorically expensive at 9 calories per gram (vs. 4 calories per gram for both protein and carbohydrates), but they can aid fat loss and provide a variety of benefits including nutrient transportation (Vitamins A, D, E, K), hormone production, healthier skin, improved reproductive health, and last but certainly not least – it tastes freaking amazing. The last benefit should have already been obvious. When consumed alongside portions of protein, fat slows the digestion process and combines the satiating effect of protein with a longer digestion. End result - you stay full, longer. 

While we’re on the topic of fat, I might as well address the elephant in the room. While it has been documented that saturated fats can increase LDL cholesterol (bad) levels, the often-ignored fact is that they also raise your HDL cholesterol (good) levels as well. Recent studies show that there is no association between saturated fat consumption and Cardiovascular Disease (CVD). So much for bacon and heavy cream being the clear-cut culprit for CVD.

Poly and Monounsaturated fats both are effective at lowering your LDL levels, and providing the body with essential fatty acids, omega-3 and omega-6. They are essential because the body is unable to make these fatty acids itself, so it must be a healthy part of your diet. Monounsaturated fats are found in olive oil, peanut oil, canola oil, avocados, nuts and seeds. Polyunsaturated fats are found in many vegetable oils, including safflower, corn, sunflower, and soy, as well as in nuts and seeds.

Your diet should always consist of consuming at the very least 0.4g/lb per day of a blend of poly/monounsaturated and saturated fats. If you prefer a diet higher in fat, reduce your calories from carbohydrates, not protein.

Trans fat is the only fat to avoid at all costs. Trans-fat is a liquid fat that’s been solidified and is used in foods to increase the shelf-life many popular processed foods like French Fries. It’s shown to increase your LDL (bad) and decrease your HDL (good) cholesterol levels, and increase both lipoprotein and triglycerides – both responsible for clogging your arteries.  It seems that if you want a fat to vilify, this would be the one. Talk about a waste of 9 calories per gram.

Carbohydrates generally should be consumed in moderation when cutting. They will not make you fat by themselves, but they aren’t an essential macronutrient like protein and fat. Carbohydrates cause insulin to release to clear glucose from the bloodstream and shuttle nutrients into cells. The release of insulin means two things:

First, you cannot burn fat when insulin is being released. Second, you can store fat if the body detects a surplus of calories in storage.

Yikes.

There are benefits to carbohydrates, which are increased energy levels, increased glycogen (energy stored in muscle tissue and liver), and preservation of muscle mass by inhibiting cortisol – a hormone that catabolizes your muscle mass for fuel. To most people, a carbohydrate is just a fancy word for tasty foods dipped in sugary goodness. But they are so much more than this and serve a valuable purpose in both maintaining and building mass. However, for the sake of keeping this simple, make sure you meet your protein/fat minimums on a daily basis, and then feel free to fill the rest of your remaining calories by any combination of CHO/Fat/Protein – even if that means filling the rest of your calories up with all carbs.

There is definitely a place for carbohydrates in your diet, but can also become a case of “too much of a good thing.” A western diet is typically dominated by carbohydrate consumption, with fats coming in second place, and proteins finishing in dead last - thanks in large part to processed foods and the wonderful sugary goodness we call snacks and desserts.

Besides, no one ever snacked on a lean piece of chicken.