Having the privilege of training many people of the years, you really learn how to coach in many different ways to suit the client. Some people may get and understand dieting pretty quickly and others may need a little bit more coaching which is okay.
As a trainer, the whole concept of dieting for fat loss is pretty easy and self explanatory, as that’s what we are taught and continually educate ourselves in to ensure that the information we give to our clients is up to date. But to transfer that to our clients in a simplified manner is where some trainers have their downfall. The whole purpose and mission of Outer Strength Fitness is to EDUCATE our clients in making the best choices for their lifestyle and health and fitness goal. This means we have to coach our clients and educate them through the very opiniated topic of fat loss dieting.
For a client, DIETING is scary. It’s the unknown. They may have had previous experiences that may have not gone to well and left them feeling shameful of their food habits and choices, and on top of this there are hundreds of diets to choose from, or they actually do have a medical problem prevents them from losing weight, so where do you start? Education. The more you’re educated about the principles of fat loss, the quicker you will achieve your goals.
If you search how to lose weight on Google, you’ll get over 425,000,000 hits on the topic. These hits will range from hormones, different diets to use, why you can’t lose weight, etc, etc. But at the end of the day, to lose weight (fat) you must be in a calorie deficit. Sometimes it’s easy to blame other factors other than a calorie deficit if you’re not seeing any fat loss, but it all comes down to your energy (calorie) balance. People always blame the extra food they are eating when they put on weight (e.g. carbs), but then when they struggle to lose it, suddenly food isn’t the problem anymore and it’s the hormones, age, genetics (can play a role), etc.
When your body doesn’t get enough calories per day to meet your daily energy needs, it has to break down some of it’s own tissue in order to gain enough energy for the body to function. This is what a calorie deficit is and it results in weight loss. Then again on the flip side, if you consume more energy than your body needs, you’re going to store it as either carbs (glycogen), fat (fat stores) or protein (muscle) resulting in weight gain.
Imagine the glass of water as your body and the water as calories consumed through food and drink. If you were to fill you body with excess calories than required, unlike the water for the glass which would just spill over, your body must store the extra calories somewhere. You will store them as glycogen, muscle and most likely fat. If you fill your body with the exact calories you need, you will maintain your body weight. Then if you fill your body with less calories than it needs, you need to create energy from somewhere else. Your body will breakdown stored glycogen, fat mass (common), and then muscle mass (less common if correct nutritional protocols are used) in order to get the energy required for bodily functions to operate.
This is a huge factor that comes up when dieting for fat loss. As a trainer, we often hear, “I’m not eating that many calories and I’m still not losing any weight”. Unfortunately, the majority of the time it will come down to people underreporting their daily calorie intake. A few years ago I had a client who said they were averaging around 800 calories per day (which is too low to start with), and her weight wasn’t going anywhere. We sat down and looked at everything and it came down to the tracking of her food. When tracked correctly, she was actually eating an average of just under 2,000 calories per day. Although there was some denial at first, once she started tracking correctly and was reaching thee calorie goal I’d set for her, the weight started to come off as originally planned in her nutrition program. To back this up, a Champagne, C.M., et al. 2002 study was conducted to compare the difference between dieticians and non-dietitians and their perceived tracking of their energy (calorie) intake. The study showed that both groups were actually underreporting their daily intake. The dieticians were more accurate compared to the non-dietician group so this shows without the interest and familiarity of calories in food, there will be a high chance of you underreporting your daily calorie intake.
When you struggle to lose fat (weight) your family, friends and especially mainstream media will commonly say it’s all because of your hormones, age, etc. Yes, aging does in fact slow your metabolism. It can slow up to 1-2% every 10 years. This is usually from the loss of lean body mass (muscle) as we age. So to think that as you pass 30,40 and 50 that your metabolism magically shuts off is very misleading.
Some of your hormones are going to play a role in your metabolism and ability to burn calories, but if you’re still in a calorie deficit, then you will still lose weight. Cortisol is your stress hormone and is often the first hormone to blame to why you’re not losing any fat. Cortisol is what we call very catabolic, meaning that it will breakdown tissue pretty easily. Some fat but most our proteins (muscle).
When you’re chronically stressed, you actually burn more calories through constant low-level activation of fight-or-flight pathways, but this doesn’t equate to fat loss obvisouly because it is more common to see weight people gain fat due to the excess consumption of food (emotional eating) whilst stress levels are high(calorie surplus). On the flip side, if you’re in a calorie deficit and you’re chronically stressed, and not having water retenion side effects, you can see lower numbers on the scale but it’s likely the lower number will be coming from muscle loss and not actual fat mass.
A side effcet of eleveated cortisol levels during stressful times, is water retention which can have a mental effect of not seeing the scacles or progress photos move in a positive direction. So yes you may think that you have gained fat, but a lot of the time it’s water retenion. Fat loss will still occur when in a calorie deficit and you’re retaining water for the short time.
Again search google for the best diet for weight/fat loss and you’re going to get million’s of hits with hundreds of different diets that promise results. You’re going to see the Paleo, Ketogenic, Low Carb. Low Fat, Vegetarain, Vegan, Medeterainen, High Protein, Carnivore, 5:2, Intermittent Fasting. A whole lot of diets that you’ll try, see results and believe in that diet modality was the reasons why you lost fat.
Regardless of which diet principle you undertake, the higher priority for fat loss is a calorie deficit.
A great example of this is in the 2006 Johnson et al. study researching the effect of Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets.
The results showed that both nutrition modalities were equally effective.
So next time you say your fat loss was only because of the specific diet you were on, think about the water tank and how it all comes down to your caloric intake, regardless of what you eat.
This shows that sometimes your education that you get off google may sometimes may be incorrect. But this isn’t your fault.
No, but there is alot of mixed information out there and thats what confuses peeople. Before starting a diet for fat loss, make sure you know the physiology of fat loss. You must be in a calorie deficit as your body needs to create energy from it’s own stores as you’re not getting in as much as you require through your intake of food and drink. Yes some hormonal factors can effect your ability to expend calories but if you’re in a deficit and have some hormonal problems, you will still lose fat.
All of the above examples are for dieting for fat loss when starting your fat loss journey. When you stop seeing fat loss, then this could be a factor of metabolic adaptation, which is a whole other topic which we will write about in another blog post soon.
Here are 3 non-negotiable habits that will kickstart your fat loss journey.
Simple. Whether thats reducing your daily caloire intake, increaseing your activity level, or both, a calorie deficit overides everything!
Being in a calorie deficit can enhance muscle loss so we want to minimise this as much as possible. To help this, aim for 2-2.8g of protein per kg of lean body mas (LBM). After you calculate this number, then you can split your carbohydrate and fat daily intake as you please.
Veggies are not only lower in calories meaning that you can eat more and still be under your calorie goals, be it’s going to also help with hunger and ensuring you get all your nutrients into your daily diet.
Why take this Free consultation? Becuase we want to give you the best tools and strategies for helping you become the best version of yourself in all aspects of your life!