Just as a disclaimer, I am not a health professional. I am just your average husky office worker. Please consult with a doctor before trying any changes in your nutrition. I only want to share tips that have helped me along my journey with the world.
Intro
If you’ve asked yourself, “What do I need to eat to lose fat?” and are on a quest to find some magical food that can melt fat off your body, I’m here to say that someone has lied to you! Today I want to help you understand the ‘how’ to eat to lose body fat and not the ‘what’ to eat to lose weight. For those TL;DRs, the point I will get across is to eat at a slower than usual calorie deficit (no more than 250-calorie deficit a day if you’ve been trying to lose fat for several years) and a high protein diet for a successful fat loss journey.
Before continuing to the main topic, we need to clarify the difference between weight loss and fat loss. The weight that you see on any scale, when you measure yourself, is the combination of your fat mass and lean mass. Lean mass refers to all the stuff inside your body that is not fat: water, bones, muscles, etc. Sometimes your weight will fluctuate up to 5lbs above or below your actual weight due to things like the amount of salt, carbohydrates (which I’ll call carbs since I’m to lazy to write the full word), and water inside your body.
To transform your body, what we need to focus on is fat loss and not weight loss. Fat takes a lot of space inside your body relative to its weight. In other words, when you lose body fat, your pants size will shrink faster than the number on your scale. (Who cares what the number on the scales says when your clothes fit better than ever!)
Main Subject
To address the question ‘what to eat for weight loss?’ the answer is anything. You can eat anything to lose weight. By understanding ‘how to eat for fat loss?’ you will understand why I say you can eat whatever you want to make the number on the scale go down.
First, to change your weight, it is all based on an energy imbalance. Every day our bodies use energy called calories. Eat too many, your body stores calories as fat. This is weight gain or a calorie surplus. Eat to few, your body taps into your fat and/or lean mass to make up the energy difference. This is weight loss or a calorie deficit.
The goal is to enter a calorie deficit, but we want to do it in a way that focuses your body on using its stored fat mass instead of lean tissue like your muscles. (If you lose weight by losing muscle, you’ll just look like a smaller and flabbier version of your current size. This may not be the results you’re looking for!)
Here is a method to find out how many calories to eat to maintain your current weight; however, this is just an estimate, not an exact. As everybody is unique, you’ll maybe need more or maybe need less.
Plug in your information to the calculator and select sedentary. This shows the minimum daily calories needed to stay at the same weight. As a busy person or office worker, this gives a solid number to work with. Using myself, as an example, I need 2,423 a day to keep my weight of 238lbs. To lose weight, I suggest using a slow approach. No more than 200-calorie deficit.
If you’ve researched the topic of calories and fat loss, you probably heard the magical number of 3,500 calories is 1lbs of fat. With this number, people emphasis a daily deficit of 500 calories for a week to lose 1lbs. Feel free to aim for a 500-calorie deficit, but I want to argue that 200 calories are more than enough to have a successful fat lose journey.
From my personal experience, a 500-calorie deficit is too steep and often tempts me to cheat on my diet especially during the weekends. If you have tried this deficit and often cheated on your diet, it just means you’re too hungry and should diet on a smaller deficit.
So how can we eat to be in a deficit that loses body fat? Let’s get everyone educated on calories. There are 3 main calorie categories (or better known as macronutrients) to be aware of: protein, carbs, and fats. Each of these contributes to how many calories you will need.
- 1 gram of protein = 4 calories
- 1 gram of carbs = 4 calories
- 1 gram of fat = 9 calories
Note: DO NOT eat less than 50 grams of fat daily. I know they have the most calories, but you must not skip out on them.
Now comes the how: when you eat daily, you want to eat a combination of these 3 macronutrients that add up to your deficit while prioritizing protein. Using myself as an example, here’s my breakdown.
To be in a 200-calorie deficit, I will need to eat 2,200 calories a day instead of the calculated 2,423 calories needed to keep the same weight. Eating a minimum of 50g of fats, this leaves me with 1,750 calories that will be made up of proteins and carbs.
[2,200 daily calories – (50g of fat x 9 calories per gram of fat) = 1,750 daily calories]
For protein, I want to eat about 180–200g of protein thus leaving 257–237g of carbs to make up the rest of my calories. You might be wondering how I came up with 180g of protein. There are many ways to choose, so you can select from any of the following methods:
- 1g of protein per 1cm of your height
- 1g of protein per 1lbs of lean body mass
- 1g of protein per 1lbs of total goal weight
Simply speaking, to lose fat, you will want to eat in a small calorie deficit while on a high protein diet.
Special Note: Fat loss takes time especially when you are in a small calorie deficit; however, you can dramatically speed up the fat loss process when you add resistance training. We will talk about workouts in a different post, but I want to share the benefits of combining this nutrition plan with training optimized for strength gains. The following is a formula for success:
200-calorie deficit + High protein + Resistance training = Fast fat loss
Here is what will happen. On a weekly basis, you will most likely see your weight stay the same or even drop 0.5lbs. If you stay consistent for a month, 2lbs will drop on the scale, but you will find your waist size drop significantly.
How is that possible with only 2lbs? While resistance training, your body will tear your muscle down. While you rest between training sessions, the body will use consumed proteins to repair and build up your muscles. Since you’re in a small calorie deficit and your body needs to heal from training, it’s faced with a problem that plays into your favor for fat loss:
- The body needs to use all the food consumed because it’s in a calorie deficit, so it needs to borrow calories from either consuming body fat or lean tissue.
- It needs to use protein digested to build damaged muscles from training.
Since your body prioritizes healing, it will not consume your muscle or lean mass for energy thus it must tap into your body fat to give enough energy to your body and provide energy for the muscle rebuilding process. This will only work in a slight deficit. If you try this in an extreme deficit, your body will consume lean mass thinking the body is in starvation mode and needs to store as much fat as possible to survive.
Conclusion
Back to the original question: What do I need to eat to lose fat?
Answer: anything as long as you’re in a calorie deficit and eat a good amount of protein.
What we want to focus on is not weight loss, but fat loss. When you pair a small calorie deficit with a high protein diet, you will see your body change. You can eat whatever you want; if you follow these 2 rules, you’ll be pleasantly surprised by how much your body can transform with very little change to nutrition. Don’t be afraid to eat that slice of pizza or have the whopper from Burger King. As long as you’re consistent in having a lot of protein and not go overboard with your calories, you’ll be fine!
This might not be new information on the internet, but what I want to challenge you is to apply this small deficit. Make it 50 calories, make it 100 calories, or even 250 calories.
When we focus on slow weight loss, we can achieve fast fat loss. For anyone to increase their typing speed, you need to change bad typing habits first and focus your 10-finger typing accuracy. Eventually this will lead to fast typing. Fat loss is the same. Let’s change our nutritional habits slowly and focus on a small deficit. Eventually this will lead to rapid fat loss and finally achieve that dream body transformation.
Thank you so much for reading. Let’s talk again soon!
