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How to diet for fat loss: The secrets everyone deserves to know
We often ask what the fastest way to lose weight is and what diet is best but are there really ways to make dieting easier and more effective? It’s time you find out the truth about sustainable, effective dieting and how simple it can be.
Fat loss takes time
Losing weight is painfully slow, particularly if your aim is to have nice, toned muscle coming through by the end of your diet. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition stated that a pound of fat equated to about 3500 calories so in theory, to torch that pound of body fat you’d need a calorie deficit of 500 calories per day or 3500 calories per week. Because your body can only burn so much fat per week before you chew into your muscle, it is important to keep your rate of loss between 1-2lbs per week, no higher. Trust us, it will help you feel good in the long run.
Start with YOUR diet
A huge point to make here; tiny changes to your normal eating habits can bring about the changes you desire so where possible, avoid choosing a fad diet. Often, they are restrictive and unsustainable particularly when they boast exceptionally fast results. For example, Marcelo Campos concluded within Harvard Medical School’s Health Blog that the Ketogenic diet was hard to follow, heavy on fatty foods that can be deemed unhealthy and that the long-term effects of Keto are still unknown even though it may accelerate weight loss. That’s just one of many fad diet examples but why dive into a fad diet when you can optimise your own? If you know that your body is currently maintaining it’s weight, your food digests well and you feel good eating it, the simplest course of action is to reduce your daily caloric intake to suit your fat loss goals.
High protein intake is essential
Although the Daily Reference Intake (DRI) of protein per day is a minimum 0.36g per lb of bodyweight, there are various conflicting studies suggesting that protein intake is optimal for fat loss and muscle gain around 1g per lb of bodyweight per day. Consuming so much protein is essential yet challenging so having a good whey concentrate or whey isolate can be a tasty way to ensure that you reach your intake goals. This information is not without context however as protein, aside from being used for the make-up of your muscle, tendons, hormones and other important molecules in your body, has various thermic and satiety effects when dieting. In other words, when your body digests and metabolises protein, it expends more calories in the process than it would with fats and carbohydrates. Not only that, but in the process of being metabolised protein releases satiety hormones which help you to feel fuller and more satisfied for longer periods of time. Exactly what you want when you’re eating less than usual. That brings us onto the next point...
Choose High Volume Food
When you’re hungry it seems like time stands still for eternity between your meals. A mindful approach to food choices should be taken here to help your stomach feel full for the lowest number of calories. Watermelon makes for a fantastic example as it is only 30 calories per 100g. That’s about the same as 5g of peanut butter! Now think of your stomach and what will fill more space in there. Hint.. It’s not peanut butter!
Balance diet with exercise for fat loss
Your aim here isn’t to turn into a bodybuilder or a marathon runner (unless you want to) but rather to aid your calorie deficit with exercise. A vital component of your overall expenditure is how much you move. The NHS has deemed that the average person in the UK only walks 3000-4000 steps per day which is extraordinarily little so serves as one of the easiest ways to increase your energy output. The average person burns about 50 calories per 1000 steps so, if you were to walk 10000 steps daily, you would burn up to 500 calories daily without any effort, complimenting your nutritional changes.
Now make your changes
You don’t need to follow a fad to see your body fat disappear. By instead ensuring that you maintain a consistent calorie deficit and balance that with exercise, you can effortlessly and sustainably lose fat.
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