What Actually Matters For Fat Loss Part 1

The "Energy-In" Side of the Equation

99% of people that reach out to me for personal training list fat loss as a goal, so it’s safe to say this is probably the biggest targeted outcome for anyone wanting to change their appearance. But most people go about it in all the wrong ways. So I will go over the things that actually matter if you want to lose body fat, as well as strategies to make this easier.

Fat and weight loss are not the same, although they are used interchangeably. Weight loss is indiscriminate—it could be fat, but it could also be water or muscle—whereas fat loss refers specifically to losing body fat. When most people want to lose weight, they likely don’t want to lose muscle, so fat loss is what they’re after.

I will go over a couple of ways to ensure that the weight you lose is from fat later in this series. But for now, we will treat them interchangeably as the process is mostly the same.

The Fat Loss Big Rocks

The hierarchy of importance for body composition. The larger elements on the bottom are more important than the smaller elements near the top.

Behavior, Lifestyle, and Adherence

Before I get into the other variables, no strategy, no matter how perfect, will work if you can’t stick to it. What works for someone else may not work for you, and vice versa. This is why it’s so frustrating to see anyone claim that their way is the best. The “best” method doesn’t exist. Some elements must be present, but the dietary strategy should be made to fit your lifestyle, not the other way around.

Intermittent fasting may be a viable strategy for an executive looking to minimize the number of choices she has to make throughout the day. Still, for someone that loves breakfast and has trouble managing hunger without it, IF won’t work well. Likewise, trying to do low carb may work for someone with a lot of control over their intake, but that can be tough for someone constantly eating on the go or eating meals with prospective clients.

Regardless of your strategy, feel free to play around with it to make it fit your lifestyle.

Although the elements I’m about to go over are the most critical variables for fat loss, there is a complex interplay between them and other X factors like environment, hunger, health, how you feel, etc. In other words, the factors can influence eating behavior, and eating behavior can influence these factors.

Energy Balance

The role of energy balance in body composition has been hotly contested when it shouldn’t be. Energy balance is the most essential factor for weight loss. It will ultimately determine whether weight is gained or lost.

The idea of energy balance isn’t complicated. Your body requires energy indirectly in the form of food to function. Your energy needs are determined mainly by body size. The larger you are, the more energy you need; the smaller you are, the less energy you need. Other factors like how much muscle you have, physical activity, and general movement throughout the day can also modify how many calories you require.

But here’s the thing most people don’t get…everyone has a number. Your body isn’t some black box mysteriously manipulating energy in a way that makes it impossible to determine demands. If we know enough about you and what you’re doing, we can pretty accurately predict how much energy you need. If you’ve ever used equations to determine your energy demands (aka maintenance calories), you’ve attempted to quantify this number.

Your maintenance number is the amount of energy you need in the form of calories to maintain your current body weight. To lose weight, you need to eat less than your maintenance calories consistently; to gain weight, you must consistently eat more calories than maintenance.

Unless you want to be very frustrated when trying to lose weight, you need to accept that the principle of CICO (Calories In, Calories Out) is true and is above contestation. Most of the misinformation regarding fat loss stems from an inability to accept that this principle is true while admitting that its application is more challenging.

If you’re struggling to lose weight over time, the obvious answer is that you’re still eating too many calories for your energy needs. It’s a hard truth to admit to yourself, but one you must face head-on if you want to see change.

Macronutrients

Although the number of macro coaches has exploded, few people need to count their macros. For weight loss, a calorie and protein target covers most people's needs. Fats and carbohydrates can be distributed based on preference. You have a lot of flexibility in your diet to make it fit your lifestyle. As long as you can hit your calorie target, eat enough protein to support muscle growth and manage hunger, and get enough healthy foods (especially fruits and vegetables) to avoid micronutrient deficiencies, you’re probably good.

Micronutrients

Micronutrients are essential for good health. There is no disputing that. But in the context of fat loss, they’re relatively low on the priority list. This is because micronutrients don’t provide energy, and energy dictates whether weight is gained or lost.

The role micronutrients play is best viewed indirectly. They make you healthier, help you function normally, and make you feel better, which can affect how much you eat and exercise.

Nutrient Timing

Despite how much attention it’s received for fat loss, when you eat matters significantly less than how much you eat. For some, eating breakfast may result in fewer calories for the rest of the day. For others, it has little to no effect. And when stretched out over a longer period and compared with the other variables in the hierarchy, it isn’t all that important. So find a meal pattern that works for you, and don’t stress about it.

There are two crucial points to consider with timing:

1. First, eating meals late at night can cause sleep disturbances for some people. So try to keep your meals at least 2-3 hours away from bedtime if possible.

2. You’ll manage hunger better with consistent meal times, regardless of how many meals you eat.

Feel free to play around with timing to see what works for you.

Supplements

This is the least essential variable for body composition but the one that gets talked about the most. Wouldn’t it be great if you could take a pill to solve all of your fat loss woes? Supplements are called supplements for a reason; you don’t need them.

I won’t spend any more time in this category because I will lay out my thoughts on supplements, as well as which ones I recommend, in a later post.

How To Eat Less

Now that we’ve covered the variables, we need to know how to change them in a way that helps us lose weight. Because energy balance is the most important, let’s consider how to take in fewer calories. The second installment in this series will cover the “calories out” portion of energy balance.

To Track or Not To Track?

Do you need to track calories to lose weight? Absolutely not. Is it helpful? Absolutely.

Thousands of years ago, it was easier to maintain a healthy body weight without thinking. We were surrounded by whole, nutritious foods that required a lot of energy to hunt or collect. Our biggest concern was getting enough food.

Flash forward to now, and we don’t have to work for our food; much of it is engineered to be tastier, have more energy, and not make you full. So we must be more proactive in maintaining healthy body weight. In other words, modern problems require modern solutions, and nutrition tracking is that solution for many people.

When done correctly, tracking takes all the guesswork out of energy intake. It’s not perfect, but it is far better than taking a shot in the dark at guessing how much energy we’re taking in. We are pretty shit at that.

Most calorie trackers (like MyFitnessPal) will estimate your maintenance calories and adjust your intake based on how aggressively you want to lose weight. So naturally, the faster you want to lose weight, the lower your suggested intake. For sustainability reasons, I generally err on the less aggressive side, but that will only work if you have the patience to deal with a slower rate of weight loss.

Tracking shines by allowing your food choices to be flexible. You will lose weight as long as you hit your caloric target consistently. But I can tell you right now that hitting that number will be challenging if you pick the wrong foods.

The following variables will make it easier to hit caloric targets if you’re tracking and to eat less if you have zero interest in tracking.

Losing Weight Without Tracking, Better Food Choices, and Tricking Yourself Into Eating Less

You can lose weight without tracking. I’ve done it. My clients have done it. If you set up your diet to allow you to eat less and manage hunger, you can lose weight with minimal effort.

Here are the main dietary variables to consider to lose weight. If you combine all of them, you will be well on your way to creating a much healthier diet that makes managing hunger a breeze.

Protein

We’ve known for some time that higher protein diets are more satiating than low protein diets, but we still aren’t entirely sure why. The most compelling reason I’ve seen is called protein leverage theory. Because we don’t have an efficient storage mechanism for protein like we do for carbohydrates and fats, our body has to closely monitor the protein we get from food to ensure we get enough of it. As a result, our body ensures we stay hungry until our protein needs are met.

Regardless of why protein is more satiating, you’re more likely to overeat if your protein intake is low. Opting for a higher protein breakfast keeps me full for much longer than a low-protein and carb or fat-heavy breakfast.

Check this earlier article out for my protein recommendations.

Food Volume

We also feel full when our stomachs are actually…full. Filling our stomachs activates stretch receptors that promote feelings of fullness based on pressure. You’ve probably felt this if you’ve had lots of water, a big ass salad, or anything with carbonation.

To use food volume to your advantage, eat foods that take up a shitload of space but don’t have much energy. You can probably guess what foods these are. Fruits, vegetables, and foods with high water or air content work best.

This site is pretty cool and gives you a good look at energy density. Foods that take up more space on the plate have lower energy densities and will better fill your stomach with fewer calories.

Fiber

Eating more fiber is one of the easiest ways to decrease energy intake naturally. More fibrous foods generally have higher food volume, require more chewing, and are slower to pass through the digestive system, all of which can lead to greater feelings of fullness. Fibrous foods also have a greater TEF (Thermic Effect of Feeding), requiring more energy to digest, transport, and store. All of these factors make fiber-rich foods a great addition to any diet aimed at fat loss.

Viscosity

The more solid a food is, the more satiating it is. You’ll often hear fitness and nutrition professionals tell you to limit liquid calories, and this is why. Liquids don’t make you feel full, and they can contain many calories.

This is also the primary reason alcohol is a physique destroyer. For a regular social binge drinker, it’s not uncommon to take in an additional 500-1000 calories without batting an eye. Trying to lose weight when ingesting extra liquid calories that don’t make you full is a losing battle.

The bottom line…you have to limit liquid calories if you want a fighting chance at weight loss.

Whole Foods vs. Processed Foods

Ultra-processing is like porn; it’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. Monteiro and colleagues gave a pretty good summary of ultra-processed foods and why they’re a problem. According to the study, processed foods are:

formulations mostly of cheap industrial sources of dietary energy and nutrients plus additives, using a series of processes (hence 'ultra-processed'). All together, they are energy-dense, high in unhealthy types of fat, refined starches, free sugars and salt, and poor sources of protein, dietary fibre and micronutrients. Ultra-processed products are made to be hyper-palatable and attractive, with long shelf-life, and able to be consumed anywhere, any time. Their formulation, presentation and marketing often promote overconsumption.

This is an image from the study titled “Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake”. When given the freedom to eat what they want, people are much more likely to overeat and gain weight by eating ultra-processed foods.

Minimize processed foods. When grocery shopping, stay at the perimeter of the store since most of the highly-processed stuff lives in the center.

If you consider all of these factors when making food choices, losing weight will be MUCH easier. In addition, if you combine them with calorie tracking, your chance of success increases even more.

Summary

Folks that successfully lose weight are generally aware of how many calories they’re eating, have consistent meal times, eat a diet consisting of high-protein and high-volume whole foods to manage hunger, and don’t drink their calories.

This is much easier said than done and will take some tinkering. Everyone enjoys different foods, so you’ll have to find foods you like that allow you to meet these demands and stay within your calorie budget.

I will have more articles on fat loss, but hopefully, the first installment of this series will give you a better understanding of what works on the “energy-in” side of the fat loss equation.

Here is the second installment of this series where I cover the Energy Out side of the energy balance equation.