When it comes to fat loss the most important thing without a doubt is what and how much you eat meaning, both quality and quantity matter!
Can you lose weight being in a calorie deficit eating nothing but skittles, technically yes, but that isn’t healthy or sustainable and so I’d recommend doing the following instead…
Nutrition
Let’s cover quality first…
For your protein sources…favour meat, fish, seafood, eggs and dairy if you digest it well.
For carbs…favour whole food sources like fruit, veggies, potatoes, yams, squash, rice…anything that has one ingredient in it with one super important caveat…it sits well in your stomach.
Do not eat anything that you don’t digest well, even if you’d consider it quote unquote ‘healthy.’
For fat…you’re going to get a fair bit of your fat intake from your protein sources, especially from the fattier ones like beef, salmon and eggs, however…
You can also add things like avocados, butter, various forms of dairy and potentially small amounts of nuts and seeds.
That’s quality covered, what about quantity?
Take your bodyweight and multiply it by 15 so if you’re 200 lbs, 200 x 15 = 3000.
That is going to be your rough maintenance calorie intake give or take meaning, when you eat 3000 calories per day you do not lose fat, but you also do not gain fat.
You want to lose fat and so subtract 300-500 from your maintenance intake, which in this case puts you at 2500 – 2700 calories per day more or less.
Eat 1 gram of protein per pound of your current bodyweight or your goal bodyweight, so if you’re 200 lbs now and you want to be 175 lbs, eat between 175-200 grams of protein daily.
There are 4 calories per gram of protein and so if you’re eating 200 grams per day, that’s 800 calories.
Carbs also have 4 calories per gram and fat has 9 calories per gram and so…
Fill in the remainder of your total calorie intake however you want to from both carbs and fat based on your personal preferences and what has you feel your best.
I have a free fat loss template clearly outlining this info and if you follow and DM me on Instagram @n1fitness saying…
‘Nutrition fat loss template’ I’ll send it over to ya!
Exercise
First and foremost get 10,000 steps per day or 70,000 over the course of the week as a whole…
Once you’re hitting that target consistently for a month or more, feel free to add in resistance training or any other form of movement that you like.
Sleep
7-9 hours per night and follow the 4, 3, 2, 1 rule…
Stop drinking alcohol a minimum of 4 hours before you go to bed…preferably don’t drink at all, but if you choose to, use the 4 hour rule.
3 hours before bed, stop eating.
2 hours before bed, do not drink any liquids…water included.
1 hour before bed shut off all of your tech…so no phone, computer, television, bright lights etc.
Plateaus
When you hit a fat loss plateau you have 3 options to continue losing fat…
One, lower your calorie intake and keep your movement the same.
Two, keep your calorie intake the same and increase your movement.
Three, lower your calorie intake AND increase your movement.
Plateaus happen because as we get lighter, we burn fewer calories doing the same level of activity, for example…
A big SUV uses more gas driving 100 miles than a Honda Civic does aka a smaller version of you requires fewer calories.
A few rapid fire questions…
Do you need supplements, no…there are no OTC supplements that actually work for fat loss.
Does it matter how many meals you eat per day? No, you could have 1 or 10, the thing that matters most is what and how much you eat over the course of days, weeks and months as a whole.
Do you need to cold plunge or sauna, no…if you enjoy cold plunging or the sauna, go for it but neither is going to result in any fat loss that you’d actually be able to notice or measure.
Do you have to do cardio? Hit your 10,000 steps per day and then if you want to do quote unquote ‘cardio’ on top of that, you can if you’d like.
Do you have to lift weights? No, it’s a good idea to lift a couple of times per week for general health and functionality, but you don’t have to.
Do you need probiotics or prebiotics? No.
What about balancing hormones? Proper nutrition, movement and sleep will regulate your hormones for fat loss.
What about genetics? Fortunately, fat loss is not genetically determined, it’s lifestyle dependent meaning…
Every single human that has ever lived and will ever live can lose fat when they modify their nutrition, movement and sleep accordingly.
How about starvation mode? People say that you need to eat more in order to lose fat?
Saying that you need to eat more calories in order to lose fat is like saying that you need to spend more money in order to save…it makes no sense.
How about stress? Does it stop fat loss? Roughly 50% of people gain weight in response to stress and about 50% of folks lose weight in response to stress and so what does that tell us?
Stress itself does not cause weight loss or weight gain, but our response to stress can meaning…
If you get stressed and eat less, you will lose weight and if you get stressed and eat more, you will gain weight…simple as that, so…
Do your best to keep your nutrition on point during stressful times via planning and prepping ahead and you can absolutely maintain or even improve your body composition regardless of external life stressors.
