1. Fat Loss: The Science

So I’m going to start putting together posts that provide lots of good quality, science-based information in easy terms that will help a lot of you in working towards your goals, and in attempt to answer some of the questions and controversies floating around the fitness & nutrition industry today. And what better topic to start off with than fat loss, seeing as everybody and their mother wants to know how to reduce body fat!

First and foremost, the most important thing for fat loss is a caloric deficit (Guyenet & Schwartz, 2012), which essentially means burning more energy (calories) than you consume. Now, this is one of those concepts that is very simple, but not easy, to implement. However, here are the best ways to do so.

You can go into a caloric deficit by diet alone, exercise alone, or a combination of the two. Obviously do what suits you best, but there is a lot of research to support the fact that a combination of diet plus exercise is the most beneficial for fat loss, as well as fat loss maintenance (i.e. keeping the weight off) (Miller, Koceja & Hamilton, 1997). This may be the case because 1. there is a greater likelihood of a caloric deficit, 2. you feel more energised due to the endorphin release from the exercise, and higher amount of food, and you’re therefore less likely to crave calorie-dense foods (thus taking yourself out of the caloric deficit), and so on.

Fat loss alone is of course not the be all and end all of achieving that bikini body or toned look that you’re striving for. There’s always the possibility of becoming ‘skinny fat’, where you’re not exactly overweight, but you’re not exactly comfortable with flaunting the bod either, because of the little bit of ‘pudge’ in those stubborn areas. It’s important to note that for optimal body composition, we want to hold as much muscle as possible while also losing body fat. To do this, it is vital to implement resistance training. Ideally, hypertrophy style training is optimal, working within 6-12 reps (i.e. each set should be either 6-8, 8-10 or 10-12 reps), using 60-80% of your 1 rep max, and really utilising time under tension (TUT). What this does is it causes more tears in your muscle fibres, which means that the food you eat afterwards will be used for recovery of these muscles (less likely to be stored as excess fat, and also replenishing the glycogen stores in your muscles). There is also heavily replicated research that states that high intensity, heavy resistance training is associated with a high rate of energy utilization in general (Tesch, Colliander & Kaiser ,1986), and that this training style can lead to increased resting metabolic rate (RMR) and an 'afterburn' effect (Burt et al.,2014). This essentially means that it boosts your metabolism both in the long-term and in the hours following the session, so that you burn more calories just sitting on your hoop doing sweet F. A.! (Quick tip: To keep your sessions at a high intensity (which is ideal for fat loss), it’s important to keep your heart rate high throughout the session. To do this, maybe try keeping your rest times minimal (max. 60 seconds), implementing supersets, trisets and dropsets, or incorporating active rests between sets).

A lot of people struggle to figure out what macronutrients they ‘should’ be on when they start training, particularly when they are trying to lose weight or fat. It’s SO important to know that there is no one size fits all, however, there is lots of research to suggest that a relatively high protein consumption (1.8-2g per kg bodyweight) may help to prevent muscle breakdown during hypocaloric periods (Phillips, 2014). Of course, the extent of this depends on training experience, training frequency, muscle mass, age, etc., but it’s a pretty good place to start! As for the rest of your food intake, you can play around with your proportions of carbs and fats, to make up the rest of your calories, and gauge it off what works best for your body composition and what you feel better on. It is important to be aware however, that increasing dietary protein may come at the ‘expense’ of another macronutrient, potentially compromising athletic performance (for example, by decreasing carbs, you may feel more fatigued during your workouts and not be able to overload your muscles with as much volume as you would otherwise be able for).

Just know that an ideal caloric deficit would be to eat approximately 200-500 calories lower than the amount of calories you burn in a day (Note: this is NOT just the calories you burn during exercise, please Jesus still try to eat enough to adequately fuel your body!). Also know that 1g of carbs is 4 calories, 1g of protein is 4 calories, and 1g of fats is 9 calories. While it is easier to cut calories by reducing your fats, there are essential fatty acids that your body can’t make on its own that you must consume from your diet via dietary fats… but carbs have their place too, being incredibly beneficial for providing energy and improving your athletic performance (and if you can train harder, you can boost your metabolism more and increase your muscle mass more, therefore resulting in improved body composition also). With all of this in mind, it is probably best to cut calories from a mixture of carbs and fats, as opposed to taking all 300 or so calories from one poor macronutrient!

So coming full circle, the main snippets of information for you to implement are as follows:

• Ultimately, a caloric deficit (of approx. 200-500 calories a day)

• Resistance training, to elevate your metabolism and to help preserve muscle mass (ideally high intensity)

• Cardio, to burn more calories acutely

• A high protein diet (approx. 1.8-2g of protein per kg of bodyweight), to preserve muscle mass and really achieve that ‘toned’ or ‘lean’ look

• Don’t cut out any full macronutrient - instead, cut calories from a combination of carbs and fats

I reaaaaally hope this post clears some things up about fat loss and if you have any questions in relation to any of these points, feel free to ask me any questions and I’ll only be delighted to explain further!

For PT or online body transformation coaching enquiries, feel free to message me on my Facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/Quantum-Body-Transformations-with-Kate-Philpott-413114712556164/

References

Burt, D. G., Lamb, K., Nicholas, C. & Twist, C. (2014). Effects of exercise-induced muscle damage on resting metabolic rate, sub-maximal running and post-exercise oxygen consumption. European Journal of Sport Science, 14(4), 337-344.

Guyenet, S. J. & Schwartz, M. W. (2012). Regulation of Food Intake, Energy Balance, and Body Fat

Mass: Implications for the Pathogenesis and Treatment of Obesity. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism, 97(3), 745-755.

Miller, W. C., Koceja, D. M. & Hamilton, E. J. (1997). A meta-analysis of the past 25 years of weight loss research using diet, exercise or diet plus exercise intervention. International Journal of Obesity, 21, 941-947.

Phillips, S. M. (2014). A Brief Review of Higher Dietary Protein Diets in Weight Loss: A Focus on Athletes. Sports Medicine, 44(2), 149-153.

Tesch, P. A., Colliander, E. B. & Kaiser, P. (1986). Muscle metabolism during intense, heavy-resistance exercise. European Journal of Applied Physiology and Occupational Physiology, 55(4), 362-366.

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