Big picture nutrition

If you're struggling with weight loss (or are just getting started) there's nothing worse than feeling like you're doing everything right, but still not getting results.

"But I'm eating really healthy!"

"But I've cut out sugar!"

"But I'm not drinking anywhere near as much as I used to!"

These are some of the main points I've had clients bring to me when they are confused and frustrated by their lack of progress, and it always comes back to the hitting the big picture items in the right sequence, being:

1.    Control your calories

2.    Consume adequate protein

3.    Balance carbs and fats according to personal preference

Calories
You need a calorie deficit for weight loss to occur (barring any medical conditions that affect metabolism I.e. PCOS, thyroid issues etc. - this is a very small percentage of the population though).

Consume less energy than you burn - this is the cardinal rule for fat loss. It will not matter if your food is organic, vegan, keto, eaten in a fasting window, carnivore, or even [insert latest diet trend here]. Control your calories.

How do I do this?

We begin by finding how much you should be eating for weight loss. I find the following formula to work well for most people:

9-12 X your bodyweight (in lb) = your recommended caloric intake for fat loss

With the above formula, I generally recommend people start by using either 10 or 11 to multiply their bodyweight (in lb). If you eat this much consistently over 7 days and it results in 300-400gm weight loss, then we keep that amount going forward as that's generally more sustainable long-term. If it gives us less than 300gm weight loss, we change the formula to 9 instead to help speed your results along (and help you stay motivated).

If we’re losing too much weight consistently (i.e. 1kg+ a week) I’d maybe change the starting value to 12 instead of 10 or 11, to ensure you don’t mentally burn out from dieting too strictly in the short term - whilst 1kg+ a week weight loss can feel great, for many people it can set up an unrealistic expectation of always losing 1kg+ every week, which can lead to some frustration and negative emotions if they fail to hit that number. Set small targets and hit them consistently, rather than huge targets that you miss frequently. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

For the first week I heavily recommend using a paper food diary to record what you eat and/or tracking your food in a tracking app (I find Myfitnesspal to be the most user-friendly). This includes everything you eat and drink - we want to gain as complete a picture as possible. Once we’ve got the data, we analyse it and see where your intake is at. If your calories are too high, bring them down. If too low, bring them up. If you need help understanding what food choices will produce these effects, I recommend getting in touch with a nutrition coach like myself who can assist in educating you to make more informed choices on nutrition.

Once we have made the sufficient changes to your diet to bring your caloric intake in line with your recommendation, we track again – this time with the desired outcome of 300gm-400gm weekly weight loss. Once that’s achieved, we look at the next step.

Protein

You consume protein to help you build and maintain your muscle (so we can recover from training) as well as help you stay full. For most people, we’re looking at 1.5gm-2gm per kg of bodyweight. For example, if you weigh 100kg you’d be aiming to consume between 150gm-200gm of protein each day. This is still taking into account step 1; control your calories.

After your calories are in line, how you get in that protein is up to you – be it meat, chicken, fish, lentils, pterodactyl wing etc.

I prefer raptor cutlets myself, but the preparation can be a handful.

Carbs and Fats

When it comes to carbs and fats, understand that they are not the enemy. You need both for optimal bodily function and health – avoid cutting them out completely or dropping either one too low (unless you have been prescribed otherwise by an accredited practising dietician or health professional).

Barring that, once you’ve figured out how much protein you need you can generally split up your carb and fat intake according to what works for you. Firstly, we’ll go over how many calories per gm for each of the macronutrients:

Protein = 4 calories per gm

Carbs = 4 calories per gm

Fats = 9 calories per gm

Once we take these values into account, we can look at dividing your carbs and fats. For example, if you weigh 100kg and you’ve set your caloric intake for 2200, you might split your macronutrients up like so:

Protein = 1.5gm/kg of bodyweight = 150gm

Remaining calories = 1600

Splitting calories equally between carbs and fats = 200gm carbs, 89gm fats

In this example we’ve split the carbs and fats up equally in regards to the remaining calories – this is one way you could do this. You might personally want to give yourself more carbs or more fats, and that’s fine – whatever works for you. A caveat I would throw in here is to not bring your fats too low (or below 15%-20% of caloric intake) as we need sufficient dietary fat to regulate your hormones. Other than that, experiment with what works for you – and what gets results.

These are the 3 biggest things in order you should do nutritionally to get your weight loss results coming in. Once you’ve taken these steps in the correct sequence, then you can look at different styles of eating and find one you enjoy – but keep the big picture in mind.

Talk soon,

Alex