This last week I have discussed with a few clients the issue of how much to reduce their food intake to lose fat. This can be done through having smaller portions, cutting out “junk”, counting and aiming for a set calorie intake amount or addressing your food ratios to control hunger. The question is how much is too much or too little?
The classic fat loss theory goes reduce your food intake by 500 calories a day and then you will lose around half a kg (1 lb) of fat per week. However, using a set calorie amount like this runs into a few of problems. The first is that almost no one knows how much they eat already, only a small percentage of people count calories and those that do only count the good days and conveniently forget about their bad days and thus distort the data. The second is you do not know how many calories your body needs. I have said for a long time the calorie recommendations are wrong and over calculated in my opinion. Where Men are recommended to eat 2500 calories a day and women 2000 the reality is this will cause many a person to gain fat. So reduce 500 calories from what point?
When answering the question how much should I eat then it is more prudent to use calorie % than set calorie amounts. The difficulty of following your plan will correlate with magnitude of your reduced diet.
Food Intake Reduction % Difficulty Example
5-10% Fairly Easy From 2500 to 2250
10 – 20% A little challenging From 2500 to 2000
20-30% A challenge From 2500 to 1750
30-40% Difficult to do From 2500 to 1500
40% + Very difficult From 2500 to 1250
The lower the intake the faster the results in theory, but if you drop too low you will not follow it and your can affect your metabolic rate more, see below.
You do no need to count calories. The higher the percentage of your daily needs you drop the food intake by the greater difficulty you will have following it. Therefore it can be reasoned if you are really struggling to stick to the diet with hunger etc you have dropped your food intake by too great a percentage.
The magnitude of your diet reduction will correlate with how long you can realistically follow it for. The higher the % the shorter the time you will be able to maintain unless you are super focused and motivated. Looking at body builders and how they cut for competition they will vary the % with some preferring shorter and bigger food intake cuts, e.g. Jeff Seid does about a 50% calorie intake cut.
For you it is important to consider how long will you need to get to your results. If you are 35% body fat and aiming for 20% fat then you will need at least 6 months to get there in the best case scenario. It will be very difficult to follow any severely cut calorie intake, not impossible, but very difficult for most people for this long. A severly cut calorie intake will also cause health issues if prolonged over time.
Different Calorie Needs
As people have much varying calorie needs you can see that a 50kg woman who need 1500 calories a day cutting their diet by 500 calories is a 33% reduction, compared to a 100kg guy dropping from 3000 to 2500 is just 16%. Your body will tell you the rough % by how you feel on the plan.
Changing Calorie needs
It is important to remember of course that your calorie needs are not set in stone and the less you eat the less your body uses as it preserves calorie usage to protect the body. This can be battled against through eating more at certain times and using more conservation calorie % reductions. Strong calorie deficits will force the body to preserve more and thus reduce its metabolic rate.
Using this information
As most people do not count calories the above information should be used in reverse. If you are having great difficulty in sticking to the diet you need to check that your “when I am being good” diet is not simply too little food and thereby too great a calorie reduction to maintain for any duration to get results. If so you then you may need to add more food in be it through extra carbs or or slightly larger portions etc to make it more manageable.
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March 19th -26th (6/8 days measured)
A week of great training as I nailed 12 sessions in 6 days with the body gaining muscle and looking good. Food has been right on it!
Diet – Protein – 271g, Carbs – 362g, fat – 72g, calories – 3176, P:34 % C :46% F: 20%
Exercise – 14 Weights sessions and 1 off day
Weight – 73.5kg Body fat – Not Taken (39mm* last measure)
Supplements – Protein shake (max 40g per day), creatine (10g-30g) and BCAA (8-10g)
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*This is my own 10 point self measurement system, it does not correlate to body fat scores. At a guess 40mm – 8%, 50mm – 9.5%, 60mm – 11%, 70mm – 12.5%. I do not take it everyday if looking to gain muscle or maintain as it puts me off wanting to eat more. If on fat loss phase I take it daily. Like any body fat measurement system, as you get to low body fat levels the number become less accurate or reliable.
Hyde Park – For Personal Training Hyde Park please contact me. I am available for sessions in homes, private gyms or for Hyde Park Personal Training