First, let me introduce myself. I am currently an undergrad in nutritional science (going to switch to biology next year then do PhD in nutrition). I see a lot of guys here struggle with the fat pad I thought I’d help a few guys out and start a thread laying out the basics in terms of losing weight and combine one of my passions (working out, nutrition) with PE!
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Now in terms of losing weight the most important thing is calories. How many calories you eat decide whether you are in a negative or positive energy balance (also known as caloric surplus or calorie deficit). If you are in a caloric deficit you WILL lose weight regardless of whether you eat pizza all day. If you eat 2000 calories of pizza or 2000 calories of chicken and rice it doesn’t really matter in terms of weight loss.
Now before you start screaming protein! Fat! Carbs! At me, yes those are taken into account. In my opinion the best way of maintaining a normal flexible life style is tracking macronutrients. Macronutrients are required by the body in gram amounts. Each macro nutrient is broken down by the body to create ATP and be used as energy. To me and you they are known as Carbohydrates, Fat and Protein. But your body doesn’t know where it is getting these macronutrients from.
Complex carbs I here you say? Well what’s the difference? Complex carbohydrates are slow digesting. Therefore, they don’t spike insulin. But this can be avoided with all carbs if you ingest enough fibre with your meals, fibre is the determining factor whether or not foods are slow digesting or not. For example sugar is fast digesting and potatoes aren’t. That’s because of fibre. Here’s some science if you don’t believe me:
The effect of dietary fiber and other factors on insulin response: role in obesity. - PubMed - NCBI
However, this is not to say you should eat pizza all day. You’d find it impossible to hit your macronutrient requirements for protein and fibre if you did this.
Positive energy balance is when a person’s energy input is greater than their energy output. This is also known as a caloric surplus. People begin to gain excess body weight as a result of long-term energy imbalance where energy intake is greater than energy expenditure. This then leads to greater stores of adipose tissue. Put bluntly you get fat.
Negative energy balance is when someone’s energy output is greater than their input. Also known as being in a caloric deficit. It is induced by decreased caloric intake or increased energy expenditure (cardio).
So what are you trying to get at?
I’m saying your food choices don’t really matter as long as you hit your macronutrient requirements and are in a caloric deficit. Worry less about food choices, more about numbers.
How do I know what my macro nutrient requirements are?
Well unfortunately, there is no way to predict your metabolism. But it doesn’t take much working out. Firstly, we need to find your maintenance calories (the amount of calories your body maintains weight on). You can go about this one of two ways:
1). Start tracking your calories using “my fitness pal” and start weighing yourself every morning for about 2/3 weeks and write down your weight. Now for example say you’ve tracked and you’re eating 3000 calories a day but your average weight is increasing (7 consecutive days weight added then divided by 7). Reduce your calories around 200 each week until you find your body weight stop increasing or do the opposite if your weight is decreasing. And you have found your maintenance calories.
2). Use an online calculator (the one on the iifym calculator is pretty good) to GUESS I repeat GUESS your maintenance calories. It may be right, it may be off a little bit. Use the number it gives you for 2/3 weeks (again track foods using “myfitnesspal”). Weigh yourself every morning and write it down. Now workout your average weekly weight. (7 consecutive days weight added then divided by 7). Reduce or increase your calories around 200 each week until you find your body weight stops increasing or decreasing. And you have found your maintenance calories.
Start Here Archives - IIFYM
However!!!!! Your body weight will differ day to day. So that’s why we go by the weekly average and not the daily weigh ins are there is too much fluctuation.
Now you have this information what do you do?
Now you work out the macros you need to lose or gain weight!
Right, so this is where maths comes into play. You can just use the calculator on iifym.com to do this for you but it’s better to have the knowledge.
I am going to do this using the example of someone who has a metabolism with the maintenance calories of 2500kcal and weighs 180lbs.
Protein is 4kcal per gram.
Carbohydrate is 4kcal per gram.
Fat is 9kcal per gram.
Your body has a protein and fat requirement that it NEEDS to build adequate muscle and maintain normal hormone function cell growth ect ect.
The majority of the research shows that:
1gram of protein per pound of body weight.
0.4g of fat per pound of body weight is more than sufficient. You can keep this higher or lower if you wish but keep in mind unless you’re in ketosis your body’s main energy source is carbohydrates.
So we have a 180lb male with a maintenance of 2500 calories. His macronutrients would be:
Protein: 180 x 1gram = 180 of protein
Fat: 180 x 0.4gram = 72 grams of fat
So that brings us to a total of 720 calories from protein and 650 calories from fat. So a person with the maintenance calories of 2500 and body weight of 180 would do this sum. 2500kcal – 1370kcal = 1130kcal. The number we have left is the number of remaining calories we need to make up our maintenance. We use carbs for this:
Carbohydrates are 4kcal so we divide the remaining calories by 4. 1130kcal divided by 4kcal = 282
So this persons macro nutrients are
180protein/72fat/282carb. If this person then choose to lose weight the general amount of calories suggest to start a deficit is 500. Personally I choose to reduce carbs to lose weight so in this case I would reduce my carbs by 125carbs (500 divided by 4).
Ideally, you want to lose around a pound per week. This will ensure you are not causing too much muscle atrophy. However, in the first week you will lose around 3-10lb due to your glycogen stores being depleted.
Eat around 10-15g of fibre per 1000calories you eat.
Right, I found my maintenance calories and I worked out my macros and I’m in a deficit. What now?
Continue to track calories and weight every day until you reach your weight loss goal. You may have periods where your weight loss stalls. Stick them out for as long as possible and If you continue to stall. Reduce calories between 50-100kcal.
But bro? What about cardio?
If you want to do cardio go ahead. But all cardio is doing is burning calories. If you are struggling with hunger add some cardio. But make sure that you’re accounting for the calories you burn during cardio. A 500 calorie deficit is the same if it’s burnt through cardio or lost through food restriction.
You can't spot reduce fat. So you have to loose weight overall to loose the fat pad. My body fat is around 14% and my fat pad is around 0.24" - this will differ for everyone but can use it as a general guideline
All this information can be used in reverse if you wish to gain weight and build muscle.
I will probably add to this thread as time goes along. I will provide some videos that explain this topic, if you have any questions feel free to ask. Apologies in advance if there are grammatical errors.
Please watch these videos they explain everything I just said:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6H2edyPLU8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UabqqP-XPqo
