Weight loss for dummies

When fat loss is your goal the idea is simple: eat less than you use each
day. As a techie this can be easily expressed is an "IF" statement:


IF: ENERGY IN  <  ENERGY OUT, THEN: FAT LOSS


It’s staggeringly simple to follow, if you burn more energy that you get from
the food you eat then you will have to use fat stores to make up the difference.
Now there are a couple of subtleties to this that will help.




1. Don’t go overboard: It’s too easy to get yourself caught in a mind-set
that the more you restrict your calories the faster you will lose fat. It’s not
really that simple, you don’t just burn fat you burn fat and muscle
tissue. It goes without saying that it’s preferable to burn less muscle and more
fat, well if you jump in the deep end and starve yourself you will burn far more
muscle. The rule-of-thumb is to have a calorie deficit of 500 Kcals/Day, but
essentially the smaller your calorie deficit the more proportion of fat in
relation to muscle will be burned. So go slow, don’t starve – it’s a marathon,
not a sprint.


2. Once a week "carb up". This means increasing your intake of carbs so that
you are eating more than you need – just for one day in the week. The logic here
is that by eating a constant calorie deficit you will be causing your body to go
into "starvation mode" meaning elevated levels of cortisol (bad) and a higher
propensity to store fat from food, potential insulin sensitivity and more muscle
loss. By re-feeding once per week you will avoid this scenario. This doesn’t
mean a day filled with ice-cream and alcohol, try and get your extra calories
from clean food!