The Simplest Way To Achieve Fat Loss
When attempting to lose weight people look for ‘quick fixes’ or make drastic changes to their diet. Commonly this involves cutting out carbs, not eating fat, avoiding all junk food or even resorting fat burners. These are all extreme strategies which maybe successful in the short term (apart from the fat burners… which are useless) but they are not sustainable.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]Everyone already has a diet which contains foods that they enjoy eating and are convenient for them and their lifestyle. Therefore rather than completely changing what is already in place in order to lose weight, we should just work with what’s already there. Removing foods or food groups completely isn’t necessary as it’s not the foods we eat that make us fat, it is overeating which is the problem. The higher the quantity of food we consume the higher our calorie intake. Instead of removing foods we should therefore just aim to reduce how much of them we are eating which will subsequently lower our overall calorie intake.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]For example;[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]If you currently eat 70g of corn flakes in a morning then maybe reduce this to 45g. Over seven days this will save you approx 630kcal per week.[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]OR[Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]If you currently smother your toast in 2tbsp of peanut butter, just opt for a thinner layer of 1tbsp. This will mean you consume 616kcals less per week. [Text Wrapping Break][Text Wrapping Break]Whilst this sounds simple, making these small changes will amount to have a significant effect. As you can see in the example above, these two small changes reduce overall calorie intake by 1246kcal over the course of a week (the equivalent of a full day of eating for some people). This will in turn help you achieve a calorie deficit (consuming less calories than we burn) which is THE requirement for fat loss.
This is a more flexible, sustainable way of dieting as it allows a person to consume foods that they enjoy and the likelihood of quitting is minimised.
Bobby Garlington
BSc Hons Human Nutrition