I have conversations about fat loss every day and sometimes I have to remind myself that even if it isn’t new or novel information to me, it may be helpful for you. Here’s a list of topics which have come up over the last couple of weeks that might help you along the way.
-If you’re struggling with fatigue and you’re also trying to lose fat, you may need to make a decision about what’s more important at this moment: dropping the number on the scale or trying to increase your energy. If fat loss is more important, then you may need to reduce training intensity and keep your calories where they are or drop them. If energy is more important, you may need to push your calories higher temporarily and see how it affects your energy levels during training.
-If the only thing you’ve consciously tried to do over the last several months is diet and you can’t recall the last time (if at all) that you’ve taken a maintenance break, then you probably need to take that break sooner as opposed to later.
-If a diet succeeds at helping you lose fat, it is because said diet put you in an energy deficit. Forget about what calorie calculators and macro targets tell you. You’re either in a deficit or you’re not (and there could be factors that affect your ability to be in a deficit). Hopping over to another diet won’t give you better outcomes unless it manages to put you further into a deficit.
-On the note of aggressive deficits, if you’re going to diet aggressively don’t train aggressively as well. Pick one or the other.
-If I could take nearly every woman I’ve worked with (with few exceptions), a protein range of 100-120g would be the sweet spot for helping with fat loss success. You can overshoot it if you’d like but I would encourage you getting as close as you can to that bottom end as often as possible.
-If you are a woman in the menopause transition, it is absolutely possible that certain foods (including alcohol) no longer agree with your digestive system. Keep a journal and eliminate/reduce any foods you think are problematic.
-It probably isn’t seed oils that are the problem, it’s the fact that seed oils are present in a lot of the foods you might be likely to overeat: chips, crackers, sweets, etc. If hyper-focusing on seed oils allows you to remove those foods, you’ve probably eliminated a lot of unnecessary calories and that could be the difference between success with fat loss or not.
-Despite what you see and hear on social media, no you do not need to practice intermittent fasting to lose fat. Not if you’re a man, a woman, a woman in the menopause transition, etc. It works for some people, it’s terrible for others and it’s not universally a helpful tool.
-Here’s my super-woo comment on fat loss. Hating yourself and your body might get you off the couch but it’s an awful sentiment to hold on to throughout your journey. If you don’t find something to love and respect about your body, your journey will be unnecessarily painful and more problematic than it should be. Fat loss is difficult enough even when you give a damn about yourself.
(Photo courtesy of Farhad Ibrahimzade)
