Have you ever told someone you’re trying to lose weight?
Fuck.
It’s no wonder most people are confused, huh?
Because in the vast majority of cases, the sentence “I’m trying to lose weight” is met by a barrage of noise about cutting out bread, eliminating sugar, not eating after 6pm, buying suspicious-looking “fat burners” off the internet, waking up at 5am to pound the treadmill, and punishing your taste buds into wanting a better body.
Heck, it’s enough to make you wonder why you even bothered!
The good news is that it doesn’t need to be anywhere near this complicated – in fact, much of the “fluff” above is either totally unnecessary or downright misleading.
I’ll explain…
You Don’t Need To “Eliminate” Any Particular Foods From Your Diet
If you’re going to build (and keep) a great body then you need to start building a healthy relationship with food.
Most diet plans are about restriction, punishment, and temporary results.
Fuck that shit.
In order to get results that last we must build a diet plan that also lasts, and we do that by making sure you can still include all of your favourite foods along the way!
As long as you stay within your total calorie budget you can find room in your nutrition plan for anything at all, so if enjoying a bar of chocolate at lunchtime keeps you sane, or tucking into a bag of Haribo after the gym helps satisfy your sweet tooth, don’t let anybody tell you otherwise! (1)
Lots of people don’t seem to realize that weight loss is this simple at it’s core, almost as if we’ve conditioned ourselves to believe it MUST be more complicated, so instead they go to extreme measures like eliminating food groups (e.g. “no more carbs!”) or abstaining from their favourite foods for as long as they can (e.g. “no more chocolate from Monday!”), but these type of programs only ever last so long, and they ultimately still come down to the same old mechanism; calories in versus calories out!
(Seriously, show me someone who claims to have lost a lot of weight “by just cutting out bread, bro” and I’ll show you someone who just reduced their daily calorie intake without realising it!)
By refusing to buy into the old ideas of forbidden foods and restriction this helps you to sidestep the mental torture which typically with a weight loss plan. You will not feel the need to beat yourself up if you enjoy a snack, because you can work it into your numbers, and you’ll be much less likely to binge out of frustration. (9, 10)
That’s a healthy relationship with food.
There Is No “Best” Macronutrient Ratio
If you start asking people in the gym for weight loss advice, you’ll notice they like to bring up macronutrients quite a lot.
You see, they’ll tell you that you can improve your results even more by “spending” your daily calorie budget on a certain amount of calories from protein, and carbohydrates, and fat.
The problem is one guy says one thing (e.g. “Yeah I eat loads of protein and fat but zero carbs!”) and another equally in shape guy says something entirely different (e.g. “Nah, mate, you need carbs! I eat loads every day and look at me!”)… so again, most people are confused who is right.
So let’s look at what science says on this topic, shall we?
Back in 1992, a study published by the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition showed that controlling your total calorie intake is the over-riding factor which governs whether you gain weight or lose weight – regardless of the ratio of macronutrients. (2)
“Even with extreme changes in the ratio of calories used on fat and carbohydrates, there was no detectable difference in energy requirements or body fat percentage.”
– American Journal of Clinical Nutrition
The graph above shows the findings of this study, and as you can see, the researchers had participants following a calorie controlled diet with the following macronutrient ratios:
- 15% protein, 45% carbs, 40% fat
- 15% protein, 15% carbs, 70% fat
- 15% protein, 85% carbs, 0% fat
By the end of the study each group had lost the same amount of body fat and there were no differences in lean mass.
Holy flaps!
This research flies in the face of all the fad diets which claim you’ve gotta avoid this, and eat only that, and so on… right?
And perhaps even more startling as this was way back in 1992! We’ve known this information for fucking DECADES, people!
Anyway, the findings of this study caused an uproar in the fitness community at the time, because it was largely believed that fat was the cause of obesity back then (something which carbohydrates would also wrongly be blamed for in the early 2000s), so several studies were done to confirm or debunk the results in the following few years.
Every single one replicated the results, showing us that total calorie intake is what really matters, and that when total calories and protein are controlled you can enjoy as much flexibility as you like with how you spend your allotted calorie budget! (1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8)
One of the more interesting studies on this topic arrived in 2007, when researchers from Arizona State University compared the results of a high carb diet against that of the then-trending ketogenic diet. (7)
Practitioners of this diet plan are well-known for the aggressive manner in which the sell the purported “superiority” of it versus other dieting models.
We all know one.
So you’ll be interested to hear that the researchers in this study discovered no differences in fat loss between the groups (minus the keto group unlocking some additional water loss due to not eating carbohydrates).
Another interesting piece of research, this time from 2005, tested out the old theory that “eating a low G.I. diet is better than eating a high G.I. diet”. (6)
If you’re unfamiliar with G.I. this stands for Glycemic Index; a nutrition table which was originally designed for diabetics but was adopted by fitness enthusiasts in the 1980s as an easy way to see the impact carbohydrate-based foods have on blood sugar levels. (5)
It was originally theorised that sticking with foods on the lower end of this scale would be superior for weight loss results, but that idea was blown out of the water by this 2005 study in which researchers saw absolutely no difference in fat loss no matter if trainees ate a diet consisting mostly of high G.I. carbs or mostly of low G.I. carbs. There was also a third group of participants in this study who ate a low carb diet, and by the end of the trial there was only a 0.2lbs difference between all three groups, once again showing us that total calorie intake is the most important factor in weight loss.
Before we move on to the final section of this post, I want you to pay particular attention to something.
In each of these studies where total calories are controlled, the researchers also made a point of controlling protein intake.
Did you notice that?
That’s really important, because most of my website readers don’t just want to lose weight, they want to get lean and fit!
In order to achieve that we must ensure we eat plenty of protein each day, because this is the macronutrient our body uses to build muscle. Aim for around 1g/lb and read more on it here. If we do that then science shows us you can “spend” your remaining calories in any way you enjoy, so you could go high carb/low fat, or low carb/high fat, or moderate carb/moderate fat, or you could even vary your approach on a daily basis. (8)
Got it? Good!
Russ’ Take-Home Advice
My PT clients are tired of hearing me say it, but it’s true:
“The best diet is the one you can stick to!”
– Russ Howe PTI
The research proves there are several ways you can achieve weight loss results, so you can experiment with your approach along the way until you find something that you personally enjoy.
No more bullshit fad diets for you, my friend!
Some readers will find that can maintain their calorie target more easily with more carbs, but others might go a different route, and heck, some of you might only want to focus on staying within your calorie budget and making sure you eat enough protein per day.
You do you, because all of these approaches are great and their success just hinges on your ability to do it consistently.
Now go lift something heavy, you lazy motherfucker!
References:
- Howell S., et al. “Calories in, calories out” and macronutrient intake: the hope, hype, and science of calories. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab (2017).
- Leibel R.L., et al. Energy intake required to maintain body weight is not affected by wide variation in diet composition . Am J Clin Nutr (1992).
- Golay A., et al. Similar weight loss with low- or high-carbohydrate diets. Am J Clin Nutr (1996).
- Golay A., et al. Weight-loss with low or high carbohydrate diet. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord (1996).
- Luscombe-Marsh N. D., et al. Carbohydrate-restricted diets high in either monounsaturated fat or protein are equally effective at promoting fat loss and improving blood lipids. Am J Clin Nutr (2005).
- Raatz S. K., et al. Reduced Glycemic Index and Glycemic Load Diets Do Not Increase the Effects of Energy Restriction on Weight Loss and Insulin Sensitivity in Obese Men and Women. J Nut (2005).
- Johnston C. S., et al. Ketogenic low-carbohydrate diets have no metabolic advantage over nonketogenic low-carbohydrate diets. Am J Clin Nutr (2006).
- Bandegan A., et al. Indicator Amino Acid-Derived Estimate of Dietary Protein Requirement for Male Bodybuilders on a Nontraining Day Is Several-Fold Greater than the Current Recommended Dietary Allowance. J Nutr (2017).
- Smith C. F., et al. Flexible vs. Rigid dieting strategies: relationship with adverse behavioral outcomes. Appetite (1999).
- Stewart T. M., et al. Rigid vs. flexible dieting: association with eating disorder symptoms in nonobese women. Appetite (2002).