It’s no secret to anyone that weight loss feels like an incredibly overwhelming and complicated aspect of fitness.

There is so much information surrounding the topic that picking everything apart and understanding what you should do is impossible for many.

To that end, I’ve put together this blog post that contains the weight loss fundamentals. Simply put, if you want to shed fat and improve your health, reading this post should be your first step.

The Calorie Deficit

There’s no shortage of diets, cleanses, fat-burning pills, and other fads. Everywhere you turn, there seems to be yet another newer and more ‘superior’way of melting fat.

But here’s the truth:

The only way to get your body to burn its fat stores is to place yourself in a caloric deficit. Or, in simpler terms, to eat fewer calories than you burn each day. Over the weeks and months, the net deficit in energy consumption leads to weight loss.

All of this goes back to the first law of thermodynamics:

Energy cannot be created or destroyed- it can only be transformed from one form to another.

To lose weight and get leaner, you need to force your body to use fat for fuel. And the only sustainable (and reliable) way of doing so is by giving it less energy to work with through food.

Generally speaking, a deficit of about 10 to 25 percent works best for most people. So, if a weight loss calculator places your maintenance level at 2500 calories, you should aim to consume from 1875 to 2250 calories a day as a start.

Larger deficits can be effective at the start of programs for obese and overweight individuals. The leaner you get and the closer you are to your optimal body weight the smaller the caloric deficit will have to be to lose weight.

Adequate Protein Intake

Aside from the caloric deficit, it’s also essential to consume plenty of protein, as the macronutrient plays a crucial role in helping you retain your muscle tissue while losing fat. Plus, protein is highly satiating, which is a big plus when eating fewer calories.

Now, retaining your muscle is vital for a couple of reasons:

First, it helps you achieve a better look once you’re done with the weight loss, as it provides contour to your body. As you shed fat, your body begins to resemble that of a fitness model or an athlete.

Second, having more muscle on your frame means that you’ll have a higher metabolic rate. Muscle is a metabolically-costly tissue, which means that your body expends calories to keep it around. 

As a rule of thumb, you should aim to consume between 1.5 and 2.7 gram of protein per kilo of body weight. If you currently weigh 81kg, you can start with a target of 121 to 218 grams of protein per day.

What’s important to note here is that protein intake is scaled upwards with severity of caloric restriction and leanness.

The higher the body fat percentage the lower the protein intake can be compared to the total bodyweight.

Good sources of protein include seafood, legume, lean meat, nuts, seeds, low fat Greek yogurt, eggs, and protein powders.

Tie In Everything With a Meal Frequency That Works For You

Despite what many folks claim, meal frequency isn’t nearly as crucial for weight loss as it seems. Whether you eat two meals or six, you will lose weight effectively so long as you maintain a caloric deficit.

So, rather than overwhelm yourself and worry about what the best meal frequency is, do what works for you.

Some folks prefer six small meals. Others practice intermittent fasting and eat twice every 24 hours. And some stick with the classic three square meals a day. Pick a frequency that works well for you, your schedule, and preferences– that’s the only sustainable path to lasting results.

Regular Exercise

Over 70% of  people who lost weight and kept it off engaged in regular exercises programs.

Even performing 30 minutes per session, three days per week of rigorous physical exercise can produce robust benefits compared to being sedentary.

“Calories out” should not be the main focus of your training sessions as in the big scale of things most of your energy expenditure and weight loss happens outside the gym.

The focus of your training should be increasing your Lean body mass and improving your health. Ideally, you should be weight training and doing some cardiovascular exercise as well.

Resistance training increases LBM (lean body mass) signifcantly, possibly attenuating the reduction in metablolic rate during dieting, but also helping to restore metabolic rate in post-diet setting and limit body fat regain.

Exercise also increases your sensitivity to satiety hormones and increases turnover in the fat cell.

If you hate going to the gym, try to find some kind of exercise that you love, whether it’s cycling, jogging, dancing, crossfit, boxing, football, swimming etc. The important thing is to do something that you enjoy so you’ll work hard at it and perform it regularly.

Make no mistake, if you want to lose weight and keep it off, that isn’t going to happen by accident. You’ll have to be mindful and make it a priority every single day.