Fat Loss is probably the most common goal people have. In today’s world where we have access to “hyperpalatable” foods everywhere along with lack of activity has seen a rapid increase in obesity. Literally in today’s modern world we don’t actually have to get up off our chairs to actually get food – we can literally open an app and get the food delivered to our doorsteps whenever we want.
To deal with obesity epidemic, we need to follow a holistic approach which combines calorie constraint (any form of it) with a lot of Movement. Of course, we at KinetiX believe that Movement (read: Training) is the first thing that one should focus on when it comes to fat loss while applying some kind of restriction to their food intake – but it’s a topic for another article. Let’s first look at our Diet Philosophy at KinetiX for Fat-Loss:
Our Fat-Loss diet philosophy has two basic components to it:
1- Fat-Loss Diet needs to create a relative deficit.
2- Fat-Loss Diet needs to be sustainable in Long-run.
Fat-Loss Diet Deficit:In simple words, it means that a person trying to lose weight needs to eat a little less than what he is already eating to maintain his weight. Usually it’s recommended that to lose fat at a healthy rate, you need to eat 500 calories less than your maintenance. So how can one calculate how many calories they should eat to lose weight? Well there are different formulas available online which can help you figure out your calories as per your age and activity level after you enter your basic information in them. Here is a simple way for you to calculate your daily calorie intake:
Multiply your weight in pounds with 10 to 12.The younger you are the more calories you can eat – so a younger person, let’s say 18 year old who wants to lose weight should multiply their weight in pounds with 12. Where as someone who is older let’s say 40 should multiply their weight in pounds with 10 to get the estimated calories they should be eating every day to lose weight. Here is an actual example for better understanding:
A 45-year-old female who weighs 160 lbs wants to lose weight. To calculate her caloric intake, we need to multiply her weight with 10
Her weight in LBS (160) x 10 = 1600 Calories to lose weight
Now one thing to remember is that a diet always starts with an estimation and sometimes need to be adjusted as you go. So, in the above example the lady starts with 1600 calories observes if she makes some progress in 7 to 10 days. If she makes desired progress in that period she is on target and doesn’t need to change anything in her diet and if she doesn’t she needs to make small changes (i.e. 50 to 100 calorie decrease) till she starts seeing results. Remember nothing too drastic or aggressive.
Sustainability of Diet in Long-Run:
Second part of our philosophy is that a diet needs to be balanced enough so that an individual can follow it in the long-run. It’s a well-known fact that most diets “FAIL” because they are too harsh and usually eliminate certain food groups. So, an individual starts a fad diet to lose weight fast and because of the diet either requires too big of a deficit or takes out certain types of food, he or she can only do it for a given period of time. Once they go off that diet and start eating everything they gain all the weight back and some.
What we try to teach our members is that they should educate themselves so that they can bring changes to their lives. We don’t recommend KETO, LOW CARB, PALEO or any DETOX diets which require elimination of certain food groups or require too low calories. The aim is to work with an individual’s body and not against it. So, the question is what is a sustainable diet? A sustainable diet is a balanced sane approach to nutrition which supports an individual physically and psychologically. It has ample calories with sufficient amount of carbs, fat and protein.
At the end, I would like to reinforce the fact that don’t rely on DIET ONLY strategy to lose fat because it will make you lose a lot of muscle and you won’t get the results you are looking for. Make Resistance Training a priority in your fat loss journey with a balanced Nutrition strategy for long run success.
