In part 1 I outlined one of the major reasons a lot of people aren't losing fat. If you haven't read it I suggest you do so now here. Can't be bothered? Long story short, you're eating more then you think.

Now let's talk solutions.

Within this article I'll cover:

Why it’s important to measure and track your food (at least for for the short term)
How to work out your daily calorie balance
How to then create an appropriate calorie deficit based on your goals.

Enough chat, let’s do this.

YOU CAN’T MANAGE WHAT YOU DON’T MEASURE

In my opinion, tracking and measuring food intake has a de-mystifying effect for many people. Instead of:

blindly reducing portion sizes (which is a recipe for Hulk-like hunger and hanger)
cutting out certain foods for no good reason
giving up foods we love
Blaming individual foods as the culprits for out weight gain.

Tracking and measuring (when done accurately and consistently) takes the blind fold off and allows us to accurately see what needs to be modified.

By knowing how many calories we are consuming over a day or week we can then make the necessary changes to make our body utilise its stored fat for fuel and there by lose body fat.

Measuring and tracking intake also:

Highlights potential nutritional areas for improvement. Maybe you need more protein? Less fat? More calcium, iron etc.
Educates you on calories, macronutrients and portions. How many of you know what a correct portion size relative to YOU looks like?
Helps ensure you’re eating mostly nutrient dense whole foods.
Allows you to eat your favourite foods without negatively affecting your goals.
Allows you to eat the most amount of food possible while losing weight. This means better performance, better health and a more sustainable diet and one less hangry person in society!
Takes the guess work out of the equation.

This is why I have 90% of my clients track their intake when they start working with me. The degree of accuracy and the duration might change depending on their personal goals but the majority do it and ultimately benefit from it.

I bet you’re thinking, “but what about the negatives?”

"Who has time for this sort of thing!?”

Yes, tracking, weighing and measuring your food is not what most would describe as fun or exciting, and for some, probably not healthy in the long term. But in the short term it can be a great learning tool. Understanding your food, understanding what makes up a balanced meal and applying self discipline and control in the pursuit of a specific goal are all valuable lessons to learn.

I find that for the majority of clients it can help change behaviours for the better in the long term. That a small amount of discipline equals greater freedom in the future.

Now you know the why, let’s bust out the calculators.

STEP 1: WORKING OUT YOUR DAILY CALORIE NEEDS

Before we can look at creating a calorie deficit to get your body utilizing fat, we need to figure out what your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is. This is the amount of food you can eat that would maintain your current weight also know as your maintenance calories.

Here are my 2 preferred methods for establishing TDEE:

Track your intake and weight over a 2 week period (the most accurate)

While this method requires more time and energy it also results in a more accurate, individualised estimation of maintenance calories.

To begin, you must obtain a digital bodyweight scale, a digital food scale, and an online account with a free food tracking database like Cronometer (my favourite), MyFitnessPal or EasyDietDiary (or others).

The next step is to spend 2 weeks weighing and tracking your food as best as you can when you prepare it, and estimating your caloric intake when you aren’t preparing your own food as accurately as possible. As well as food you must weigh yourself each morning and record your weight (this can usually be done in the same app).

That means at the end of 2 weeks you should hopefully have 14 days of calorie intake and body weight measurements.

Average your intake and then split your bodyweight into the 2 weeks and average those. We now have an idea of whether your gaining, losing or maintaining your weight and can make any appropriate changes.

2. Estimate Your TDEE by calculation

There are around 10-15 different equations that can estimate our TDEE but they all come out pretty similar. So rather then get super complicated we’re going to use a simple formula introduced to me by Eric Helms (super smart guy) which I have found reasonably accurate.

(22 X your bodyweight in kg) x an activity factor = TDEE

*females should use the lower ends of the scales

Example. If Jim is an 82 kg uni student who works out 5 times a week but sits in the library studying, or in his shoebox room watching Netflix for most of his time, his calculation may look like this:

(22 x 82) x 1.4 = 2,525 calories total daily energy expenditure.

Now Jim can work out how many calories he’ll have to cut to lose weight.

STEP 2: CREATING A SUITABLE CALORIE DEFICIT FOR YOUR GOALS

This step is often a source of much confusion or perhaps laziness. It’s not uncommon to see individuals jump to that popular figure of 1200 calories. THIS IS RARELY AN ADEQUATE OR NECESSARY AMOUNT FOR THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE. While under-eating may speed up weight loss, it makes dieting harder to maintain, risks increased loss of muscle mass and may speed up the negative metabolic adaptions of dieting.

The other simple yet commonly made mistake is automatically slashing intake by 500 calories a day. Picking any arbitrary number to reduce your intake by may turn out to be too aggressive or not aggressive enough depending on your expenditure.

For example, if you’re a small female whose maintenance is around the 1,800 calorie mark, dropping calories by 500 per day to 1,300 calories is going to make your diet hard to maintain and eventually wear down your energy resources until you crash and binge.

Instead, use a percentage of YOUR intake. This way it is more suitable for everyone’s individual body size.

To keep things simple, here are three deficit sizes to choose from:

Small: <15% below maintenance calories.

Moderate: 15-25% below maintenance calories.

Large: >25% below maintenance calories.

The deficit you choose depends on how fast you want to lose weight, how much it affects your training, and how well you can stick to your diet.

Jim is going to go with a moderate approach (smart choice Jim), so he whips out his calculator and plugs in :

2,525 x 0.2 (20% in fraction) = 505 calories

2,525 - 505 = 2,020 calories. Which means Jim has to eat around 2,000 calories a day to lose weight at a moderate pace.

*There are pros and cons to each which are beyond the scope of this guide. For more individualised programming please enquire about having a chat with me here.

STEP 3: ADJUST YOUR DIET BASED ON RESULTS

I know how the majority of people are going to be attracted to method 2 of calculating their intake, as monitoring intake and bodyweight for 2 weeks just to get a baseline measure seems laborious and time consuming, which is fine.

Remember however that any calculation is just an estimate and will likely need to be tweaked in order to be optimal for you. That means that you should expect to make changes.

Our bodies are smart and will adjust based on its present environment (a calorie deficit) in order to slow down weight loss. You can read about that HERE.

I advise that after 4 weeks of accurately and consistently measuring and tracking your food intake, you check your progress and decide whether you need to make any changes.

If you haven’t been losing weight, on average, as fast as you’d like, then you need to consider your next move. Luckily for you I written about this here.

If you feel tired, weak, and irritable, and you’re losing weight too quickly, eat slightly more.

The Long Game

Remember to always think about the long game (unless you have a short, time sensitive goal). Making your diet any harder then it needs to be essentially just means you’re fast tracking your own demise.

If you found what you read helpful but are struggling to put it in to practice, then it may be worth investing in yourself and looking for help from a registered professional.

Einstein described insanity as “ doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”

If fad diets, listening to celebrities, TV chefs and that fit guy/girl at the gym hasn’t worked.

If you’ve spent money on diet books, 8 week programs, detoxes, supplements but still find yourself in the same place or worse off months later.

Then consider investing in yourself and learning about the behaviours and habits that lead to long term body composition success.

Interested?

I have a few spots open for personalised one on one coaching.

Enquire below!