There are plenty of fad diets that come and go. Often, they involve removing an entire category of food. For example, one fad that has received a lot of attention is the no carb diet. But this creates a problem when trying to lose fat. Carbohydrates are more easily converted into glucose than protein or fat. Glucose is then primarily stored in the muscles and liver as glycogen. So when carbohydrates are removed from our diet, our body loses glycogen. Since glycogen is more than double its weight in water, a lot of the weight loss is actually water and not fat. When trying to lose weight, the type of weight you lose matters.
“There’s weight loss and then there’s fat loss.” -Nick Tumminello
So how do we lose fat?
Our body needs protein, carbohydrates and fat. They all play a key role in our overall health, but need to be in the right proportion for us to stay fit and lean. Instead of carefully counting calories, many find that a style called complementary eating does the trick and is easy to incorporate. With complementary eating the protein and fibrous vegetables make up the largest part of the plate, the starchy carbohydrates and fruit a smaller portion and healthy fat the smallest on your plate.
For every 100 calories of protein you eat, you burn 25 calories digesting the protein. When eating complex carbohydrates, you burn 10 calories for every 100 calories that you eat. And when ingesting fat, you burn 5 calories for every 100 calories you eat. So, you can see how prioritizing what you eat will lead to consuming fewer calories and burning more. Of course, losing weight involves consuming fewer calories than you burn in a given day. To create a calorie deficit, you can eat fewer calories or increase your activity level to burn more calories. Often when trying to lose fat, people look solely at their diet. But there is a secret weapon out there that makes it much easier to lose fat and that is our muscle!
Muscle is metabolically active tissue which means that muscle is the location in your body where you burn body fat. The more muscle you have, the more calories and fat you’ll burn. With muscle burning approximately 30 calories per pound of muscle, adding just 5 pounds of lean tissue would result in losing one pound of fat every month. And that’s without making any other changes!
“Humans are just like cars. If you put a bigger motor in your car (i.e., add muscle mass), you’ll burn more fuel (i.e., calories) while driving (i.e. doing activities) than you did before.” -Nick Tumminello
Now imagine adding complementary eating and additional strength training to your routine! Want to learn more on how best to do this? With multiple coaching certificates in nutrition and strength training, contact me at healthcoach@healthyhappyeating.com and I’ll guide you on how to make the most of your fat loss efforts!
Healthy Happy Eating!
Author’s Note: Material from this blog was primarily sourced from Strength Training For Fat Loss by Nick Tumminello