If you’re aiming to lose weight, you might think you need to count calories and eat less. However, that’s not necessarily true, says Terry Fairclough, a leading personal trainer and co-founder of Your Body Programme.
Terry has heard many different opinions on the best diets for weight loss. People often ask if they should count calories, follow a low-fat or low-carb diet, eat a high-protein diet, or fast. Should they eat small, regular meals three times a day? While all these approaches have their merits depending on one’s body type, goals, and activity levels, Terry believes that nobody should be under-eating.
We all know someone who slashes calories to get a ‘beach body,’ expecting to shed pounds quickly. While cutting calories might lead to weight loss, it often doesn’t result in fat loss, which is what most people actually want. The Western diet today is usually larger than needed, so some people might benefit from a slight calorie deficit simply because they have been overeating.
But under-eating is not the solution. When we eat, our bodies turn carbohydrates into glucose, our cells’ main fuel. Any glucose we don’t use right away gets stored as glycogen in our muscles and liver, along with water. When we cut calories, what we initially lose is this stored carbohydrate and water, not fat.
Long-term calorie deficits can make the body cling to fat and start breaking down protein instead. Protein is crucial because it’s biologically active, meaning the more you have, the more fat you burn at rest. Therefore, it’s vital to eat enough calories from fats, carbs, and protein.
Fat, often seen as the enemy in weight loss, is actually an essential and long-lasting fuel source. It provides more than twice as much energy as carbohydrates or protein. During exercise, stored fat is broken down into fatty acids, which the muscles use for fuel. Without enough dietary fat, you won’t have the energy to burn body fat.
Cutting calories too much can also lead to nutrient deficiencies, affecting your immune system, liver, and digestion, and potentially causing problems like fatigue, malnutrition, osteoporosis, anemia, depression, and hormonal issues. Extreme calorie deficits put stress on the body, resulting in the release of cortisol, a stress hormone that initially causes weight loss but eventually makes the body store more fat, especially around the belly.
Cortisol also slows down the metabolism by breaking down protein and inhibiting thyroid function. Stress impacts digestive function by diverting energy to muscles, hindering the digestion and absorption of essential nutrients. Poor digestion can affect your training and results when trying to lose weight or fat.
Additionally, low calorie intake can impact sleep. Drops in blood sugar trigger adrenaline, waking you up and disrupting sleep, which in turn affects liver detoxification, immunity, exercise, and productivity, possibly leading to weight gain.
Even though bodybuilders might temporarily restrict calories to get lean, doing it incorrectly can make them ill. Constant calorie cutting can make the body enter “famine mode,” storing any excess calories as fat, making future weight loss harder.
The bottom line is to consume the right number of calories, carbohydrates, fats, and protein based on your body type, goals, activity level, height, weight, and age. Terry’s Your Body Programme can help determine your specific needs. His program has shown that increasing calorie intake can actually help lose fat.
Always aim to eat plenty of lean proteins like beef, chicken, eggs, and fish, or plant-based proteins like pulses, legumes, tofu, and tempeh if you’re vegan. Include healthy carbs like fruits, vegetables, sweet potatoes, quinoa, brown rice, and wholewheat pasta, and healthy fats like avocado, nuts, seeds, olives, and olive oil. Terry Fairclough, a co-founder of Your Body Programme, is dedicated to helping people achieve their health and fitness goals by eating right and maintaining a healthy metabolism.
