The most important aspect of any diet put into place with the goal of losing body fat is that we need to ensure we are implementing a “calorie deficit”. The term “calorie” or “caloric deficit” refers to the energy balance in our bodies throughout everyday life – being in a caloric deficit just means we are eating less calories than we are burning, so our bodies begin using other energy stores in our body (body fat, muscle glycogen, muscle proteins) to provide us with energy for daily living. While a caloric deficit is the primary determining factor in regards to weight loss, the macronutrient composition of our diet along with our daily physical activity will determine what body composition changes occur – that is, if we are losing fat or muscle.
The three primary macronutrients we mostly refer to are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. For those who aim to lose body fat, it is imperative that we provide our body with what it needs to provide us with the desired body composition changes – i.e. losing body fat, not muscle. The goal of any fat loss program should be to improve physical health, regardless of body composition goals. A caloric deficit alone is not sufficient to elicit significant fat loss changes in a healthy way because when our bodies are receiving less energy than we are burning, we will begin to use energy from stores around your body (muscle protein, glycogen, and body fat). Losing muscle protein would result in a loss of strength and thus, we would be losing weight in an unhealthy way, whereas losing body weight primarily through the loss of body fat would result in us retaining as much strength as possible. The easiest way to lose body fat while retaining muscle mass and strength is to engage in frequent resistance training while eating sufficient protein.
When engaging in frequent resistance training (2-6 times per week) our bodies will adapt to that stress by improving our strength through muscle size and force production but these improvements are primarily determined by the amount of protein we eat every day before and after we train. When resistance training, each rep of each set we are breaking down the force producing components of our muscle (this is one of the reasons we have better “performance” in terms of force production at the start of a workout compared to the end – by the end, more parts of the muscle are damaged and can no longer produce the same force). When we eat protein, our bodies use this digested protein in the form of amino acids to repair the damaged parts of our muscle from resistance training. For this reason, to lose body fat and avoid muscle loss, it is imperative that we ensure we are eating more protein during the day (~0.8g -1.5g protein per lb of body mass [150lb person would need 120 -225g of protein each day]) than we are breaking down during our training and everyday activities. Once we ensure we are training hard enough to retain our strength and eating enough protein to repair our muscles, it is reasonable for us to believe we should be able to retain all of our strength during a fat loss phase if not even gain strength throughout the process.
If you are looking to lose body fat and improve body composition, one of PTS’s coaches can help. Our coaches are experts at losing weight the healthy way to make sure you are getting lean and staying strong. Give us a call to find out more information as to how you can get on an individualized program.