Lose Weight
How can you lose weight healthily?
The food we eat contains energy, which is measured in calories (Kcal). To lose weight (or fat) you need to burn more calories than you consume. This is known as being in a calorie deficit (CAL IN < CAL OUT).
To lose weight in the long term (not just for a few weeks or months) you need to diet in a safe and sustainable way, which we will explain below.
What should I eat?
To lose fat, you need to eat/drink less calories than you burn. As well as calories, you need to consider the macronutrient breakdown of your food. Exactly what you should eat depends on your weight and health, plus your body goals and lifestyle. However, we recommend the following to have a healthy and sustainable fat loss diet.
What should you eat?
- Eat more LEAN (low fat) PROTEIN (e.g. white meat, white fish, canned tuna, beans, peas or lentils) and FIBRE – try to include some with every meal! Eating more protein and fibre will help you feel fuller and burn more calories.
- Swap sugary or simple carbs (e.g. white rice, bread or pasta) for COMPLEX CARBS (e.g. brown rice, bread or pasta) and VEGETABLES. These have more nutrients, fibre and will help you feel fuller for longer.
- Reduce unhealthy fats but eat some HEALTHY FATS, such as nuts, dairy, fatty fish or avocado. Eat SMALL PORTIONS, as fats have more than double the amount of calories than protein & carbs.
- Eat more fresh whole foods. These are usually healthier than processed foods and contain more vitamins and minerals (micronutrients)
- Fruit (choose whole fruits more often than fruit juices)
Check out our diet basics page for more information and healthy foods.
The amount of calories and macronutrients in your food (nutritional information) can be found on food labels, or apps (e.g. MyFitnessPal) or websites (e.g.weightlossresources.co.uk) if there is no food label. The number of calories you should eat and the macronutrient breakdown is different for everyone. There are websites where you can work out your recommended daily calorie intake (e.g. Calculator.net), although these are only estimates. You don’t have to count calories, but it is helpful to track approximately how many calories you eat and learn which foods are high and low in calories.
IMPORTANT: if you diet by cutting too many calories too soon, you may lose weight at first, but it will be difficult to sustain and your metabolism will crash. This is why most diets fail. We will explain this more in the next section.
JOIN our body transformation COURSE. We will help you to plan a diet that fits with your lifestyle, helps you to lose weight and build a better body.
Why do most diets fail and what diet is right for me?
Most diets fail because they are not realistic and you can’t stick to them.
Some diets are too difficult or need you to make too many changes to your lifestyle. You might feel confident now, but can you follow the diet when you have less willpower or motivation? Before you diet, think: ‘can you follow it for more than a few weeks or months?’ Why do a diet that only lasts for a few weeks or months? You will lose weight now but probably go back to normal (or even weigh more!) after the diet stops.
Research shows that most people who lose weight by dieting will regain the weight or get even fatter within 1 – 3 years – 85% went back to their normal weight or gained weight within 3 years. The internet is full of people who can lose weight in a few weeks or months BUT what about after that? Before and after weight loss photos that are only a few weeks, months or a year do not show the reality of dieting or weight loss.
When you eat less calories, you will lower your metabolism after a few days or weeks. Our metabolism burns off calories, so when you lower your metabolism, you will burn off less calories than before. This is why many people lose weight for a few days but then stop losing weight – their metabolism catches up. Your lower metabolism is your new normal.
Here’s an example. If a person could eat 1800Kcal a day without losing or gaining weight this is known as their maintenance calories. You can think of maintenance calories as the normal daily amount you can eat that keeps you at the same weight. If they go on a diet and cut their calories to 1200Kcal, they will lose weight. However, their metabolism will soon decrease. If they stop their diet and start eating 1800Kcal per day like before, they will now gain weight as their maintenance calories are now less.
If you crash diet (cut calories too much too quickly), you will crash your metabolism. You may lose a lot of weight in the short term, but if you start eating more you will gain weight, probably more than you lose.
The right diet for you is one that fits with your lifestyle. The right diet should be one that you can imagine sticking to in the future. Our diet plan is flexible, realistic and sustainable. We will show you the important things you need to know and help you plan a diet that works for you in the long term – for years, not just for a few weeks or months.
How can I burn calories?
- Your Base Metabolism Rate (BMR) – this is the normal rate that your body breaks down and processed the food you eat, and will depend on a variety of factors, including your gender, age, height and weight
- Activity – how active you are throughout the day, which includes exercise and non-exercise activities (which involve moving around as part of your job or lifestyle). Being active burns off calories and will make you feel healthier, happier and more motivated
- Thermic effect of food (TEF)- your body burns calories during the eating and digesting process. Protein and fibre burn the most calories, whereas fat burns the least and requires the most calories to digest. Complex carbohydrates (e.g. whole grains) burn more calories than simple carbohydrates (e.g. sugar). Learn more about TEF on our diet basics page.
How can I lose fat and gain muscle at the same time?
As fat and protein are different tissue systems, you can burn fat and gain muscle at the same time. Generally, to lose body fat without muscle, you should reduce calories by 10 – 20% and maintain a high protein intake (around 1.5 – 2g per kg of body weight depending on exercise).
If you want to lose body fat but not lean mass (which includes muscle), you should aim to lose no more than 1% of your body weight per week. If you try to lose weight too quickly, you may lose muscle as well as fat. Visit our gain lean muscle page to learn more about gaining muscle whilst losing body fat.
Tips to lose weight
Follow as many of these tips as you can to give you the best chance of losing weight and achieving your body and life goals. Start with the tips that are the quickest, easiest and will make the most significant difference to your weight loss.
- Eat regular meals – Eating at regular times helps burn calories at a faster rate, reduces temptation to snack (many snacks are high in unhealthy fats and sugar) and makes you feel less bloated.
- Choose weight loss-friendly foods – Try to eat fruits and vegetables, lean protein, healthy fat, fibre and complex carbohydrates.
- Eat a high-protein breakfast. Eating a high-protein breakfast has been shown to reduce cravings throughout the day. Instead of eating sugar to try to give you more energy or to feel awake, (you will feel an energy crash and cravings soon after) you can drink caffeine.
- Drink coffee or tea – tea and coffee can boost your metabolism by as much as 10%. It can also be a low calorie way to feel more energetic or productive, if you don’t have lots of sugar and drink it black or with a small amount of milk. Furthermore, caffeine before exercise can help you perform better. Try to avoid caffeine in the evening as it has been shown to affect sleep and therefore weight loss.
- Avoid sugary drinks and fruit juice – sugary drinks are digested quickly and often end up stored as fat.
- Drink lots of water – sometimes thirst feels like hunger, so stay hydrated and you may feel less hungry. Drink water half an hour before meals to reduce your appetite. One study showed that drinking water half an hour before meals increased weight loss by 44% over 3 months.
- Eat your food slowly and use smaller plates – Eating slowly makes you feel more full and boosts weight-reducing hormones. It takes around 20 minutes for the stomach to tell the brain it’s full, so eat slowly and stop before you feel full. When using smaller plates, it looks and feels like we are eating a bigger portion.
- Don’t stock up on junk food – Having junk food available makes it much more likely that you will eat it. Not stocking junk food will make it harder for you to eat it. This may be difficult at first, but it will become a habit over time.
- Read food labels and be skeptical of food advertising – food labels give us nutritional information. Try to avoid foods with high saturated fat, cholesterol, sugar and sodium (salt). Before buying a product that is advertised as healthy, check the food label. For example, yoghurts with 0% fat often contain a lot of sugar, which will probably end up stored as fat! Remember, that the priority of most advertisements are to sell the product, not help you with your body goals.
- Weigh yourself – Weigh yourself most days – it gives you feedback about your progress. Weigh yourself at the same time of the day, preferably first thing in the morning, as our weight fluctuates throughout the day. Studies show that people who weigh themselves regularly are more likely to lose weight over a longer period of time.
- Sleep – Try to get a good night’s sleep (7-8 hours +) every night. Research overwhelmingly shows that sleep helps weight loss, muscle gain and being healthy.
- Don’t have scheduled cheat days (but you don’t need to eat a perfect diet) – having a scheduled cheat day every week (e.g. Fridays) may not help you build healthy habits. Try to build healthy habits by eating healthily as much as possible. There will be times when you have an unscheduled cheat day, when you can’t stick to your diet (e.g. a night out or party) or where you have low willpower and eat unhealthy food.
- Have a long-term growth mindset – Achieving your goals takes time. You don’t achieve (or fail) your goals in just one meal, one day or one week, so don’t feel bad if you have a bad day or week. Remember that the more you stick to a healthy diet, the easier it will be in the future.
- Avoid shortcuts – Some products make huge promises and may seem too good to be true. Although they may help you lose weight in the short term, they are rarely safe or sustainable. For example, weight loss medicine can affect your liver and kidney, and overall health; extreme dieting is almost always not sustainable or healthy; and surgery is expensive and you will have to control your food anyway.
- Be more active – being more active increases your metabolism, which helps you lose weight. Being active will make you feel healthier, happier and more motivated, which will help you achieve your body and life goals.
- Plan your snacks and meals – plan or pack healthy snacks to avoid eating unhealthy foods. Cook or plan meals in advance, so if you are tired or busy you can still eat healthily. It also saves your mental energy as you don’t need to spend time shopping or preparing food.
- Develop healthy habits – breaking bad habits and developing healthy habits are essential to dieting. Habits can be difficult to change or build, but you can do it (learn how to here)
- Boost your drive and willpower– willpower is what gives us the mental energy to stick to a diet, drive is what motivates us and grit is what helps to persevere. Learn more at our willpower and drive pages.
- Set goals and achieve them – setting, planning and following goals the right way will help you to lose weight (learn how to here)
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