Weight Loss and fat loss are two terms often used interchangeably. Although these terms have similarities, there are important differences that need to be stated.
This article will address:
- What is Weight Loss
- What is Fat Loss
- Why Weight Loss is Easy and Fat Loss is Hard
- How Weight Loss is Short-Term and Fat Loss is Long-Term
- How to Optimize for Fat Loss
What is Weight Loss?
Weight loss is basically a reduction in overall bodyweight. This includes:
- Bone
- Fat
- Muscle
- Fluid
Seeing a number go down on the scale pretty much sums up weight loss.
What is Fat Loss?
Fat loss is a decrease in overall body fat. The goal is to lose excess bodyfat and increase lean body mass.
Weight Loss is Easy. Fat Loss is Hard
Hard to believe, but weight loss is pretty easy. You can try some random weight loss “perspective” and induce weight loss.
- Maybe keto/low-carb work for certain people
- Maybe not eating food past 6:00pm works for certain people
- Maybe carnivore diet works for certain people
- Maybe vegan diet works for certain people.
- Maybe running for an hour a day works for certain people.
- Maybe not eating red meat works for certain people.
- Maybe not consuming sugar works for certain people
- Maybe eating 1 meal a day works for certain people
Any of these strategies could “work”, but you need to understand why they may “work”.
It’s because these strategies allowed the individual to achieve calorie deficit.
If you’re not in a calorie deficit, there is no reason why you would lose weight regardless of what tactic you try.
What Makes Fat Loss Hard?
Fat loss is hard, because you’re trying to actually look like you lost weight. You can lose 10 pounds on the scale, and no one would notice you lost 10 1bs. unless you told them.
They wouldn’t genuinely care.
On the other hand, losing 10 lbs. of pure body fat will have your friends and family making a big deal about what you like at social gatherings.
Fat loss is a very unforgiving process and eating in a caloric deficit is not enough. There are other behaviors you must routinely practice to ensure you’re losing pure body fat.
We will get into those behaviors later on in this article.
Weight Loss is a Short-Term Thing. Fat Loss is a Long-Term Thing.
Losing weight is often short-term. You can significantly cut your portions or carb intake and lose 5-7 pounds in 1 -2 weeks. Therefore, you achieved weight loss.
But you must ask yourself these questions.
- What did I really lose?
- Do I look significantly better?
- Can I sustain eating this little food ?
- Can I sustain eating less than 50grams of carbs per day?
More than likely, you’re not going to enjoy or sustain these desperate weight loss tactics.
This is why it’s better to focus on fat loss. Losing fat is a long-term process and for good reason.
The goal is to change your body composition and that is not something you can do in 2 weeks.
To lose 1 pound of fat per week, you need to be in a caloric deficit of 3,500 calories a week. To lose 2 pounds of fat per week, you need to be in a deficit of 7,000 calories a week.
While you’re losing fat, you will build muscle, which would slow down your rate of weight loss. This is a great thing, because you will have more sustainable weight loss long-term.
Depending on how many pounds of fat you need to lose, you may have to allocate 6 months – 2 years for a body-recomposition.
How To Optimize Fat Loss
Even though a caloric deficit is the driver of fat loss, there are still some things you must do to ensure lean body mass is protected in a deficit.
1. Make Sure the Calorie Deficit is Appropriate for Your Physiology
What does this even mean? It means the size of the caloric deficit should be something your body can handle.
People that have 30+ pounds of fat to lose can handle large energy deficits. They can lose fat relatively quickly.
Why is this the case?
Excess body fat promotes the satiety hormone leptin. Meaning, you’re going to have an easy time staying full on a low-calorie diet.
Therefore, you can eat 800-1,000+ calories below maintenance and lose 6-12 pounds of fat per month.
You wouldn’t be at any significant risk for:
- Muscle loss
- Decrease in lean body mass
- Hormonal issues
- Sleep issues
- Lack of energy
People that are already decently lean would do well on a small caloric deficit.
They would have to take fat loss slowly because their bodies are at risk for some of the negative side effects listed above.
Leptin levels are low when you’re lean, so it won’t be as easy for you to stay full on lower calories compared to if you were overweight.
If you fall into this category, eat at a 300-500 calorie daily deficit and focus on losing 2-4 pounds of fat per month.
If you’re interested in learning more about leptin hormone, check out this article How to Keep Leptin Levels High for Fat Loss.
2. Practice Smart Strength Training
Smart strength training doesn’t mean lifting everyday or 5 days a week. It doesn’t mean doing circuits and super sets. It means training in a way that is effective for building muscle as a natural.
The best way to go about that is to:
- Have a workout plan where the goal is to overload major compound exercises.
- Make sure your program includes intensity and volume.
- Take sufficient rest time in between sets
- Rotate exercises every 4-6 weeks or whenever you plateau
It’s actually better for your long-term physique development to limit your training to just 3 days a week max.
Make sure you’re not training 2 days in a row. You want to leave 48-72 hours of rest in between lifting sessions to get optimal central nervous system recovery.
When your CNS can recover properly, you can build more muscle and relative strength while reducing body fat.
To learn more about the benefits of training only 3 days a week, give this article a read The Fitness and Lifestyle Benefits of Training Only 3 Days a week.
If you need an understanding as to why you need more rest days than training days, go to this article Why Muscle Recovery is More Important Than Training Frequency.
3. Get Enough Protein
The amount of protein you need to build muscle is so minimal you wouldn’t believe it. Even to maintain muscle on a cut, your protein needs are not that high.
Based on science, not “bro-science”, but actual scientific literature, you only need 0.7-0.82 grams of protein per pound of lean bodyweight.
If you are 50 pounds overweight, it doesn’t make sense to calculate protein requirements based on your current weight, because the extra fat mass doesn’t increase your body’s demand for super high protein.
So, if you are a 230 lb. male with a lean bodyweight of 180, you would only need about 125-150grams of protein per day.
This is perfect, because it would make more room for fats and carbs in your diet, which brings us to the next point.
4. Eat a Balance of Fats and Carbs
You don’t need to track your fats and carbs, but you should at least be conscious of them. Don’t go too low in carbs. It wouldn’t be conductive for training performance and muscle development.
At the same time, don’t go too low in fats. It wouldn’t be conductive for satiety and hormonal health.
The most important thing is making sure the calorie deficit and protein are accounted for. Fats and carbs are pretty easy to get in your diet.
5. Maintain a High Step Count
If you can keep your step count very high losing fat will be easy. It’s not enough to just reduce your calories and lift weights.
You need to maintain a high level of NEAT or non-exercise activity thermogenesis. NEAT is the amount of calories you burn outside of structured activity.
This can be things like:
- Recreational dancing
- Parking further away in the grocery store lot
- Taking the stairs instead of the elevator
- Going for walks periodically throughout the day.
- Playing recreational sports
It’s better to focus on NEAT as opposed to Cardio. When it comes to fat loss, cardio is not effective.
In the context of athletic conditioning cardio is very effective, but not for fat loss. Really, the best thing you can do is walk a lot.
If you want to learn how walking can optimize your health, check out this article How Many Steps You Need to Walk a Day.
6. Make Sure You are Sleeping Enough
Sleep ensures muscle mass is protected in calorie deficit. If you are only averaging 4-5 hours of sleep a night, you will lose more muscle than fat.
Why is this the case?
If you are not sleeping enough, you are suppressing human growth hormone or HGH. This is basically your “fitness” hormone. HGH plays a role in building muscle and losing fat.
If you’re a male, you are also suppressing testosterone hormone, which plays a role in body composition.
On top of all that, cortisol, your stress hormone goes up, which does disrupt the function of your other hormones.
Aim to get around 7-9 hours of sleep per night to ensure you don’t lose muscle as you’re losing weight.
If you want to learn more about key hormones, give this article a read 7 Hormones You Must Manage on a Weight Program.
Conclusion
The main message of this article is to focus on fat loss.
This means mastering the skills associated with fat loss.
Which are:
- Tracking calories
- Strength training
- Getting enough protein
- Maintaining high activity throughout the day
- Sleeping
If you master these skills weight loss will be sustainable for you long-term.