The #1 Reason You Aren’t Losing Fat

Your Metabolism Isn’t Broken, But Your Diet Is

If you are trying to lose weight to no avail, then answer this one question: Would you race a Lamborghini with just one gallon in the tank?

You see when people are trying to lose weight there are always 2 mistakes I notice. Either someone is eating way too much, or way too little. Afterward, these are the same people who blame their metabolism for their lack of results.

However, the truth is this; it’s not your metabolism that’s broken it’s your diet that’s broken. In the gym, we have a saying: “Abs are made in the kitchen, not the gym.” So if you want to trim, tone, or lose the pooch, then you’re going to have to work on a winning diet.

The Fat Loss Goldilocks Zone

Just like I always preach fat loss is based on one simple formula:

Calories in – Calories out

If you want to succeed at losing weight then you need to be burning more than you’re eating. However, there is one caveat, if you drastically undereat then you can’t lose weight. Fat loss is about eating just the right amount of food.

Think of it like the old fairy tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If you eat too much you will get fat, if you eat too little you won’t lose fat, but if you eat just the right amount then losing fat becomes possible. Like Goldilocks, you’ll find things works best when they’re just right.

Too Much

Obviously, when you’re consuming too much food you’re not going to be losing weight. However, there are 2 different kinds of eating too much, in regards to weight loss:

• Eating at maintenance – This is characterized by the fact your weight never changes on the scale. If it stays the same day after day, week after week, then you’re not losing weight because you’re eating the same amount of calories you would burn.
• Eating over maintenance – When you’re eating over maintenance that’s when you should be worried. You’ll know for sure, because you’ll see increases in your weight, meaning calories in > calories out.

Regardless of whichever you fall into the reason that you aren’t achieving your goal is because you’re simply consuming too much food. When you find yourself in that position your body will be fighting against itself because when you’re not at a healthy weight it disrupts several hormones. The two we will focus on are the hunger hormones and the sex hormones, as these are key for weight loss.

The Hunger Hormones

In your body, we have two hormones that affect how we experience hunger, leptin and ghrelin. Ghrelin is responsible for making us feel hungry and leptin signals to our body that we are full. Now, whenever you have excess body fat your body becomes resistant to the hormone leptin. This is due to overeating causing your body to experience high levels of the hormone which causes desensitization. Now, once your body becomes resistant to leptin it becomes much harder to feel full, causing overeating and weight gain.

Once this has happened it creates a negative feedback loop you eat because you don’t feel full, which causes you to gain weight, which makes you more resistant, and which causes you to eat more and more. This is why it is so easy to become overweight or obese (trust me I went through it!).

In order to reset your hormones, you MUST enter a calorie deficit because it will allow your body to become more familiar with where your stomach is actually full or hungry. By eating less your body will become resensitized to leptin, and now fat loss becomes very much easier.

The Sex Hormones

We all know the two sex hormones: testosterone and estrogen. However, most people don’t know these hormones have a huge impact on weight loss. Generally speaking, testosterone is known for its anabolic effects of burning fat and building muscles. Whereas on the other hand, high estrogen levels are correlated to higher levels of body fat.

This is because since women are supposed to bear children having excess energy (aka fat) is important.

However, having too much body fat will cause a spike in your estrogen levels due to the fact that fat cells produce estrogen. This also causes a negative feedback loop where more fat cells = more estrogen = more fat cells and so forth. So, by putting yourself into a calorie deficit you can increase your testosterone to estrogen ratio which will cause you to lose fat much quicker.

So to sum it up if you want to lose fat and keep it off, then you need to put yourself in a caloric deficit to help reset your hormones, and optimize fat loss.

Too Little

Now on the flip side, we have eating too little, which will also prevent fat loss. Eating too little is just as dangerous as eating too much. Why is that? Well, there are three huge factors as to why it’s just as dangerous as eating too much.

• Metabolic Adaptation
• Causes Muscle Loss
• Your Metabolism Won’t Be Fed

Metabolic Adaption

Our bodies are a survival mechanism, therefore they are built to adjust to whatever conditions we encounter. In the wild humans did not have constant access to food so your body had to be able to deal with times when there were low amounts of food.

So whenever we undereat too much our body will quickly adjust by lowering our metabolism. This will cause all weight loss to cease. Also, because your metabolism runs much lower you cannot cut any more calories to lose weight. You essentially back your body into a wall, which eliminates your chances of fat loss.

Losing of Muscle Mass

Having a good level of muscle mass is essential to fat loss because having muscle helps promote a healthy metabolism & burn more calories. However, when we undereat our body will quickly burn what muscle we do have in order to provide our bodies energy. Even if you lift weights so long as you are undereating your body will whittle at your muscle mass.

Now, remember from the previous section that your metabolism will slow down and adjust to the low caloric intake. So, while you are losing muscle mass you are going to retain body fat. Through this process of undereating, you will actually become fatter. When your fat mass stays the same, but you lose muscle mass then your body fat percentage will increase. More fat to muscle ratio = higher body fat %. This leads to what people refer to as “skinny fat”

Your Metabolism NEEDS Food

Look at the picture below and you will see the breakdown of what’s called TDEE, or total daily energy expenditure. It’s just a fancy way to say how many calories you burn a day. You’ll see that 80% of the calories you burn in a day come from your metabolism (BMR aka metabolism & TEF).

Working out only accounts for 5% of your total calorie burn. This is the exact reason why you can’t just work out to lose fat. An intense weight lifting session might burn 300 calories max, while your BMR will likely range from 1500-1900. Now, which would you want to rely on to do the work for you? Obviously, your metabolism.

Think of your BMR, or metabolism, as a fire. Without enough wood, the flame will be small and quickly burn out. Our metabolism functions similarly, without the right levels of food its flame (calorie burn) will also be small.

So, whenever you eat below your BMR your body essentially enters a “starvation” state. Since it’s not even getting enough calories to function it is most certainly not going to be willing to give up precious fat. Our bodies view fat as our energy storage. If you were your body and you were “starving” would you want to give up all your energy stores?

Just Right

When a caloric deficit is properly executed you will be able to run your metabolism at full blast while also allowing you to maintain your muscle mass, and this will drive your fat loss forward.

For most of my clients, I recommend being in a caloric deficit of around 500-700 calories. This means you are eating 500-700 calories less than you are burning. This will put you at a healthy fat loss rate of 1-2 lbs/week or 4-8lbs/month. At this rate of fat loss, you are going to be able to sustain your muscle mass while the fat comes off.

I know most people wish that fat loss could be quicker, but if it gets any quicker then you’re likely losing weight you don’t want to lose, ie muscle mass. However, my advice for you is that if it’s difficult then it’s almost always worth doing. At the end of the day, that’s what life is about: challenging ourselves and pushing to become better people daily. Whoever is reading this I know you can do it!

As always if you want to learn more about all things health and fitness be sure to check out our Fenix Fitness Blog.