Latest / Fit for Hiking / Ep. 133 Why You're Not Losing Fat in a Calorie Deficit
Transcript
- Why you're not losing fat in a calorie deficit Hi, my name is Brady and I'm a long time fitness professional and midwest girl turned mountain living hiking addict. And combining my knowledge of fitness and passion for hiking, I've helped hundreds of women get lean and strong for the trails. Think of this as your one stop shop for both education and inspiration on all things female wellness, trail talk and adventure. Hiking, female metabolism, motherhood, nutrition, travel and fitness are all topics you'll hear discussed here. If you are outdoorsy and active, looking to level up your health, unlock your potential and become inspired to live your most vibrant life. You're in the right place. You're listening to the fit for hiking podcast. Hello! What is up you guys? Welcome back to another episode of the fit for Hiking podcast. This is your host Brady. Today we're going to be talking about a topic that is near and dear to my heart. As a long time fitness coach I've been doing this for, oh my gosh, 12 years now. You guys, um, in person and online, a combo of the two. And I've also gone through my own fat loss transformation body recomposition journey kind of smack dab in the middle of that due to just a lot of different factors, but really, I just was kind of missing the mark as to how to transform my own body. And a lot of it comes back to what we're talking about today. Why you're not losing fat in a calorie deficit. Ooh, I'm so excited because this is definitely something that a lot of people are talking about, because I think it's kind of common knowledge at this point in, in life that, like, you got to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight, right? We all know it. If you're on social media and literally any capacity, then you see this stuff. Like you realize that that is step one to losing weight. You have to be in an energy deficit, okay? Got to be eating less than what we are. Um, if we want to lose fat, right? We can't just keep doing the same things, eating the same amount and expecting a different result. So why are you not losing weight if you are in a calorie deficit? Because I hear this a lot. Like, oh, but I am in a calorie deficit, so why am I not seeing changes? Why am I not really losing fat? So let's talk about why this might be happening, and just remember that I'm sharing all of this from a place of not only love, but also experience. I've been through this myself. I've made these mistakes and also coaching experience of helping women push through some of these limiting beliefs, some of these things and mistakes that they're making basically along the way where they think that they're in a calorie deficit or they actually are and something's going on. Right. So let's talk about all of these different scenarios that might be holding you back. If you are in a calorie deficit and not seen fat loss, okay. Number one is that you're not actually tracking as accurately as you think. And I would say that this is probably like the number one culprit of why people don't lose fat when they think that they are in a calorie deficit when they're actively tracking and really working on this, like they're doing a lot of the work, but they're just slightly missing the mark. And why does this happen? People underestimate their intake by up to 50%. That is a lot. Okay. So if you are are kind of guessing or estimating or even just loosely tracking but not really getting specific with the portion sizes, the amounts, the grams, the ounces, all of that, then yeah, you're probably underestimating your calorie intake by half. That is quite a lot. And that is why so many people are overweight or struggling with just constantly gaining weight, even though they're doing some of these like, things that are right and they're really trying to put in that effort. Okay. So think about that. If you are estimating underestimating by a little bit, but even up to 50%, that is going to really, really make it hard for you to be in a deficit if you are especially kind of a smaller female. So some of the common gaps that might be taking place. One is just like you're not getting the portion sizes right. Maybe you're kind of estimating or you're like, well, I'm having something that's really healthy, but your portion sizes are bigger than you think. In America, our portion sizes are crazy big. If you go to other countries, you'll be like, oh, wow. Like, they're not giving me a ton of food at this meal out. But actually they are way more on the mark when it comes to portion sizes. Okay. So you've got to be paying attention to that guesstimate if you're stuck, if you're hitting a plateau, you got to stop estimating things like oils, dressings, cooking with butter bites, sips. Those types of things really add up. So if we're not paying attention to how much olive oil we're throwing on something, how much butter we're cooking with, how much dressing we're putting on a salad, condiments that we're using, those things can add up sometimes more than anything else. And all it takes is like one extra portion of olive oil that you weren't planning on, one extra condiment, too much dressing on your salad, and boom, like you've erased your deficit for the day. It is that easy. Okay, so these things really do need to be looked at. Liquid calories is another one because especially as girlies, we love to have our liquid calories. We love like our fun coffee, yummy beverages. We love our wine or alcoholic beverages on the weekends, and that stuff definitely can creep up and make it really, really hard for you to ever get into an actual deficit or do that consistently, especially if you are overdoing it big time on the weekends. Like maybe you don't really drink alcohol during the week, but then on weekends you are like going out and you're having ten drinks total from Friday to Sunday it can happen. So that's something that you need to look at, especially if you're having caloric dense beverages. That's going to completely undo any sort of deficit you're in and puts you probably in a surplus depending on how much you're having. Okay, so definitely got to look at the beverages that you're consuming. Mindless snacking is another one. This one is something that can really sneak up on us, especially in the evenings, because we're kind of like over making decisions. We're overthinking. We just want to, like, wind down and relax and not think anymore. So sometimes we'll just take a feel good snack, whether it's like sweet or salty or even a drink or whatever, and we just mindlessly consume while we're watching a show or just doing the kind of like our wind down activity that night. And that right there can seriously make or break your deficit for the day. You could have been doing so great. And then you just, like, go crazy on a bag of chips and eat half of it. And before you know it, that's 800 calories. Like, it really does add up so quickly, which is why we cannot neglect the amount that we're eating and the types of foods that we're eating if we want to actually see fat loss. Okay. The other one is just always assuming that healthy foods are low calorie. And I did this for so long because I actually was eating really healthy, typically like Monday through Thursday, sometimes Sunday through Thursday. And I thought that that would be enough. Just kind of always eating salads, always eating healthy things, protein, all of that. But in reality, my portion size is just really weren't where they needed to be. And just focusing on eating healthy foods, you can still overeat healthy foods. Okay, so those are some of the common mistakes that people make. Um, and even once you start tracking, if you're not really looking at like actually measuring out, like use a tablespoon when you're filling up your coffee creamer, use a tablespoon when you're using olive oil or butter or whatever it is that you're cooking with, with your salad dressings, all of those things, you have to be quite particular with it. If you are serious about fat loss, especially if you're not seeing fat loss and you are tracking, it's not that your body's broken and that a deficit just doesn't work for you, it's just that you're probably not tracking as accurately as you think you are. Okay. So it's not a judgment, it's just a reality. Small daily misses like this can completely erase the deficit that you're trying to create, which will keep you stuck longer and frustrated. Okay, so don't miss this one. Number two is just not tracking long enough to see fat loss. Sometimes we're, like, just ridiculously impatient with this stuff, and we give it 3 to 4 days and we're like, what the heck? I've been in a deficit and my body looks the same. Okay, so let's get the math together. Okay, so if you wanted to lose £1 per week, you would need to be in a 500 calorie deficit relative to your maintenance calories. If you are a smaller female, that is pretty significant. You're going to have to be quite low in your calories to achieve a 500 calorie deficit from your maintenance. So typically with my lady clients who are petite and smaller to begin with, I don't even recommend going that hard. I recommend like a 250 calorie deficit, which is going to equate to a half a pound a week average. Okay, you have to be doing that seven days a week very consistently to even just get a half a pound, because there's 3500 calories in a pound of fat. Okay. So if you look at the math, either you're in a 500 calorie deficit for a full week and to lose £1 that week, or you're in a 250 calorie deficit every day to lose a half a pound that week. That is, if you are perfect with this stuff, too. Okay. You're not deviating on the weekends. You are really, really nailing it. You're not leaving room for error here, okay? So you got to be patient. You have to give your body time to do this stuff. You did not gain the weight in a week. You're not going to lose the weight in a week. Okay. I know that people say that all the time, but it is so, so true. You really do need to, especially if you are a smaller person to start with. You need to give yourself months, sometimes years. Okay? Because life's going to come up. You're not going to be able to nail your deficit perfectly every single week. There will be hiccups and bumps in the road, so you need to stop focusing on how fast you can get the outcome and just falling in love with the process, doing the habits that will get you there, and trusting that if you stay consistent long enough, the results will come. It's the law of thermodynamics. You can't defy it, right? If if it didn't work like I hate to use this example, but people wouldn't starve to death if calorie deficits didn't work. It's just the reality. You're not going to gain weight from eating too little. I know the starvation mode myth is like still very pervasive, which makes no sense. Um, but it's just it's going to work. You just have to be consistent enough and accurate enough for long enough. Okay. And also when you are a woman, you have to think about like hormonal fluctuations. Which is why I don't always love just looking at the scale. So every single month you're going to have hormone fluctuations if you are menstruating. Okay. You can gain up to £10 of water weight, which is crazy right? But women really do gain up to £10 of bloating water weight around their cycle like luteal phase heading into menstruation. Other things that can affect the scale would be like too much sodium, high amount of carbs the day before stress, poor sleep, muscle inflammation from workouts. Okay, so don't rely solely on the scale, but you want to just look for trends in the scale you want to see. Is the scale trending down week after week? But don't live by it day by day like there's going to be small fluctuations. Even if you weigh yourself in the morning versus at night, you can gain like £4 of water weight throughout the day. That's not actual fat. Remember, we got to look at the numbers you would have had to eat over eaten 3500 calories that day over your maintenance to gain an actual £1 of fat. Okay, so don't let the scale mess with your head. Just know that you want to follow the trends and be patient instead of reacting emotionally and just saying, ah, it's not working for me. I'm just going to quit because many people quit or jump ship on their program or change plans before, right before it actually starts to work. Which is so frustrating because if you would just stick with the process and be patient and not react emotionally, you would get there. Okay, so consistency beats constantly adjusting and like jumping from one thing to the next. Okay. Number three, you're overestimating how much you're burning during exercise. This is such a common one, too, because we have these, like, watches that tell us how many calories we're burning, or cardio machines that tell us how many calories were burning. And for so long, exercise has been framed as like it's only valuable if you're burning enough calories, if you're sweating, if you're seeing that calorie calculator, reflect back like, oh my gosh, I burned 700 calories in this workout. Okay. But most workouts are going to burn far fewer calories than you think. Or then your devices are tracking. Okay. If your device is telling you that you burned like 700 calories in a 45 minute workout as a five foot five female, I'm sorry, that is not accurate. Not accurate at all. Not even close. Okay, so please do not live and die by those numbers. That is going to be a very, very poor metric of like how much you need to eat during the day. If you're just looking at how many calories that you think you're burning and then adjusting your nutrition. So what I recommend is not even adjusting anything nutrition wise based on your exercise. Because if you're following a proper program, you're not going to be burning crazy tons of calories because you're going to be lifting weights, you're going to be walking, you're going to be doing low intensity stuff, and you're going to be letting your calorie deficit do the heavy lifting for your fat loss. While your workouts are more so focused on your body recomposition, gaining muscle for metabolic health, shaping your body right, helping you get leaner. Okay. So a really big common mistake here that I see from women is I worked out so hard, so I earned more food. So it's not only just that we're overestimating how many calories we're burning, but we're also then like really going hard with the food because we're like, I'm either way, way hungrier or mentally I'm doing the thing where I'm like, I earned this. How many times have you told yourself that before, after you go for a run? Or you do like a really intense workout or it says you burned a million calories? Okay, so remember that exercise is powerful for shaping your body muscle building, improving insulin sensitivity, improving bone density, improving metabolic health. But it's not it for fat loss. It is not going to be like the one thing that achieves your fat loss results. If you're only exercising and your main goal is fat loss, you're missing the mark. You have to be focusing on nutrition way, way more than you focus on exercise. Okay. All right. Let's move on. Number four you're not maintaining muscle while you're losing weight, okay, this is a really, really big one. And such a big part of what we focus on in Mountain metabolic coaching, because so many women are actively losing muscle every year, especially if you're undergoing a big weight loss journey. Um, and this is a big issue that I see with like some of these weight loss shots that are so popular right now, if you're doing the right things while also using a weight loss shot, they can be very positive. Okay, so this is not like a blanket statement, but a lot of women are only taking the shot. They're not changing anything else about like their lifestyle. They're not lifting weights. They're not eating enough protein. They're just like not eating. And then yes, you're going to drop weight fast, but you're also going to drop a ton of muscle. You're going to drop equal parts muscle and fat, okay. That's going to make it such an uphill battle for you when your appetite goes back to normal, because your muscle is your metabolic tissue. So you really need to focus on maintaining as much muscle as humanly possible. If you're going to try to lose weight or lose fat. Okay. So. Heavy cardio and low calories is going to lead to muscle breakdown. You just have to understand that. So without strength work, your weight may drop fast, but also your muscle mass is dropping. So it's probably not mostly body fat. It's probably a lot of equal parts muscle and fat. So a couple things that you can do to mitigate this is actually being in a proper strength training program. I know I talk about this all the time. It's probably redundant at this point, but I still don't think a lot of women are getting this or they just think like that. Doing the fast paced like £5 weight circuits is enough and it's not okay. You really do need to be following a progressive strength training program that's done strategically with your goals, with where you're at, in your strength, in your life, in your schedule, all of that. Okay. Number two is actually eating enough protein to support muscle maintenance while you're leaning out. Okay. So this really does so much for muscle retention, appetite regulation. Um, increasing your basal metabolic rate. Your body actually burns more calories just from chewing and digesting protein. Isn't that crazy? So it's called the thermic effect of food. It's higher with protein than with the other macronutrients okay. So lots of benefits of protein. Um, so if you're if you're eating low protein all the time, you're going to have higher hunger and you're going to experience more muscle loss. This especially becomes critical for women over the age of 30 because already we're starting to lose muscle unless we're actively doing something about it to maintain it. Okay. So eat to protect your muscle. Workout to protect your muscle. Don't just focus on the calories in calories out with like burning as many calories as you can through exercise. Number six you're not in a deficit for your own body size or metabolism. Okay. This is where it starts to get a bit more nuanced. The last few, like are pretty basic. They're foundational, so you have to start there. Okay. I really want to like, make that so clear. Do not jump to conclusions that you fall into this one or the next one that we're going to go over before addressing the first five. The first five is probably where like 98% of people go wrong, and these last two are such a small percentage of people. Okay, so I see this sometimes as a coach with some of the women that come into the program, because the women who have come into the program a lot of times are already doing so many of the right things, and they're stuck. Okay. That's why they're seeking help, because they're so frustrated and feeling stuck. So not being in a deficit based on your current maintenance can be a big culprit here. So sometimes has small females. It has to be lower than you think. And I hate to be the one to say this, but like if you are a female under, you know, five foot four, if you're super petite, but you are still carrying extra weight. Unfortunately, you're probably going to need to go lower than you think or want to. To be in a deficit. And I know social media can really skew this because you see all these things where it's like, I lost weight eating like 2500 calories. And yes, some women can do that depending on their body size, their muscle mass. Like so many different metabolic factors, a lot of women can't. Okay, so unfortunately, yes, if you are a super petite person, you are going to have to be pretty dang low if you're trying to lose like a pound a week. I definitely would recommend going like the half a pound a week route, but based on your current metabolism and maintenance calories, you might need to go lower than what you think because this is where calorie calculators can get it wrong. This is the reason why we don't rely on them at all in mountain Metabolic coaching. I'm not just going to plug your height weight, activity level into a calculator and it will spew out like a number for us to shoot for because guess what? We are not static human beings. We are constantly changing and adapting. Our metabolisms are so adaptive. So someone could come into the program and based on the calculator, it could say that they need to be eating like 2000 calories. And that will put them in a deficit based on like their height, weight, activity level, all these things. But if they have been underwriting chronically for the past year or plus, sometimes way longer than that, then no, if we do that, they're going to gain weight because maybe their current maintenance calories are more like 1400 because they've been under eating. Okay, so this is where again, it becomes more nuanced. This. So these types of shifts can happen if you're a small person. If you've undergone a large weight loss journey already, your metabolism will adapt the smaller that you get. But especially if you did it, maybe not the right way. Like if you're coming into my program and you've already lost £75, but you didn't strength train, you didn't have strategic periodization of your nutrition while you were leaning out to protect metabolic health. You just like lost weight as fast as humanly possible. Then this could definitely affect what your new maintenance calories look like and where your metabolic health is at. Um, and then factors like having a slower metabolism from chronic dieting, overdoing cardio, not having much muscle mass. And this is not to say that your metabolism is broken, but yes, it can adapt. And so that's something that we do have to factor in. Again for such a small percentage of clients, please do not just jump to conclusions and think that this is you. If you're not exercising like crazy dieting all the time. If you haven't been doing these things for years and years, you're probably not falling into this category. And then again, a very small amount of people with factors like hypothyroidism or perimenopause that can decrease your energy output, and it just makes fat loss a bit slower. It does not make it impossible. Okay, so don't hear me say like, oh, because of these factors, you'll never succeed. So many women who have periods who are going through perimenopause or who have hypothyroidism still the amazing results. It's just going to maybe be a little bit slower. Okay. And number seven. Again, this is one that you want to look at the first five first before you think that you fall into this category. But number seven is that your body has adapted to the deficit or just metabolically adapted big time. Okay. So one of these scenarios, your body's adapted to the deficit. This just happens naturally. Like if you're in a deficit for too long, like your body will adapt to it. Um, that's normal. That's why we don't want to live in a calorie deficit. You don't want to just constantly be in a chronic diet phase. So we do different phases. We're going to do diet breaks. We're not going to constantly be eating 500 calories a day less than what your body requires. And doing that for years and years and years, because you will see metabolic adaptation and that will suck. It will make it very hard to stay lean long term. Okay. But part of that is just a normal physiological response. So as long as your periodization is properly working with a coach, doing it the right way, it's not going to be an issue. However, for the people who have lived in a deficit for a super, super long time. Yes, you might be very, very adapted. And it will make fat loss stall. It will keep energy lower. You might be like cold, moody, burnt out, have thinner like nails and hair. Um, experiencing some hormonal issues at that point. So again, this is not the average person. But this does happen sometimes to the women who are like just working their asses off doing tons of crazy cardio. I'm talking like seven days a week. You're doing a lot of hit, a lot of high intensity. You're also stressed out in other areas of your life. You're also under eating on top of it, right? All of these things compounded over time can lead to your body adapting. And now it's just harder to lose weight because now your new maintenance is low. Okay, so that just means you got to be eating lower and lower and lower all the time to continue to see changes. It doesn't mean that your body is broken, your metabolism is broken, but it does mean that this is just going to be a little bit harder to get you to a place where you can have a successful fat loss phase. Okay. So again, if you have not looked at one through five. Don't worry about those latter two. But if you are like, oh yes, that sounds like me. Um, then definitely could be something that you're experiencing. Um, what works instead is adequate calories while still being in a slight deficit. So we're not just going crazy low. We're not just stopping eating because we're on a shot. Right. You have to pay attention to how hard of a deficit you're doing, because otherwise you can run into metabolic issues over time. So this is where monitoring it properly, phasing it properly, working with the coaches. So so crucial if you want to actually be able to maintain this level of leanness that you're trying to shoot for and not make it so much harder for yourself long term, ditching the crash diets or massive calorie intake swings, high protein, high fiber, and high volume eating. This is such a hack. If you are trying to lose weight and be in a deficit. Progressive overload style strength training to maintain muscle. Increasing your needs. So that's your non exercise activity thermogenesis. So basically you're just trying to move a lot throughout the day. But not in a way where you're like jacking up your appetite or thinking about oh my gosh I just worked out so intensely. So now I can go overcompensate in the kitchen with what I'm eating. You're just increasing your daily output. Managing stress and recovery. Try not to be in this like heightened stress state all the time, right? Patience with the process. Don't jump ship after a few weeks just because it's not going as fast as you want. I've had women in the program before who are literally losing like a pound a week, and they're still just like, it's not fast enough. And I'm like, you can't go any faster unless you just stop eating and then you're gonna just gain all the way back, okay? So don't be so attached to that outcome that you forget that you need to just trust the process, focus on the habits because the outcomes will follow. But when you obsess over them and you're so like, I need this immediately, that's when you sabotage yourself for sure. And then accountability and structure. Like, honestly, we don't need more information in this current generation. You probably know a lot of this stuff already and you can look up so many different like meal plans and workout plans and all this stuff online and find it all right there for you. However, is it actually going to fit your life? Is it tailored to what you need with your equipment, your injuries and limitations? Where you're at with your schedule, how much time you can commit, what your goals actually look like right now? What you enjoy. Right. Same with your diet. You can't just try to follow this like one size fits all cookie cutter thing and think that it's going to work for you long term, because if you can't adhere to it consistently, it's not the right thing for you. And oftentimes it's not even about having the right structure or the right schedule. It's just about doing it consistently and having the proper accountability. Most people don't need more information. We need actual coaching and accountability to do the job, to actually finish it and be consistent enough, right? Like, I don't have a business coach because I can't figure out what to do. I have a business coach because I want answers on like how to actually be consistent with this stuff. Do the right things for me in my current situation, with my business. I don't need this, like generic cookie cutter stuff that I can find on ChatGPT. I need someone to to speak into my current situation. Right. It's the same exact thing with fitness coaching. Okay. That's why it's so valuable. And you're paying someone to actually make sure you show up and do the things. And sometimes that's what it takes. There's no shame in that. Like when we pay, we pay attention. When I've invested in something, I am so much more likely to care about the outcomes and actually show up for myself than if I'm just, like, only telling myself that I want to do these things and then I can just fall off the wagon over and over again. So if you're someone who like you have the information, you know that you, you know, technically could do it on your own, but you're not doing it on your own. I highly recommend looking into our coaching program and just getting that foundation so that you can move to a place of being able to do it on your own. So if that is appealing to you this year, if you're like, I'm so sick of my own crap and like just staying stuck in these cycles of saying, I'm going to do it different, I just need another workout plan or another blah blah blah, but not actually falling through. Then check out our coaching. You can look at the link in the show notes. There's an application link there. It just goes through a couple questions so we can understand what you're looking for, if it's a good fit and if it is, then I will reach out and we can get on a call to kind of talk more in depth and ultimately get you the results that you want and keep you from spinning your wheels and being in the exact same place this time next year. Because let's be real, we don't want to just stay stuck and stay complacent. And oftentimes it's not doing the wrong things. That keeps us stuck. It's just refusing to take any sort of action because we're afraid that we'll do the wrong thing, or we're so afraid to invest in something, because what if it doesn't work? What if it does work? What if the reason why you're stuck is because you've never put yourself out there? Um, so I hope that this has been helpful today. Definitely. If you are resonating with this and needing the support, um, check that link in the show notes for the coaching application. You can also connect with us at the Fit Underscore for Hiking Instagram page, and we'd love to chat with you there if your goal is fat loss this year. We have so many episodes talking about body recomposition, getting lean, getting toned, fat loss. If you see any of those buzzwords, then check out those episodes. There's a lot, a lot of good stuff already out here in the show. Um, thanks so much for tuning in, you guys. I will chat with you in the next episode. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of the fit for hiking podcast. As always, I hope it leaves you feeling inspired and informed on how to take your health and adventure into your own hands. For more content like this. Be sure to follow along with my daily posts at Ponytail Underscore. On a trail that's ponytail underscore on a trail. You can also stay up to date on my new episodes being released at Fit Underscore for hiking, and find more free resources at ponytail on Etrailer.com. Happy and healthy trails.