Confused about what to eat for fat loss? You are not alone!

This is particularly true if you have spent time the past doing diets like Slimming World and Weight Watchers. This quick article will help you get clear on what and how you should be eating for fat loss.

The Energy Balance equation

The fact is that all diets work in the same way because fat loss can only work in one way- through achieving a calorie deficit. This means that the amount of energy (measured in Calories) that your body takes in through food and drinks has to be less than your body expends through movement and just existing. This is called the Energy Balance Equation.

The problem that leads us to be confused is that diets such as WW and SW have created additional ‘rules’ on top of the energy balance equation which leads to misunderstandings about how fat loss works. For example, some foods are ‘free’ - such as chicken, eggs, pasta, rice  which suggests you can eat as much as them as you want and still lose fat. This is scientifically impossible!

Furthermore, other foods in SW are considered ’syns’, such as butter, chocolate and crisps. This suggests these foods are off limit. The reality is that is it totally possible to overeat on chicken and pasta and gain weight, and you would actually lose weight if you ate just ‘syns’ as long as you were in a calorie deficit.

These additional ‘rules’ and layers are scientifically incorrect, so it can be confusing when you are looking to move away from this kind of diet mentality. It’s worth bearing in mind too that this kind of thinking is what keeps people stuck in SW or WW for years- because they never totally fully understand how fat loss works, just a version of it that keeps people coming to meetings and paying subscription fees for years and years.

If you’re ready to move away from this all or nothing/ black and white thinking regarding fat loss that is actually inaccurate and keeps you stuck at the meetings paying a weekly fee for the rest of your life, you’re in the right place!

Good and bad food

So, we’ve learnt about the energy balance equation and that how the only way that all diets work is by creating a calorie deficit.  Keto, fasting, Zoe, WW, SW, Dukan, Cambridge, Slimfast- you name it the same principle applies.

The next idea we need to unpack is food being good or bad (and you by consequence being good or bad if you eat it) which is prepetuated by Diet Culture- a set of cultural myths around food, weight, and health. It focuses on thinness as an ideal, and labels foods and behaviours as either “good” or “bad.” Diet culture may have negative consequences on a person's well-being, including poor mental health, negative body image, and disordered eating.

To move away from this, instead of calling foods good or bad we can think and talk about them being on more of a sliding scale from more nutritionally dense down to less nutritionally dense. So we move away from black and white thinking to more nuanced, grey area thinking.

At one of the scale would be say your whole foods, proteins, vegetables, unprocessed and minimally processed foods. At the other end we’d see highly processed foods high in sugar and fat and extremely moreish due to the extreme processing.

A ‘healthy’ diet will include some of all of these foods, but more of some foods than others. What is important to understand though is that foods that create a calorie deficit won’t come from just one place on the scale, and just because a food is at one end of the scale doesn’t make it inherently good or bad for you.

Of course, foods that are highly processed tend to be higher in calories- but that doesn’t mean they are off limit when you are dieting. If anything, I suggest that you continue to include some of these foods in your ‘diet’, because the more we deny ourselves food, the more we want them and this can lead to overeating.

So, what CAN I eat?

The short answer to this is anything, but not everything!

There are no foods that will inherently cause you to be overweight nor are there any foods that will make you lose body fat.

There are foods that it would be wise to eat more of, and there are foods it would be wise to eat less of.

But nothing, nothing! is off limits.

Start to check yourself when you call food or yourself ‘good’ or bad’ out loud or in your head. If all foods make up part of a healthy diet, why would you be naughty or bad for eating them?

How do I do this?

The key concept is the energy balance equation and the calorie deficit which you need to create, making sure the amount of energy you are consuming in calories is less than that which we you are expending.

We can create this calorie deficit by a meal structure, looking a portion sizes, food types, and food volume. My Coaching clients might use the Plate Method (lots of info on this on my podcast) or they might track their calories for a week or so to get an understanding of the calorie content of the foods they are choosing, and to understand that so called ‘good’ or ‘bad’ foods actually more or less calories than they think!

If you’d like more help, please reach out to me. Beth@movemehappy.me