Watch those BLTs if you want to drop the weight

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/03/2022 (1322 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Ever hear someone who claims they might be gaining weight by eating too little?

I’m only going to address the most likely scenario here today. Knowingly or not, an alarming number of people are claiming to be eating far less than they actually do. Studies show we under-report by as much as 100 per cent! And in our current environment, it’s really easy to consume more calories than we think.

And when you say you’re only eating 1,200 or 1,500 calories and swearing up and down that you’re not making any progress, that can make it difficult for practitioners like me to help.

Is this you or someone you know? Bites, licks and tastes (BLTs for short) may seem innocent and harmless in isolation, but can absolutely add up quickly. Oils and sauces also add in several hundreds of extra calories to your day.

Maybe your three square meals are fine, but it’s worth tracking everything — including those BLTs — for a day or two to get a true sense of how much you consume.

These BLT calories are typically in the form of drinks many of us don’t look at as food (juice, coffee and, yes, full-sugar sodas and alcohol). Finishing off our kids’ plate, treats offered at the office or a candy or two at home.

Let’s give you a real-world example to bring this full circle. Say you’re trying to lose weight and shooting for 2,000 calories a day.

You’ve calculated that would be roughly 500 fewer daily calories than what you’d need to maintain your weight.

So if you’re consistent throughout the week, that would put you in a 3,500-calorie deficit over the course of seven days.

On paper, 3,500 calories equals one pound of body fat. So, hypothetically, that’s enough to lose one pound a week. In reality, weight-loss math doesn’t work that cleanly, as every body is built different, but it’s a good starting point.

Maybe you’ve planned well enough that you’re eating filling meals and still have room for a nightcap or two.

You don’t feel overly restricted and it’s something you can manage long enough to see sustainable results. Perfect… except it’s not.

Say your nightcap ends up being two glasses of wine that are actually eight ounces each (200 calories), instead of the standard five ounces (125 calories) you’re tracking them as.

That means your daily deficit is 350 calories, under the 500 you’re shooting for to lose one pound per week.

That’s still enough to see progress, but then the weekend hits. On Saturday night, you have a “cheat day,” which usually involves ordering in for dinner.

Let’s say you get the Salmon Power Bowl from a local restaurant this time, which sounds reasonable and looks pretty healthy on paper. But it’s 1,260 calories you hadn’t fully accounted for.

And you and your family also got some nachos to share, so your take of that was maybe another 400 calories (probably more). You’re not sure.

And because you hang out for a while after to spend quality time with your spouse, you have four glasses of wine instead of your usual two.

Despite your consistent eating all week, you end up essentially breaking even on a caloric basis. This is a fine strategy to maintain your weight, but nothing significant happens from a fat-loss perspective here. Disappointing, for sure.

This is a pretty simplistic example, but it’s exactly the kind of thing that happens to many folks who struggle to lose weight despite being “on a diet” most of the week.

There are strategies to manage this (low- and high-calorie days, for example) but the best solution is usually to figure out how to fit some fun into your day’s allotment of calories and make the necessary tradeoffs to see weight loss consistently.

The process to lose is different from the process to maintain or gain, and we tend to need to work a little harder to lose weight. We eventually work with our members to help transition them to a more manageable maintenance approach afterwards.

If you overlook the “exit strategy” after dropping the weight, you’ll likely regain it all and then some over time. The theory goes that we all have a body-weight set point (likely the weight we’ve been at most of our adult life) and we need to establish a new set point at our desired weight to succeed over the long run.

This is the necessary maintenance phase needed after dieting down to our ideal weight. That’s why the work isn’t done once the weight comes off. It’s a process involving a bit of trial and error but is a necessity, eventually.

Can you spot-target stubborn belly fat?

We all have that perceived stubborn area that seems to hold fat forever. For me, to get my bottom abs to pop out, I have to make too many sacrifices (and be asked if I’m sick by relatives because my face is gaunt), so it’s not worth it very often.

But that doesn’t mean it’s any harder to get off, it’s just the last to come off.

Some research suggests how you train can marginally help “spot reduce” but rarely do studies translate perfectly to the real world and we end up majoring in the minors.

Fat comes off where it wants, dictated mainly by how much we have to lose and our genetic blueprint, to a large degree. Where we have the most fat, it appears to the naked eye to move the slowest.

We can’t simply choose to lose more fat in one place and less in the other. You could do 1,000 situps a day and not lose a lick of belly fat if you’re over-consuming and not moving the rest of the day (you’d have a strong core, though).

A bunch of tricep work won’t thin an arm but it will shape what’s underneath for an eventual reveal, so that doesn’t mean working out isn’t important.

So, here’s how to ‘spot-target’ belly fat

 

1. Overall calorie consumption matters most, so figure out how to keep yourself in a deficit if desiring to lose body fat.
2. Calorie output matters to a lesser degree from a fat-loss perspective, but your workouts influence what each muscle looks like after fat is lost, so don’t ignore this.
3. Your body ultimately chooses where fat is lost and the spots with the most to lose will take the longest.

 

Frustrating, I know, since I’m often asked what exercises are the best for X,Y,Z stubborn area, and there isn’t an answer anyone wants to hear except “put down the fork” and control your calorie intake.

But once you know this you won’t try to force fat off and you can focus on what matters and stick to the process.

Mitch Calvert is a Winnipeg-based fitness coach who has helped more than 1,400 people transform their bodies and lives over the past decade. Visit mitchcalvert.com to grab a free copy of his metabolism jumpstart or contact him directly at mitch@mitchcalvert.com for his Summer Slimdown to be ready and rocking by May Long.