The Math of Fat Loss - Fat Loss Facts
- Leah Peters
- Nov 27, 2019
- 3 min read
Your fool-proof formula to lose weight is here:
What inspired this post? Well, I’m officially down 16 pounds since May of this year. I have gone from a bloated 146 to a lean 130 and I want to share my secret formula with you PLUS a bunch more facts about weight loss, so read until the end!
Get your calculator out and get ready to do some math! This is exactly how I predict and monitor my fat loss process.
Ready? Let's get into it:
1 pound of fat is made up of 3500 calories #facts
Say you want to lose 10 pounds...therefore you need to get rid of 35,000 total calories from your body (not counting calories burned in basic metabolic functions)🔥.
If you want to achieve this in 12 weeks (84 days), divide 35,000 by 84.
You get 416 calories that need to be removed from your body each day by diet and/or exercise.
Assuming you workout almost daily & burn 200 calories per workout, you need to remove another 216 calories from your diet to reach this goal👌🏻
If you are maintaining weight on 1800 calories per day, that means you need to eat 1584 cals (or less) daily.
Easy enough right✅?
BUT, what about days you don’t workout or you have a weekly cheat meal? Let’s factor those in.
Assuming you have a cheat meal 1x per week for 12 weeks, your goal will now take you 96 days. No big deal! We need cheat meals for our sanity + metabolic health (cheat meals reset our hormones & satiety)😁.
If you miss a workout one day, just make sure to remove the calories you would typically burn with exercise from your diet.
Boom. It’s that simple. Sort of💁🏻♀️.
Of course, there’s other things that factor into this equation that can slow it down. Things like:
✖️Alcohol (inhibits fat burning/muscle growth)
✖️Slow metabolism (from genetics or past dieting)
✖️Unintentionally overeating (it happens to all of us)
✖️Stress, sodium, and sleep: the 3 “S”’ that regulate water retention
✖️Thyroid issues
SO...You can use this formula as a general plan of what you need to do. You may need to make some tweaks along the way, or crank things up with Intermittent Fasting or Carb Cycling.
How do you know if that’s the case? You get a customized plan of course! Get my eyes 👀 & brain 🧠 on your physique, nutrition, workouts, habits, metabolism, & goals.
Here are some extra facts you might want to jot down for memory
1 gram of carb holds 2.7 grams of water; so if you have a high carb meal, you're going to retain more water and be a little heavier. No biggie, it will get back to normal soon!
You absolutely need to reverse diet (increase calories and decrease cardio) after a fat loss phase. An ideal fat loss phase is no longer than 16 weeks (12 weeks is the sweet spot)
10,000 steps per day (the recommended amount of activity) is about 5 miles of walking daily.
Crunches don't give you abs. Everyone has a six-pack. It's a muscle called your rectus abdominus. The only reason it's not visible on everyone is because it's usually covered with a layer of body fat. You could do 1,000 crunches seven days per week, but that won't help you burn that layer of fat. Opt for cardio, full body weights, and mindful eating instead.
It is not possible to turn your body fat into muscle. Fat is fat and muscle is muscle—you can't magically turn one into the other by lifting weights or doing cardio. However, weight training is the easiest way to control the shape of your body. The more muscle you have, the more fat your body will burn.
You need all 3 macros: carbs, protein, and fats. Fats and carbs both play a role in fat loss. Fats are responsible for hormone production, joint lubrication, and many other important health and muscle-building factors. Dropping your fats too low could compromise your health and your goals. Carbs supply energy for the brain and fuel your muscles.
You need to vary your cardio. Some HIIT + some LISS, and you don't need a ton of cardio either. Every gym has the guy or gal who does an hour and half of cardio but never seems to make physique changes. They're living proof that if you don’t change things up, steady-state cardio will become less and less effective at reducing your body fat.
Fascinating right? Nutrition and training is a pretty cool science. If you want to pick my brain some more, feel free to email me! Sincerely, Leah Peters Leahpetersfitness.com PetersL93@yahoo.com
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