To achieve weight loss we need to be in a calorie deficit and this is the most important factor. How we achieve this is a lot less important. Often people say they want to lose weight so they are 'clean eating', 'eating healthy', 'cutting out carbs', 'reducing fat intake' and the list goes on. All these methods have a place but they do not result in weight loss alone.
To begin, let me explain what some of these so called 'diets' mean:
Clean Eating / Healthy Eating
These phrases often refer to someone who only eats highly nutritional foods and avoids all processed foods. Highly nutritional foods are extremely important for our health and wellbeing but they do not guarantee weight loss. You can still go over your daily calorie goal by eating, vegetables, lean meats, oils, nuts and seeds. A banana that contains 100cals doesn't mean you are going to magically lose weight and a pack of crisps containing 100cals doesn't mean your going to gain weight. Therefore why not aim for the majority of your diet to come from highly nutritional foods and still enjoy your favourite processed snacks whilst still losing weight? Oh.... and I would just like to add..... anyone who has lost weight from clean / healthy eating it is nothing to do with what they have eating and everything to do with how much.
Low Carb / Low Fat
It doesn't take you long to browse through your social media and see some influencer banging on about how they lost weight by just cutting out carbohydrates or why you should not eat fat because it makes you fat. Again this is a load of bol#%ks. They have not lost weight because they have cut their carbs and turned their body into a ultra metabolising fat burning machine. It is because whilst cutting their carbs they haven't replaced it with other food therefore creating a calorie deficit. The same can be said for a low fat diets because 1 gram of fat contains 9 calories, whilst 1 gram of protein or carbohydrate contains 4 calories. Consequently by reducing your fat intake and increasing your protein or carbohydrate intake will be reducing your overall calories.
Conclusion
Don't be fooled into the latest diets or messages you see from some influencer or television advert. For to many years the method of weight loss has been dramatized and made far to complicated just for the benefit of retailers to sale you there new fat melting diets. But in fact if we cut all this bulls#%t out and look at the science we understand that all we actually need to do is create the right energy balance.
The one message I want you to take away from this article is it doesn't matter what diet you follow as long as you are in a calorie deficit.
If you would like help with your nutrition or have any other questions
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