Most people think that when you start working out weight loss will be easy. After all, you are putting out max effort and really kicking ass in the gym. It’s true that almost everyone will lose body fat when they first start, but as you become more experienced leaning out becomes a real challenge. This article will spell out exactly what you need to do to get back on the fat loss program.
This article will cover the most recent research as it pertains to losing body fat, and it will highlight the key principles that you need to keep in mind if your goal is to drop some pounds.
Losing weight isn’t exactly rocket surgery, it is more or less a test of consistency and patience. As athletes we have a few reasons we might wish to lose body fat.
- Looking good naked.
- Performance Increase.
- Health effects
Some people might consider putting this much effort into changing your appearance to be somewhat vain. Honestly, I think most of us want to look at least as good as we feel inside, and we are all a little jealous of top functional fitness athlete’s physiques, and we want one!
Losing body fat will increase your functional fitness performance. Every pound of fat is a pound of weight you don’t have to carry on a run, or lift on a pull up.
Physiologically losing weight will increase the amount of oxygen available to your muscles, as your body no longer needs to fuel the non existent fat cells that you’ve lost.
Many of us got into working out because we had a bit of a health scare. We stepped on a scale after months to find we were much heavier than we thought, or our blood pressure began to creep up. Without a doubt, healthy weight loss will push these numbers even further towards the good end of the chart.
Now that we’ve got the pleasantries out of the way, we can really dig into the specific weight loss recommendations based off of the latest research.
Weight Loss Research for Functional Fitness
This is a tough area to find research on, as scientists are always about 5 years behind the curve from current fitness trends. To them functional fitness is a new fangled fitness trend. This leaves us looking to similar populations to learn how to lose weight.
The best population for this is natural bodybuilders. There are several reasons for this. First, natural bodybuilders and functional fitness athletes are fairly close on their overall program volume. Check out this article comparing bodybuilding training with my hypertrophy program for functional fitness for more info on that.
Natural bodybuilders and functional fitness athletes also end up packing on almost the same amount of skeletal muscle mass, which is somewhat surprising. For more info on that check out this analysis on natural muscular limits of the functional fitness athlete.
It is also important that we use studies with natural bodybuilders as there are loads of research papers on weight loss, but they focus on elderly, diabetic, or otherwise unhealthy populations exclusively, which isn’t like to describe the average gym goer.
This brings us to the top questions we need answered if we are going to learn how to lose weight as an athlete.
- How much do I need to eat?
- What is the optimal weight loss rate?
- What should our macro nutrient splits look like?
- Do I need to follow a specialty diet like keto, or intermittent fasting?
- What (if any) supplements should I take?
How Much Do I need to Eat?
This is the big question everyone has on their minds. The correct, if somewhat flippant answer, is less than you are now, but of course we can narrow that down slightly.
I highly recommend you read this article and download the spreadsheet that will calculate your macros, and overall energy requirements for weight loss.
An average male athlete will burn around 2000 calories on a non gym day just maintaining normal bodily functions, and moving around. The average female is closer to 1700 calories.
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On a gym day most female athletes will burn around 275 calories during the class and men will be closer to 350 calories. This isn’t very much, but remember, calories are just units of energy. Your goal isn’t to burn them. Your goal is to lose body fat!
You will see more relevant details when you read the article and download the spreadsheet but this is a good starting point in our understanding of overall energy needs.
What is the Optimal Weight Loss Rate?
This is one area where researchers have begun changing their tune as more and more studies are published. Generally, for strength athletes, a lower rate of weight loss is more beneficial.
This research review on natural bodybuilders found that the vast majority of bodybuilding studies recommend a weight loss rate between .5 and 1% of your bodyweight per week.
However, this study compared 1% to .5% weight loss rates, and they found that a compromise of .7% promoted greater retention of lean body mass. This study on natural body builders found that those who placed the best actually lost weight at a rate of .45% per week.
Based on this recent research I think it’s safe to say that .5-.7% of your body mass should be lost each week. This will promote maintaining your muscle mass, and more importantly it won’t require a huge caloric deficit. Yay for not starving!
If you want even more in depth info than we can include here, then check out my ebook!
What should our macro nutrient splits look like?
This is by far the least concrete advice I will be giving you. This, like overall energy intake, is incredibly variable. It’s based on your activity level, daily routine, and importantly, your genetics.
Protein
This is the big one everyone likes to talk about, and it is incredibly important to get this right as protein, and its component amino acids are the building blocks for muscle tissue in your body.
This is one area where research has been remarkably consistent. In this research review, they found that the best range in protein ingestion for natural bodybuilders is 1.8g – 2.7g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. In American Freedom Units that’s .81g – 1.22g per pound of bodyweight.
It looks like the gym bro’s and the magazines were right. The tried and true one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight is right in this range. There is some research that recommends a slightly higher intake, to help promote satiety and hunger suppression on strict diets, but anything in this range should work well for most athletes.
Carbs
This is somewhat of a dirty word for folks. Back in the day, all functional fitness athletes were paleo or, low carb, but now everyone is trying to do the ketogenic diet, which is essentially an extremely low carb diet, at less than 50g of carbs per day.
The thing about diets, and carbs in particular, is that they all work as long as you can stick to them and they create a caloric deficit. Ketogenic diets will work, and it has been tried on strength athletes with some positive results, but that doesn’t mean I would recommend it for most folks as it is very hard to stick to for most people.
The best rule of thumb, for carbohydrate intake, is to ingest just enough to fuel your workouts, and that’s about it. During any weight loss diet much of the deficit in calories will come from reduction in carb intake. This means by the end of the diet you are likely going to be fairly low carb, but above ketogenic ranges.
For fat loss, you need to ingest around 30% of your overall caloric intake in carbohydrate. Again, I highly recommend you check out this article and download the calculator so it will calculate all this for you.
Fats
Fats are more important on a diet than you think. You need a certain amount of dietary fat to maintain hormone production. If I have one gripe with the bodybuilding industry, it is the chicken and rice style diet, with very low fat.
On the surface it makes sense. Fat is the most calorically dense macronutrient with 9 calories per gram, whereas protein and carbs have 4 calories per gram. If we cut fat we can create a deficit very quickly right? Wrong!
You can do this for a while, but you’ll soon understand why you need fat in your diet because fats are used to create hormones like testosterone and others. Both men and women need hormones to help regulate all bodily functions, and most importantly they can help keep you sane during the diet!
Once you’ve set your protein and carb intake, the rest of your calories will come from fat. In the calculator this is set to 25% of your energy intake. This will leave you with enough fat to stay healthy and sane while you drop body fat.
Do I need to follow a specialty diet like keto, or intermittent fasting?
As I alluded to above, you can follow a specialty diet if you like, but if you are otherwise healthy, you don’t need to do so. Ketogenic diets will work, but honestly following those very high fat macros splits will be hard to do. Try ordering something at a restaurant with 80% fat content, I’ll wait.
The other elephant in the room is intermittent fasting (IF). With this diet you are given a window of time during the day where you can eat your food, and the rest of the time you only have non caloric fluids. Generally speaking you will fast for 16 hours and eat in an 8 hour window.
This research study compared two groups of athletes, one which fasted for 16 hours and ate for 8 hours, the other control group ate the same amount of total calories spread out throughout the day, in a normal fashion. Both groups completed the same resistance training program as well.
Amazingly the IF group lost 3.54 lbs of pure fat compared to the traditional group which lost .68 lbs of fat. Remember there was no caloric deficit here, just a different eating schedule.
The researchers did note that testosterone and IGF-1, both well studied anabolic hormones, decreased significantly in IF group, but not in the traditional group. Both groups maintained the same muscle mass and strength values so this should be interpreted with caution.
Personally I think extending your over night fast is a good way to help you feel less hungry while on a diet. It doesn’t have to be 16 hours initially as you can start with a 12 hour fast and increase if you like.
What (If Any) Supplements Should I Take?
My general rule of thumb on supplements is don’t take them. The vast majority of athletes need to focus on the basics before they get into the details of supplements, which realistically are only going to give you a few percent increase in performance.
I will make a deal with you. If you can go two weeks and average above 8 hours of sleep a night and hit your macro nutrient splits, then you can start worrying about supplements.
If you have trouble hitting your protein recommendations you can go for a protein supplement which can be a big benefit. I also think the research is clear on the benefits of creatine and caffeine. Lastly, there is some solid research showing a compound called HMB has some great effects, especially when paired with creatine.
Check out this article for a research review of HMB and Creatine and my personal experiences with it.
Meal Planning Resources
So far we’ve hit all the big topics, but let’s talk about a few resources that will help you actually plan what foods you should be eating.
My Fitness Pal
I always recommend My Fitness Pal first to my athletes, and I use it as well. It is so good that many researchers have their subjects track their diets with it. The best thing is that it is totally free for all the features you need.
It will allow you to set your macro goals, and then you can add in food you eat each day and see how you are doing compared to your goal. You can also share your progress with friends and turn your diet into a team effort.
Eat This Much
My second recommendation is Eat This Much. This website allows you to pick your dietary goals, and macros, and it will suggest what foods you can eat to achieve them. It will give you actual portion sizes and the ingredients so you can cook up something tastier than a protein bar!
Final Thoughts
This article has been a long one, and I feel like when this is all over we should get an apartment together, jk. None of this info is earth shattering, it’s just scientists pointing out a few tweaks here and there that can make noticeable differences in your diet.
Remember what I said above. A diet is a test of your consistency more than anything else. If you are hitting your macro splits each day and following any kind of sensible program then you will do well on the diet.
Remember, you shouldn’t be looking for a short term crash diet, as that will not work. It will damage your metabolism, and you will regain more fat than you lost.
Be patient, be consistent, and before you know it they’ll be calling you up for the next super hero movie! Now get out there and start training!
If you have any questions or comments put them below, where I can get to them the quickest.
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What formula do you use to figure cals per day
To be honest I can’t remember which formula I chose. I checked a few different ones and picked the one I thought had the most support in the literature. If you want to know the exact formula check out the formula bar in the spreadsheet and it is in there.