15 MUST-KNOW Fat Loss Facts (Part 1)
As I write this today, we’re in the year 2020. And it’s just extremely sad to me that most people don’t actually know these facts about fat loss that I’m about to list out here, yet I think it’s already 2020, and these things should be common sense by now.
Alright. Enough with the disappointment talk. Better late than never! Let’s begin.
FACT 1: Calorie deficit is the ONE AND ONLY overarching law of weight/fat loss.
I don’t care what other factors you say. It doesn’t matter if it’s hormones, water intake, sleep, “slow” metabolism, genetics, lack of exercise, eating junk food, etc etc. If you’re in a calorie surplus, you will gain fat. If you’re in a calorie deficit, you will lose fat. This is NOT optional, it’s NOT an opinion, it’s NOT a belief. It’s a FACT. And calories will count in terms of how your body executes the energy balance, whether you count it or not.
Let’s take “hormonal issue” as an example. Let’s say, this person’s “insulin sensitivity is bad”. Someone might say, “oh low insulin sensitivity means that the body is more likely to store fat and its action of fat usage is less efficient.”
Yes, that may be true. But calorie deficit can override that in terms of fat gain/loss effect on the body. Imagine if you ate nothing at all (let’s say someone trapped you in a prison, and gave you absolutely no food), sure your body’s insulin is inefficient, but if there’s no food, there’s no energy to store. If there’s no energy to store, your body simply won’t get fat. In fact, it’ll still burn fat from your existing body fat for energy to survive.
To understand this, first you need to understand why we store body fat in the first place. Our bodies store body fat because of an energy surplus from food. When we have excess food that our bodies don’t need yet, we store that excess energy as body fat. When we need it because we don’t have enough food, we’ll withdraw out of the body fat, and thus you lose fat. THAT’S IT. We store or withdraw body fat, PURELY because of energy balance.
In any case, the law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be produced out of nowhere. So if there’s no energy coming in from food, no matter how inefficient your body functions (whether that’d be a hormonal issue, or sleep, or whatever excuse you may have), it cannot produce fat out of thin air.
On the flip side, if you’re in a calorie surplus, EVEN IF your body is the healthiest and most efficient it can be, it’s NOT going to ignore the surplus of energy and discard it - it will still store the extra energy as body fat.
Other factors could be true, but they can never go above the law of energy balance.
Many people use these other less significant factors as excuses as to why they can’t lose fat, but I’m here to bust this once and for all. It’s 2020. Calorie deficit being the ONLY overarching law for fat loss should be common sense by now. If today was in the year of 2003, you’d be forgiven. But if you still don’t know this by now… then c’mon, hurry up.
FACT 2: If any source tells you that, with “this ONE method”, you can simply ignore calories and eat any amount of food you, and still lose fat, then it’s 100% FALSE.
Every so often, there’s some BS on the internet that’ll tell you to “put cinnamon in water”, or “drink a shot of apple cider vinegar when you wake up”, or “avocado is the new fat loss superfood”, special “enzyme”, fat burners, waist burners, detox teas/juice, etc… But again, as I explained above, I don’t care what the trick is, if you’re not in a calorie deficit, nothing will work. If you’re in a calorie deficit, then you don’t need a “trick”.
We store fat because we have an excess of energy. So if ANYTHING tells you that it has nothing to do with energy or calories, then it’s immediately false.
FACT 3: You cannot choose where on your body you want to lose fat from.
Your body governs fat loss at an executive level, NOT locally. At an executive level, it constantly checks whether or not you’re in an energy surplus or deficit. During a deficit, your body begins to signal the withdrawal of energy by “burning fat” from your body fat.
So just because you do a bunch of ab crunches, doesn’t mean you’ll burn belly fat. And just because you do a bunch of leg exercises, doesn’t mean you’re burning thigh fat. Get the point?
In fact, exercises only ADD muscle mass in specific body areas, NOT SUBTRACT fat mass from specific areas. So if you do a bunch of ab crunches, the only thing you’re really gonna get is bigger ab muscles (and your belly may protrude more, rather than become flattened). And if you do a bunch of squats, you’re going to build leg muscles, making your legs look bulkier, NOT more slim.
Your body is already determined by genetics where it stores/burns fat first and last. That’s something you can’t control or change.
Let me give you a metaphor…
Let’s say you’re a big corporation, with 20 products that you sell. And each product has its own department.
Here’s the issue. You hear 1 of the 20 departments that they’re not selling well, and its net profit within that single department is negative.
Now, as a corporation, are you going to directly begin seeking financial support from external sources (such as loans, cash injections, investors, etc.) immediately just because one product isn’t selling well?
OR… You should probably look at your 19 other product departments to see if your OVERALL net profit is a positive or negative number, before you make any big decisions.
So working out in a specific area is like creating a deficit in that one product. And your body’s decision to burn fat is like that executive decision from the board of directors in that corporation, not locally (the body part you’re working out on).
FACT 4: You gain weight, never “because” of hormones.
As I’ve explained earlier, hormonal issues can cause inefficiencies in the body’s functioning, and may worsen fat gain (if in an energy surplus), but fat gain is never “BECAUSE” of hormones. You MUST still be in an energy surplus for your body to gain fat.
Calorie deficit will still cause fat loss, regardless of hormonal issues. And calorie surplus will still cause fat gain, even if you’re super hormonally healthy.
FACT 5: More cardio may burn more calories, but it doesn’t always translate to fat loss.
First of all, cardio is simply a series of movements by the body, which requires energy from the body. That’s it. It’s nothing magical.
So at the end of the day, cardio COSTS calories. You can view cardio as negative calories, if food intake were positive calories.
As mentioned in FACT 3, your body’s decision to burn fat is an EXECUTIVE decision, NOT a local decision. So cardio COULD cause energy deficit, but it in itself does NOT directly “burn fat”. It has no power to do so. Your body still needs to evaluate its overall energy balance, before deciding that your body is going to burn fat.
Now, cardio - as negative calories - seems to make sense in terms of trying to create a calorie deficit, right?
Yes, while it makes mathematical sense in terms of calorie balance, the reality is much more complicated than that. Too much cardio, especially those that you don’t love, can cause a few hormonal signals that can in turn cause you to 1) give up on consistency one day, and/or 2) eat more than you actually burned from the cardio sessions.
Hormone 1 - leptin. Leptin is the satiation hormone, which means you want to keep it high for any food you eat to feel satiating. When leptin is low, you’ll start to feel like no matter how much food you eat, you’re still hungry. And leptin begins to drop more significantly as you 1) are in a significant calorie deficit (usually greater than 800 cal), and 2) do cardio sessions that are at least moderately intense (around 60% of your max heart rate).
Hormone 2 - cortisol. Cortisol is the stress hormone. In general, it increases the more intense your cardio session is, and the greater calorie deficit you’re in. As well, if you’re using willpower to do something (in this case, if you dislike the cardio session), cortisol can also rise. Now here’s the down side. Cortisol can also cause you to eat. So as you can see here, more cardio doesn’t always mean successful fat loss.
So as you can see, cardio is a double-edged sword. It’s not as simple as “more cardio, more fat loss”.
FACT 6: Conserving willpower “battery” is the key to losing fat.
This point is more important than you think. Some of you may know that fat loss comes from being in a calorie deficit. But why is it that even if they know this concept, they can’t seem to lose fat?
That’s because they’re doing things the hard way. They’re trying to eat “clean” or “healthy”, but they hate all the foods. And they’re trying to do all kinds of cardio, yet it triggers hunger, which drains their willpower.
The key is that you MUST enjoy your foods and exercises, in order to minimize the use of willpower. The winner does NOT have the most willpower or discipline. The winner simply has the smartest way to conserve willpower, much like a battery.
FACT 7: Eating at night doesn’t make you fat.
I’m gonna smack the next person who still believes this after reading this article.
ONCE AGAIN. Your body decides whether or not to use body fat as energy (thus burn fat) at an executive level, depending on its overall energy balance. In other words, calorie surplus is the ONLY direct reason why you gain fat.
“But Andy, isn’t your metabolism slower at night?”
Here’s the thing. Your TDEE (Total DAILY Energy Expenditure) ALREADY accounts for the ENTIRE day, including night time. As long as you eat no more than TDEE, you won’t gain fat overall.
For example, let’s say your TDEE is 2000. And let’s say during the day, your metabolism is faster, accounting for 1500 calories of the 2000. And at night, your metabolism is slower, therefore the energy expenditure is only 500 calories of that 2000.
Let’s take a look at 2 cases.
In Case 1, you eat 2000 calories during the day, but nothing at night. In Case 2, you eat nothing during the day, but all 2000 calories at night.
Case 1:
Day Energy Balance = 2000 - 1500 = 500 calorie surplus
Night Energy Balance = 0 - 500 = -500 calorie deficit
So, Net Energy Balance = 500 - 500 = 0
Case 2:
Day Energy Balance = 0 - 1500 = -1500 calorie deficit
Night Energy Balance = 2000 - 500 = 1500 calorie surplus
So, Net Energy Balance = -1500 + 1500 = 0
As we can see, as long as we don’t eat more than your TDEE, we won’t gain fat, as TDEE already accounts for the varying metabolic speed throughout the entire day.
FACT 8: You cannot rely on the “afterburn effect” from HIIT cardio to lose fat.
This is a prime example in which fitness businesses take advantage of insignificant truth (where calorie deficit is the grand law), blow it up, and sell the sh*t out of it. Yes, I’m gonna have to call it out.
*cough* OrangeTheory *cough*
Does the “afterburn effect” exist? Yes. Absolutely.
Scientifically, it’s called the Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC) effect. In simple terms, when the cardio session is intense, you can’t catch your breath to breathe in oxygen. So your body goes into an oxygen “debt” - you owe your body oxygen. After the HIIT cardio session, your body continues to use up energy to restore that oxygen “debt”. The need of calories for the EPOC to happen is called the “afterburn effect”, as your body burns more calories to recover oxygen.
Does it happen over the next 48 hours? Indeed, it does.
So what’s wrong with it?
How about let’s take a look at the ACTUAL AMOUNT of calories burnt from the afterburn effect. How much is it?
The truth is, science has shown that it’s 6-15% of the calories burnt from the HIIT session. The average is about 10%.
The average person burns about 300 calories from a HIIT session (with slightly above average effort).
Well, the afterburn effect is 30 calories, over the entire 48 hours. Yea… that’s not that much.
Even if you burned 1000 calories from one session, the afterburn effect is only 100.
And 100 extra calories won’t do much. Plus, that’s a lot of willpower drained for one single session. Now, try keeping this up every day or even every other day.
You don’t need to be a genius to see that relying on the afterburn effect for fat loss isn’t feasible at all.
MORE FACTS IN PART 2 COMING SOON... STAY TUNED!
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