To lose weight, you have to cut calories, or exercise more, or a combination of the two. If you plan to cut calories, we rounded up 20 ways you can use to reduce your caloric intake through smart substitution and portion control.
Smart Substitution
By making small, but smart swaps, you can reduce your calorie intake substantially. For instance:
1. Swap out a bagel for an English muffin and avoid eating 220 calories.
2. Trade 10 ounces of whole milk for skim and avoid another 70 calories.
3. Make an omelet with one whole egg and two egg whites instead of three whole eggs. Calories saved - 125.
4. Try turkey sausage instead of pork and save another 125 calories.
5. Instead of mayonnaise, use hummus or mustard on your roll and cut 200 calories.
6. Trade your french fries for a salad and save 300 calories.
7. Try tortilla chips with salsa instead of potato chips dipped in a sour cream-based dip; it'll save you 109 calories.
8. Try replacing oil in your favorite baked dessert with applesauce; four tablespoons of applesauce is 40 calories while two tablespoons of oil is 200. Plus you'll add more flavor to your dessert.
9. Use 4 ounces of fat-free half-and-half in your coffee instead of regular cream and save 88 calories.
10. Eat 1/2 cup of oatmeal instead of a full 1-cup serving; calories saved: 150.
11. Substitute 1.5 ounces of raisins for fresh grapes and save 98 calories.
12. Snack on baked potato chips instead of the fried ones; save 90 calories for a 1-ounce serving.
13. Put 3 ounces of mozzarella cheese on your sandwich instead of Swiss and save 108 calories.
14. Swap out Alfredo sauce for marinara sauce- 129 calories saved.
15. Eat 1 cup of frozen yogurt instead of ice cream.
16. On your salad, eat either croutons or cheese, but not both and save over 100 calories.
17. For something different, eat 1/2 cup of fresh strawberries topped with 2 ounces of fat-free whipped cream instead of 1/2 cup of strawberry ice cream and avoid eating 102 calories.
Portion Control
18. The size of your plate makes a big difference on the number of calories you consume. Trick your mind into thinking you have more food than you do by using a 9-inch instead of a 12-inch plate. On average you can save up to 500 calories.
19. Do you tend to go back for another helping when finished with the first? You still can, but first wait 20 minutes. Most likely won't go back and if you do, you'll take less.
20. When eating out, it is harder to control portions, however, not impossible. Because restaurant portions are significantly larger, eat smart by leaving a fourth of your meal on your plate. Look up the nutritional information before leaving the house. Studies found people ate 52 fewer calories when they knew the nutritional information before ordering.
Cutting calories is easy when you know how to make intelligent substitutions and control portion size. Take charge of your eating with these suggestions.
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QUESTION: Tom, Is it possible to not lose body fat because you're eating too little?
-Linda
ANSWER: Yes and no. This gets a little complicated so let me explain both sides.
Part one of my answer: I say NO, because if you are in a calorie deficit you WILL lose weight.
Most people have heard anecdotes of the dieter who claims to be eating 800 calories a day or some starvation diet level of intake that is clearly in a deficit and yet is not losing fat. Like the mythical unicorn, such an animal does not exist.
Every time you take a person like that and put them in a hospital research center or metabolic ward where their food can be counted, weighed, measured and almost literally "spoon fed" to them, a calorie deficit always produces weight loss.
There are no exceptions, except possibly in rare diseases or mutations. Even then metabolic or hormonal defects or diseases merely lead to energy imbalance via increases in appetite, decreases in energy expenditure or changes in energy partitioning. So at the end of the day it's STILL calories in versus calories out.
In other words, NO - it's NOT your thyroid (unless you've got a confirmed diagnosis as such...and then guess what... it's STILL calories in vs calories out, you're just not burning as many as someone should at your height and weight).
One famous study that was published in the New England Journal of Medicine years ago proved this point rather dramatically. After studying obese people - selected specifically because they swore they were eating less than 1200 calories but could not lose weight - Steven Lichtman and his colleages at St. Luke's Roosevelt Hospital in New York came to the following conclusion:
"The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis."
That's right - the so-called "diet-resistant" subjects were eating more than they thought and moving less than they thought. This was probably the single best study ever published that debunks the "I'm in a calorie deficit but I can't lose weight" myth:
Part two of my answer, YES, because:
1) Energy intake increases.
Eating too little causes major increases in appetite. With hunger raging out of control, you lose your deficit by overeating. This happens in many ways, such as giving in to cravings, binge eating, eating more on weekends or simply being inconsistent, so some days you're on your prescribed 1600 calories a day or whatever is your target amount, but on others you're taking in 2200, 2500, 3000 etc and you don't realize it or remember it. The overeating days wipe out the deficit days.
2) Metabolism decreases due to smaller body mass.
Any time at all when you're losing weight, your metabolism is slowly decreasing due to your reduced body mass. The smaller and lighter you get, especially if there's a large drop in skeletal muscle mass, the fewer calories you need. So your calorie deficit slowly shrinks over time as your diet progresses. As a result, your progress slows down even though you haven't changed how much you eat.
With starvation, you always lose weight, but eventually you lose so much weight/body mass that you can reach energy balance at the same caloric intake you used to lose weight on. You might translate that as "I went into starvation mode" which wouldn't be incorrect, but it would be more accurate to say that your calorie needs decreased.
3) Metabolism decreases due to adaptive thermogenesis.
Eating too little also causes a starvation response (adaptive thermogenesis) where metabolic rate can decrease above and beyond what can be accounted for from the change in body mass (#2 above). This is "starvation response" in the truest sense. It does exist and it is well documented. However, the latest research says that the vast majority of the decrease in metabolism comes from reduced body mass. The adaptive component of the reduced metabolic rate is fairly small, perhaps 10% (ie, 220 calories for an average female with a 2200 TDEE). The result is when you don't eat enough, your actual weight loss is less than predicted on paper, but weight loss doesn't stop completely.
There is a BIG myth about starvation mode (adaptive thermogenesis) that implies that if you don't eat enough, your metabolism will slow down so much that you stop losing weight. That can't happen, it only appears that way because weight loss stops for other reasons. What happens is the math equation changes!
Energy balance is dynamic, so your weight loss slows down and eventually stops over time if you fail to adjust your calories and activity levels in real time each week.
I teach a system for how to adjust calories and activity weekly using a feedback loop method in my Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle program (more info from www.BurnTheFat.com)So what can be done to stop this metabolic slowdown caused by low calorie dieting and the dreaded fat loss plateau that follows? I recommend the following 5 tips:
1) Lose the pounds slowly.
Slow and steady wins in long term fat loss and maintenance every time. Rapid weight loss correlates strongly with weight relapse and loss of lean body mass. Aim for one to two pounds per week, or no more than 1% of total body weight (ie, 3 lbs per week if you weigh 300 lbs).
2) Use a higher energy flux program.
If you are physically capable of exercise, then use weight training AND cardio to increase your calorie expenditure, so you can still have a calorie deficit, but at a higher food intake (also known as a "high energy flux" program, or as we like to say in Burn The Fat, "eat more, burn more.")
3) Use a conservative calorie deficit.
You must have a calorie deficit to lose fat, but your best bet is to keep the deficit small. This helps you avoid triggering the starvation response, which includes the increased appetite and potential to binge that comes along with starvation diets. I recommend a 20% deficit below your maintenance calories (TDEE), a 30% deficit at most for those with high body fat.
4) Refeed.
Increase your calories (re-feed) for a full day periodically (once a week or so if you are heavy, twice a week if you are already lean), to restimulate metabolism. On the higher calorie day, take your calories to maintenance or even 10, 15, 20% above maintenance and add the extra calories in the form of carbs (carb cycling). The leaner you get, and the longer you've been on reduced calories, the more important the re-feeds will be. (You can learn more about this method in chapter 12 of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle at www.BurnTheFat.com)5) Take periodic diet breaks.Take 1 week off your calorie restricted diet approximately every 12 weeks or so. During this period, take your calories back up to maintenance, but continue to eat healthy, "clean" foods. Alternately, go into a muscle building phase if increasing lean mass is one of your goals. This will bring metabolism and regulatory hormones back up to normal and keep lean body mass stable.
There is much confusion about how your metabolism, hormones and appetite mechanisms are affected when you're dieting, so this was really one of the most important questions anyone could have asked.
If this didn't REALLY click - then you may want to save this and read it again because misunderstanding this stuff leads more people to remain frustrated and stuck at plateaus than anything else I can think of.
If you'd like to learn exactly how you should be eating to lose 2 lbs of fat per week, then visit www.burnthefat.com.Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto,
Author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle
http://www.BurnTheFat.com
About the Author:Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com
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QUESTION:Hi Tom. I have your BURN THE FAT ebook; it’s great thanks, but now that I’m lean enough my aim is bodybuilding and muscle gain. I read your information on body types in chapter 5 of your book and it was very interesting. I am definitely an ectomorph body type. I am getting good results gaining about a pound and sometimes 2 pounds a week, but I’m pretty skinny so it’s going to take a while to get where I really want to be, but that’s fine, I’m patient and determined. My question is, can I use all the guidelines in your BURN THE FAT ebook for gaining muscle mass?
ANSWER: It’s true that BURN THE FAT, FEED THE MUSCLE is primarily a fat burning program and as you’re reading through the book, you’ll see that the entire manual is written with references to getting leaner.
However, with a few simple tweaks, the program can definitely be used for gaining muscle. The primary adjustment would be an increase in the calories.
To gain lean body mass, you need a calorie surplus. The biggest dietary reason most people fail to gain lean muscle is that they’re simply not eating enough. Many times when they come off a fat loss program, they are completely paranoid about “losing their abs.”
Of course, that’s a legitimate concern because it’s VERY easy to lose your abs if you get lazy with your diet or you think that a muscle gaining diet means eating everything in sight. To gain muscle and stay lean it takes continued discipline and dietary restraint, but the fact is, you just can’t gain any muscle if you’re afraid to eat more.
The trick in gaining lean muscle without fat gain is to select a small calorie surplus. Overeating, even on clean, bodybuilding foods is going to make you gain fat along with the muscle.
Gaining fat and muscle weight at the same time is commonly known as “bulking up” and that’s the old school approach to building muscle. We don’t want to do that. The whole idea is to Feed The Muscle and build lean body mass only.
Although BFFM is written with a fat loss slant, all the calorie formulas are included in chapter 6, so you can figure out exactly how many you need to lose, maintain, OR gain weight.
A typical male maintains on about 2700 calories per day and a typical female at about 2100 calories, but it’s good to plug your stats into the formulas to individualize, and you need to recalibrate calories anyways, after you come off a long fat loss phase.
What I would recommend for lean gains is to add a 10-15% calorie surplus on top of your maintenance level as your starting point. You will probably need a second increase in calories after a few months or after you’ve begun to add some lean mass in order to keep the lean gains coming.
The only other major adjustments for gaining lean mass would be the protein-carb-fat ratios (covered in detail in chapter 8) and of course, the amount of cardio.
Weight gain programs require more carbs in the macronutrient mix and less cardio. Endomorph types may need to keep 3 days of cardio in the mix to avoid losing their abs. In some cases for ectomorph “hard-gainer” body types, they should cut the cardio completely during the muscle gain phase.
For the endomorph body type who tends to gain fat easily, I recommend continuing to use a carb or calorie cycling method even for the muscle gaining phase. The difference is in the number of calories.
For fat loss, I typically recommend a carb cycle with a 20-30% caloric deficit for 3 days, followed by one full day at maintenance or even maintenance + 5-10%, with ALL the caloric increase coming from carbs.
For lean muscle gain without fat gain, I’d recommend a cycle with 3 days at a 15% surplus, followed by 3 days at maintenance or a small caloric deficit of 5-10% below maintenance.
These are just guidelines. They are not written in stone. I have seen all types of calorie cycling variations work for different people. Any non-linear calorie approach is superior, in my opinion, for keeping the gains lean.
All the other principles in BFFM, such as eating the “foods that burn fat" and avoiding the “foods that turn to fat” apply as equally to weight gain programs as they do to fat loss programs.
In fact, many BFFM “graduates” quickly reached their fat loss goal using these techniques, and then with a few simple adjustments, shifted into a “muscle-gaining phase.” Same program, but one change in calorie levels.
Using the BFFM techniques for muscle mass gains, most people can expect to gain 1/2 pound to 1 pound per week of lean body mass with no increase in body fat, (1/2 to 3/4 of that for women).
It’s not that hard to put on the first 10-12 pounds of lean muscle. After that, gains tend to slow down a bit.
These types of gains can be achieved completely natural - and in fact, natural is the only way I’d ever recommend you do muscle gaining programs.
Train hard and expect success,
Tom Venuto
Fat Loss Coach
www.BurnTheFat.com
About the Author:
Tom Venuto is a natural bodybuilder, certified strength and conditioning specialist (CSCS) and a certified personal trainer (CPT). Tom is the author of "Burn the Fat, Feed The Muscle,” which teaches you how to get lean without drugs or supplements using methods of the world's best bodybuilders and fitness models. Learn how to get rid of stubborn fat and increase your metabolism by visiting: www.burnthefat.com
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The Double-Edged Sword of “Healthy” Fast Food
What’s on the menu at the big fast food chains lately? Oddly enough, the answer is… “health food!” Even more incongruous, many are marketing their food for weight loss. Healthy weight loss food at Taco Bell and McDonalds? Is this a noble move to be applauded, is it a big corporate money grab, or is it a double edged sword?
If you don't read this you are in danger of Risking your Precious Health!
How To Eliminate Stubborn Belly Fat, Flatten Your Stomach And Reveal A Stunning Set Of Six Pack Abs.
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Tens of thousands of men and women in more than 141 countries are now enjoying the lean and muscular bodies they never believed they could have. The best part is, they did it without drugs, supplements or starvation diets, and without messing up their metabolisms…
How did they do it? They used a scientifically-proven and real-world tested program that’s been sweeping the Internet called, Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle ("Burn The Fat" For short
What Makes This Fat Burning Breakthrough So Exciting is That it Gives You The Power To...
Lose fat permanently. It's a fact - 95% of the people who go on conventional diets gain all the weight back and sometimes they end up fatter than when they started. Burn The Fat teaches you how to be in the successful 5% group that keeps fat off forever.
Lose body fat without wrecking your metabolism. If you've ever started a diet, then smashed into the dreaded "fat loss plateau," it's probably because you cannibalized your own muscle and slowed down your metabolism. The Burn The Fat system teaches you the only way to prevent your metabolism from crashing when you diet and what to do if you think you’ve already damaged your metabolism
Lose fat without drugs. Steroids or fat burning drugs can work, but the results are temporary and the side effects are nasty. The tiny handful of natural bodybuilders who have learned how to use training and nutrition science to alter body composition without drugs are the only people in the world who keep their fat loss and muscle gains permanently. You will learn these fat burning secrets from a natural bodybuilding champion who knows from real-world experience exactly how it's done and has been teaching “regular people” how to do it for more than 17 years.
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"Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle" (BFFM) is a 340 page fat burning success manual in e-book format, jam-packed cover to cover with all the fat loss methods previously known by only by an elite group of top fitness models and bodybuilders.
All around the world, thousands of people are calling Burn The Fat their “Fat Loss Bible” because in one place, you now have all the information you'll ever need to help you melt away body fat permanently without losing muscle and without using risky and dangerous drugs or expensive and unnecessary supplements.
Here's just a small sample of what you'll learn when you Get your copy of Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle today:
Fat burning nutrition secrets to break through any fat loss plateau - even if you have bad genetics, a slow metabolism or you’ve been stuck at the same weight for years! 10 fool-proof methods that work like magic every time.The top twelve worst foods you should never eat .
The top twelve best foods you should eat all the time
How to crank up your metabolism and turn your body into a food-incinerating, fat-melting human blast furnace! Easy metabolism-boosting techniques revealed!
The #1 reason why most people can't drop the last 10 -20 lbs of ab flab and how you can lose it with ease...and (if you want to), go even further and get hyper-ripped and rock-hard like a bodybuilder or fitness model
Which body type classification you are and how to eat right for your body type (if you're eating wrong for your body type you can forget about losing any body fat no matter how hard you train or how strictly you diet) .
How to boost your energy levels higher than you ever thought possible - almost instantly! (you'll notice the difference the very first day
The #1 most effective way to burn body fat ever (If you could only make one change to your current diet program, this would be it!)
Dozens of the best-kept fat loss secrets of bodybuilders and fitness models that almost NOBODY knows about...compiled by a 14-year, rare study of the most "ripped"athletes on earth
The three critical factors that determine whether you'll lose muscle while dieting...and how the slightest nutritional "tweak" can guarantee you keep every ounce of precious lean body mass while you're dieting 7 strategies to make sure your body never goes into "starvation mode" and the one thing you must do immediately if you suspect it's already happened to you.
What to do when you've tried everything and the stubborn fat still won't come off (this is one of the little-known tactics bodybuilders and fitness models use in the final weeks before competitions)
Why you don’t need supplements (they’re totally optional), and why you'll never get the whole truth about “fat burner” supplements from any magazine (Even if they wanted to tell you, there’s a reason why they CAN'T!)
Why you will almost ALWAYS fail to keep the fat off permanently if you use a conventional low carbohydrate diet - If you've failed on low carb diets before (especially diets that put you in ketosis), this is the reason why!
How a "unique new spin" on the old low carb diet can increase your rate of fat loss to the maximum possible without muscle loss or metabolic downgrade.
Fat-slashing cardio routines and the truth about how much cardio you REALLY need to lose body fat and when you should do it for maximum impact.
Not one, but FOUR weight training programs designed to fit your schedule and experience level - plus a "conservative" routine for "time-crunched" people who can't train as often as they'd like to - YOU pick the routine you want; its all mapped out for you day by day.
The psychology of permanent fat loss...Goal setting and motivation tactics that program your subconscious mind for massive success...Follow this "secret mental training formula" and you'll be practically "hypnotized" into eating properly and working out consistently!
And that is just the beginning! Burn the Fat Feed the Muscle is so much more than just an "e-book" - it's a complete fat burning SYSTEM for sure-fire success.
In fact, this is quite possibly the most comprehensive program for fat loss ever developed because it covers fat burning nutrition, fat burning cardio training, fat burning weight training, as well as the fat burning psychology and motivation techniques that none of the other trainers or nutritionists teach ever you!
This is Not A “Diet” – It’s A Lifestyle Change
There are NO gimmicks in this program - there are no supplements or pills to buy and no hidden agendas - just the FACTS you need to know to get a lean body now. It’s great news that someone has finally released an effective fat burning program based on the truth, but this also means that you have to ask if this is the right program for you:
Anyone who is not willing to exercise and work hard, anyone who is not willing to be disciplined about what they eat, anyone looking for a quick fix solution to fat loss, anyone who wants “overnight results,” anyone looking for a "magic bullet" offered by the likes of fat burning pills, diet shakes, or "fat-burning" creams and gels is just not ready for a program like Burn The Fat yet.
On the other hand, if you’re sick of the B.S. and gimmicks in the weight loss industry, if you’re willing to work at it and make a lifestyle change and you know you could be doing a whole lot better with your fat loss results, then you have definitely found the honest and effective fat loss solution you’ve been searching for.
To learn more about the Burn The Fat system and to find out how YOU can start turning your body into a “fat burning machine” today.
