This might be a tough pill to swallow for some, but the notion that burning 3,500 calories will shed a pound of fat might be true in theory but isn’t always true in practice. In the best case scenario, when you eliminate 3,500 from your diet, you should be able to lose one pound of fat, but as evidenced in the majority of people, that is simply not the case.
It takes a lot more to shed off body fat than dealing with numbers. On the contrary, if one were to follow this precise mathematical method for reducing body fat so stubbornly, then trying to cut for a bodybuilding competition would be as simple as entering some numbers into a calculator.
Bodybuilders would have it a lot easier then, always striving to cut 3,500 from the diet without paying attention to other factors which have a much bigger role in reducing body fat.
In this article, we list the factors which explain why the method which tells us that cutting 3,500 calories will enable us to lose one pound of fat is oversimplified and the alternatives we should follow to really burn the excess fat.
Your body will adapt to the decreased intake of calories
Let’s presume a bodybuilder decreases his daily calorie intake from 3,500 to 3000 to make himself shredded. That is 3,500 fewer calories on a weekly basis. During the first two weeks, and maybe the 3rd and 4th week, he might shed a pound of body fat per week totaling 4 pounds of body fat decrease.
But, by the time he reaches the 5th or 6th week, he might not be able to lose any additional fat anymore. This is known as reaching a plateau. The main problem is that your body will eventually adapt to the caloric restriction by expending fewer calories.
When you start eating less, the body will start to burn a smaller number of calories. This totally disproves the notion that cutting 3,500 calories from your diet will make you lose one pound of body fat per week.
Consuming more protein will maintain your current muscle tissue
When you eat fewer calories, there is always the risk that your body will start using muscle tissue as an energy source. There would be nothing better than to be able to cut calories and shed body fat only, but unfortunately, that is not how our bodies function. Which is why we need to eat more protein if we are to protect our muscles from wasting and being used as fuel.
When you reduce your total daily calories but increase the protein intake you protect the muscle tissue and when you maintain the current muscle mass, you prevent metabolism decline.
Generally, a person that consumes 3000 calories per day, or 3500 fewer calories per week than the time they consumed 3500 every day, will save a lot more muscle tissue, which will enable them to maintain a more functional metabolism, by consuming more protein.
In order to optimize his results, a lifter should be eating, as we previously mentioned, at least 1 gram of protein per 1 pound of bodyweight a day, with the upper limit being 1.5 grams.
For example, a 200-lbs bodybuilder that eats 3000 calories per day can eat 300 grams of protein, or have 1200 of his daily calories coming from protein every day.
This is 40% of the total intake and is excellent for preserving the muscle tissue of a bodybuilder who is in the process of dieting for a bodybuilding contest.
There can be hormonal shifts during dieting
One of the most crucial, yet neglected factors of being on a diet is the effect of the caloric reduction on the hormonal levels. A study has shown that men who are on a high-protein diet experienced higher levels of IGF (Insulin-like Growth Factor) as opposed to men who were on a low-protein diet, despite the total caloric intake being the same for both groups. IGF has a big effect on metabolism and increases muscle tissue growth.
Related : Most Common Ways to Elevate Your Muscle Building Hormones
When there is a stimulus for muscle growth, even at a time when the total caloric intake is lower than normal, the overall metabolic rate and the ability of your body to burn fat increases. That means that if you follow a low-protein diet you could miss out the benefits of IGF, which translates into having less muscle and a lesser impact on metabolism.
Make sure that you eat high amounts of protein (1 to 1.2 grams of protein per 1 pound of bodyweight daily) and you will drastically improve hormonal levels that will help you burn the body fat more efficiently.
Foods’ glycemic index has an effect on fat burning ability
It’s been confirmed with many studies that being on a diet consisting of foods that have a low glycemic index assists in body fat loss even at a time when total caloric intake isn’t restricted. It’s also been shown that those who followed a low-fat diet have lost a lot less body fat in comparison to those who were on a diet with foods full of carbs with a low glycemic index, despite the fact that the low-fat group ate fewer calories.
Among the foods that have low glycemic index are oats, buckwheat noodles, buckwheat pancakes, red potatoes, cherries, oranges, yams. They are known to digest more slowly, convert more slowly into glucose, which is the body’s main energy source. Carbs that are being digested slowly will make your body less prone to storing them as fat in comparison to other carb sources.
It’s likely that the main reason why this happens is because of effects on insulin release. Insulin is a hormone that has the potential to increase fat deposits which increase with increased carb intake. It’s a fact that the more refined a carb source is, which means it has a high glycemic rating, the higher the release of insulin.
Higher levels of insulin, will, in turn, make your body very prone to storing fat, while having low insulin levels will make the body prone to using fat as fuel.
If you decrease your total daily calories by 3,500 per week, while you are still eating high-glycemic carbohydrates, it is likely that you’ll fail to lose any significant amount of weight, you may lose less than one pound of fat per week or you may reach a plateau.
That is why decreasing total caloric intake by 3000 calories per week, which is a moderate cut, and eating mostly low-glycemic carbohydrates, whilst consuming a lot of protein, will increase the time period during which the body will continue to burn body fat.
The timing is also important for fat loss
It’s a general recommendation that one needs to eat less as the day progresses, especially carbohydrates since insulin sensitivity is reduced later during the day. Insulin sensitivity is the ability of the hormone to transport nutrients into muscle cells. When it is reduced, the pancreas needs to release more insulin in order to do the same job.
It’s also problematic that insulin increases fat deposits. If you eat meals that have high carb content later during the day, when insulin sensitivity is very low, you will start experiencing bigger spikes in your blood insulin levels and greater fat gains. During the late hours, substitute high-carb meals with high fiber food sources which are found in vegetables and focus on eating more protein.
Conclusion
At first look, managing body fat levels may seem easy and be simplified to calories in/calories out, but as we’ve seen it’s not that simple. There are more factors that need to be taken into consideration especially when it comes to the dietary needs of professional bodybuilders on a cutting diet. Caloric intake reduction is just the first step.
Afterward, you need to increase consumption of protein and low-glycemic carbohydrates, while at the same time decreasing consumption of dietary fat.
Additionally, you need to start eating more frequently, especially in the earlier hours to an optimal hormonal environment inside your body that will be more effective at burning fat while maintaining your hard-earned muscle tissue.
