Yes at the end of the day calories are what matter most if you want to truly lose fat as efficiently and as quickly as possible then you need to go beyond just calories and instead pay close attention to the types of foods that make up the calories you're ingesting every day and also how you go about ingesting them as that's what makes all
Three swaps that you'll want to make in your diet that accounts for those variables and can enable you to lose fat faster and then I'll provide you with a sample meal plan that puts all this together for you the first swap
You want to make with your diet is to stick them mostly with foods that have been minimally processed so for example foods like oats and multigrain bread as opposed to their refined counterparts such as cereal and white bread that have been stripped of most of their important nutrients and fiber not only are these less processed foods beneficial. When dieting in the sense that they generally provide more nutrients and keep us fuller for longer but they also have another unique benefit that has to do with something called the thermic effect of food which is the amount of calories that our body burns to metabolize.
Actually use the foods that we ingest and one of the unique fat loss benefits about unprocessed foods is that in most cases our body burns significantly more calories when digesting unprocessed foods than it does when compared to their processed counterparts for instance one study compared the caloric burn required to digest and metabolize
Two minimally processed sandwiches consisting of whole grain bread and real cheddar cheese versus two highly processed sandwiches that instead consisted of white bread and processed cheese although both meals consisted of virtually the same amount of total calories and protein the more processed sandwich had a 50 lower thermic effect and as a result the body burns significantly less calories digesting it than it did with the whole grain sandwiches similarly a six week randomized controlled trial has subjects stick to a diet consisting of either less processed whole grain foods such as oats brown rice and whole grain bread versus a calorie and macronutrient equated diet consisting of more processed refined grains instead such as cereal white rice and white bread .
They found is that the group that stuck with whole grain foods burned on average roughly 100 more calories per day just from digesting and metabolizing their food than the processed food group did and to put this into perspective given that the average person burns roughly 100 calories to jog a mile you'd essentially be doing the equivalent of jogging an extra mile a day.
Just by choosing to incorporate whole grain less processed foods as opposed to more processed foods for most of your meals and if you crunch the numbers over three months this simple change would theoretically enable you to burn 2.5 pounds more fat just by making that switch so yes wild calories are what matter most and while you definitely will still burn fat despite eating processed foods as long as you're still in a calorie deficit you can further influence the calories outside of the equation and potentially speed up the these foods for whole grain less processed foods instead and let them do the work for you fat loss process by simply swapping
Distributing your meals throughout the day because while yes again your
total daily calorie intake is what matters most for fat loss it turns out that the manner in which you distribute these calories throughout the day seems to be more important than we've previously been led to believe illustrating this is a recent 2020 paper and another similarly designed 2015 paper that compared the effects of using a more front heavy distribution approach by allocating more calories to breakfast versus a back heavy approach by allocating more calories to dinner instead what the researchers found is that subjects using the front heavy approach not only experienced significantly less hunger and significantly less cravings for sweets throughout the day but they also experience greater overall energy levels meaning that they were able to adhere to
The diet more easily and they likely burn more calories throughout the day from fidgeting walking and just moving more in general because of their increased energy levels and in fact this protocol was also repeated in a
longitudinal weight loss study which found that subjects using a front heavy
approach lost more weight decreased
Their waist circumference to a greater degree and reported greater hunger
control over a period of 12 weeks when compared to a group that used a back heavy approach by simply swapping the breakfast and dinner calories indicating that there does seem to be some indirect
Fat loss benefits to allocating more calories to your meals early on in the
day and this is something that i personally noticed as well i used to be someone who would save a lot of my calories from my evening meals because i knew that that's when my cravings would really hit but when i instead experimented with shifting more and more
Calories to early on in the day and I'm at breakfast i found that not only did
my energy levels throughout the day and my gym performance considerably improved but i also just wasn't craving things as much at night because i just wasn't as hungry now obviously this does vary for the individual and may depend on when your workout takes place but regardless
I would highly suggest even if you're intermittent fasting for example to at
least experiment with just shifting more and more of your calories to your first meals of the day as this does seem to have some unique benefits in terms of enabling you to control your cravings to burn more calories and potentially
Create greater fat less results in the long run as a result now the last swap
is something and it's to not only choose mostly unprocessed foods to include in your diet but you want to also choose the ones that are highly satiating and proven to do the best job at suppressing your appetite as this will enable you to better adhere to your diet and minimize any excess snacking you may be doing throughout the day that's sabotaging
Your calorie deficit and based on the findings from the satiety index which
examined the effects of 38 different common foods on hunger levels we can
clearly see that on a calorie for calorie comparison some options are just
better than others when it comes to controlling your appetite for example
even with calories equated four simply swapping whole grain bread for oats
instead will provide a 25 greater effector suppressing your hunger.
Swapping brown rice for whole grain pasta or boiled potatoes instead will
provide a 30 or 60 percent boost in satiation respectively so what I'd
suggest is look over the index and experiment with swapping some of these
more satiated foods into your diet and just see how your body and appetite
responds now to put everything together for you let's go through a sample meal plan that not only incorporates these various tips for you but also tastes great I'll use roughly 2100 calories for this meal plan but keep in mind that you want to adjust the portion sizes based on what's needed for you to be at a calorie deficit this is going to vary for everyone .
For lunch we'll be tapering down the calories slightly but still sticking
with satiating unprocessed foods with baked salmon boiled potatoes and a side of sautéed asparagus Then to keep you going until dinner you can have an orange and can even plant in a protein shake as well depending on when your workout is and then for dinner we'll continue tapering down the calories slightly with baked chicken breasts and a side of veggies roasted in olive oil.
And then after dinner to help satisfy whatever sweet cravings may have popped up we'll make a simple high protein Greek yogurt parfait consisting of zero percent fat plain Greek yogurt mixed in with cinnamon and stevia for sweetness and then top with frozen mixed berries and a tablespoon of chia seeds super easy to make yet extremely satisfying so hopefully that meal plan gives you a little more insight into how you can start planning your meals based on what i went through while still keeping everything tasty and satisfying and just keep in mind that although some of the swaps i mentioned here can definitely help speed up the fat loss process just know that at the end of the day adhering to a calorie deficit is what's most important so experiment with your diet.
