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#110: How to create a calorie deficit using tracking and hand portions
822 Plays1 month ago
In this solo episode of The Kate Hamilton Health Podcast, I break down how to achieve a calorie deficit - the key to sustainable weight loss.
I chat about two different methods: tracking calories and the hand portion method, so you can find the best approach for your lifestyle. I also share why starting with higher calorie targets is so important, how to use my calorie calculator for accuracy, and why a balanced, sustainable diet beats restrictive eating every time.
Plus, I share you practical tips for using MyFitnessPal to track your intake effectively and explain how to manage your weekly calories for long-term success. If you're looking for a simple, flexible, and science-backed way to lose fat without obsession, this episode is for you!
Episode Breakdown:
[00:00] Introduction to calorie deficit
[00:35] Understanding calorie deficit and hand portions
[01:24] Hand portion method explained
[04:31] How to start tracking calories
[05:42] Tips for accurate calorie tracking
[06:33] Sustainable weight loss strategies
[08:24] The different phases of fat loss
[11:21] Managing weekly calorie intake
[14:04] How to use MyFitnessPal for tracking
[20:01] Final takeaways and encouragement
Links & Resources:
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with friends who might benefit. For more health and fitness tips, follow me on Instagram and TikTok @katehamiltonhealth.
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Transcript
Introduction to Calorie Deficits
00:00:08
Speaker
hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Kate Hamilton Health Podcast. So in today's episode, we have a solo episode and I am going to talk through all things calorie deficit and mostly around tracking calories. Now, I know back in the day, I've definitely done an episode on this, but I think it's such an important topic to dis discuss that it was time that I just revisited it a little bit.
00:00:32
Speaker
So let's get into it.
Why is a Calorie Deficit Necessary for Weight Loss?
00:00:35
Speaker
You need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. It's the first thing I want to say. it It is science. Energy in versus energy out. You need to be consuming less calories than what your body is burning in order to to lose body fat.
Alternatives to Calorie Tracking: Hand Portions
00:00:47
Speaker
But you don't need to track calories to be in a calorie deficit, if that makes sense. So with my coaching, what I usually do is I give clients the option of calorie tracking or hand portions.
00:01:00
Speaker
So your hand portions, which I'm going to talk through now in a minute, would coincide with your calories. And with clients, I will give them very specific hand portions. that they can follow, which will coincide with their calorie allowance if they don't want to go down the route of tracking calories.
00:01:16
Speaker
So with the hand portion method, I'm aware that you most of you won't see me as I'm talking about this. So i'm me doing an action is probably not going to be all that useful. So I'll just talk you through it. The hand portion method.
Using Hand Portions for Macros
00:01:26
Speaker
In general, most females will need one to two portions of protein, carbohydrates, and fat per meal.
00:01:36
Speaker
Now, obviously depends on the size of the female and the age. Like there's so many, so this is very general, but you know, in general, finding a good healthy balance place and you can adjust from there. One to two portions of protein, one to two portions of carbohydrates, one to two portions of fat per meal. Okay. And most males need two to three portions of protein, two to three portions of carbohydrates, two to three portions of fat per meal.
00:02:03
Speaker
Again, this is extremely generalized. Okay. In relation to what those portions are. So a portion of protein is a palm sized portion. So the palm, a size of the palm of your hand.
00:02:14
Speaker
So one portion would be the size of your palm, your hand, think maybe two eggs or a chicken fillet or a hundred grams of Greek yogurt or a scoop of protein powder. That would be a palm sized portion of protein. One portion of carbohydrates would be one cupped handful.
00:02:28
Speaker
So if you imagine what you could fit into a cupped hand, you don't actually have to physically handle your food like this, but you know that you get it. It just gives you an idea for a visual and a portion of fat then is one thumb portion of fat. that can be the oil that you're cooking with as well, but butter, cheese,
00:02:43
Speaker
nuts, seeds, all of that. Think thumb sized portion will give you an idea. And again, you don't actually have to line it up the size of your thumb, but you know, the thumb sized portion is going similar to a tablespoon. So I think that's a good way to look at it.
00:02:54
Speaker
That's one portion of protein, one portion of carbs, one portion of fat. Females, one to two of those portions of each of those per meal males, two to three portions of each of those per meal.
Adjusting Hand Portions for Weight Loss Success
00:03:05
Speaker
Keep your snacky foods under 300 calories. So your popcorn, your crisps, your chocolate, the bits that you enjoy. I'm a big fan of pick a time in the day that you enjoy to have them. Most people like it in the evening time. It's up to you.
00:03:16
Speaker
Keep it under 300 calories and then eat as much non-starchy vegetables as you like. So your starchy vegetables are your potatoes and your sweet potatoes and turnips and parsnips and things like that. Count them as carbohydrates. All the rest of the vegetables, spinach, onions, garlic, peppers, lettuce, all of those kind of things. Eat as much of them as you like.
00:03:35
Speaker
Bulk up on them with your hand portions and keeping your snacky foods under there. I guarantee you, you will drop body fat if you follow that method. If you want a little bit more guidance on that, then that's exactly what we can work with you with the Kate Hamilton Health Online Coaching Service with getting your specific hand portion.
00:03:52
Speaker
But it is something you can do yourself. all Like, you know, if you're ah female listening, for example, start with two portions of protein, two portions of carb, two portions of fat per meal with your 300 snacky calories, snacky foods and as much non-starchy veg as you like.
00:04:05
Speaker
Give it a week or two. If you're not losing any body fat, your weight's not dropping or you're not noticing difference in your measurements or photos. then take away maybe one portion of fat per meal or one portion of car but carbohydrates per meal or keep the protein where it is.
00:04:18
Speaker
And, you know, so you can take away one of those little portions, but always make sure if you do end up taking things away that you still have one portion of protein, one portion of carbs, one portion of fat per meal.
00:04:30
Speaker
So I hope that makes sense.
Starting Calories and Using a Calorie Calculator
00:04:31
Speaker
Now, in relation to tracking calories, okay, what is really, really important when it comes to tracking calories is that you don't start on too restrictive calories.
00:04:43
Speaker
Now, I have a calorie calculator, which will give you all of the information you need. You can get it on my website, KateHamiltonHealth.com. or if you go to one of my social medias, hate Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, brought it whatever you follow me on, and you click the link in my bio, you'll be able to access it there.
00:04:59
Speaker
This will give you the exact calories that you need. It's going to give you your TDEE, which is your total daily energy expenditure, which is the total amount of calories that your body burns in a day to maintain where it's at now.
00:05:14
Speaker
It'll give you your basal metabolic rate or your BMR. And that is basically the lowest amount of calories that you need to stay alive. They're also kind of nicknamed the coma calories. Okay. So you shouldn't be eating at your BMR. You shouldn't be eating at your basal metabolic rate. You should be eating more than that.
Effective Calorie Tracking for Consistency
00:05:31
Speaker
And what it then your report will give you your fat loss calories and what your fat loss calories will be will be about 300 below your maintenance calories. Now, these will always be a starting point and you might need to adjust.
00:05:42
Speaker
But what is really important is when you start tracking your calories, whether you're doing it with a coach or whether you're doing it on your own is start high. I'd always just start by tracking the food that you're currently eating.
00:05:53
Speaker
See what kind of amount of calories you're eating on a day in a non and non-judgmental way. How many calories are you eating every day currently? And then just eat 300 calories less than that for a week or two. Track your weight every day. Do measurements and photos once a week.
00:06:06
Speaker
Notice the difference. Once you're tipping away at it, once there's progress being made, that's enough. It's not about intensity. It's about consistency. When things start to stall, then you can drop them by 50 calories. So just say you you started your fat loss journey on 2000 calories and then things start to slow up and you're like, okay, i don't think I'm making progress on 2000 calories anymore.
00:06:25
Speaker
Bring it down to 1950 and see if things start moving again. And then you can always bring them down to 1900. But if you start on 1200 calories, you've got nowhere to go. Okay. And what I want you to think about is not putting anything in place that you're not willing to do forever.
00:06:39
Speaker
So don't start running five kilometers every single day just to keep your weight down. If you hate running and you don't intend to keeping it up or don't start just eating salads and giving up pasta and you know, you're not going to do that forever.
00:06:50
Speaker
And then as soon as you go back to being a normal person, you'll put the weight back on. So I want you to realize that long term and sustainable weight loss takes time and it takes consistency.
Sustainable Habits vs. Quick Dieting
00:06:59
Speaker
And as boring as that sounds, it's the truth.
00:07:02
Speaker
So because it's going to take time for you to get to where your goals, it needs to be achievable and it needs to be enjoyable. Okay. It doesn't have to be torture. So even though I'm telling you it's going to be a slow and boring journey, it doesn't have to be boring.
00:07:15
Speaker
You know, the habits are going to be repetitive and boring and that's the way it is, but boring can be good. You can bring plenty of joy into that. You can feel amazing. You don't need to wait until you reach your goal to feel amazing.
00:07:27
Speaker
It's not the number that makes you feel amazing. It's the habits that you do to get you to the number. So remember that. So that can happen from day one or week one or even week two, if it takes you while to find feet, that's totally fine.
00:07:40
Speaker
But you can start feeling amazing straight away. It has to be achievable. It has to be joy enjoyable. It shouldn't be miserable. And it shouldn't be super, super restrictive because we cannot keep to it long term.
00:07:51
Speaker
If you start on too low calories, apart from having nowhere to go you're actually training your body to lose weight on very low calories. And then your body will stop responding. And that's exactly where the yo-yo diet cycle happens.
00:08:04
Speaker
There's nothing wrong with you not being able to stick to it. It's just you are being too restrictive. You're literally fighting a losing battle. So we're breaking away from this.
Phased Approach and Diet Breaks
00:08:13
Speaker
Not only are your long-term habits important to me, so is your health and your metabolic health. Okay.
00:08:19
Speaker
The healthier your metabolism is, the more successful your initial fat loss phase will be. I'm going to do a whole other podcast on this. I'm not going to get too bogged down on this, but if you have a good few stone to lose or a good few kilos to lose,
00:08:32
Speaker
You know, if you've got two or three or four or five stone to lose, or, you know, you've got 20, 30, 40, 50 kilos to lose. I'm terrible with kilos. I'm very much a stone and pounds girl. But if you have quite a lot of weight to lose, you need to know that this is going to have to be done in phases.
00:08:47
Speaker
I say this all the time now. Dieting and trying to diet is just as exhausting. We want our fat loss phases to be as efficient as possible. You want to track your calories, lose body fat, and then take a break.
00:08:59
Speaker
So you need diet breaks. So I'm a big believer in 10 week phases, you know, going into a, into a calorie deficit for 10 weeks at a time and then taking ah decent amount of weeks. Now depends on the person at maintenance, at least at maintenance. If you're training hard, then we want to want to even go into an improvement phase.
00:09:19
Speaker
I'll do a whole different episode on phases again. But what happens is your body will stop responding. Your body will have had enough of a deficit and you will need to bring things back to maintenance and spend anything from two weeks to eight weeks at maintenance to then go again.
00:09:34
Speaker
And quite often what happens is when people bring the calories back up to maintenance, they actually end up dropping more body fat anyway. They have more energy for their workouts. They're walking more. They feel better. They're more motivated to keep the food that they're eating good quality.
00:09:47
Speaker
And what happens is after taking a diet break, when you go into your next fat loss phase, which will be another 10 weeks, your metabolism is ready for it. And you go again, especially if you've been strength training, you'll be able to lose body fat more effectively and probably on higher calories.
00:10:03
Speaker
And that's what we do over time. We build that metabolic health. So when I say it's a journey, I really mean it. It it is a journey, but it is such a worthwhile journey and it's the most empowering feeling ever.
Why is Accurate Tracking Crucial?
00:10:14
Speaker
But in relation to your calories anyway, as well, if you're like, if you got the go to my calculator you're like, Jesus, Kate, those calories are very high. Ask yourself when you track your calories, do you track seven days a week?
00:10:25
Speaker
Literally, do you track seven days a week? Do you track every gram of food? Do you weigh everything? Do you measure everything? Or are you guesstimating and kind of just tracking some days and not the other? With the calories that you get on that calorie calculator, I want you to track seven days a week. Now, this is not about being super restrictive.
00:10:42
Speaker
We need the data. In order for you to effectively drop body fat, you need to be able to see, if you're not, you need to be able to see your whole week. You need to be honest with yourself and get that information tracked.
00:10:53
Speaker
Use MyFitnessPal. If you're familiar with NutriCheck, use NutriCheck. That's fine. I'm MyFitnessPal girl. It's got the best database. and You don't need to pay for the premium. The free version is totally fine and you will find your feet with it. I'm going to talk a bit about the actual tracking in a few minutes anyway, but you are tracking seven days a week. You need a digital kitchen scales.
00:11:12
Speaker
You need to weigh and measure everything so that what you're putting into MyFitnessPal is the same as what you're putting into your mouth. Otherwise there's no point. Seven days a week, your calories over the whole week. So that means, right?
00:11:22
Speaker
Just say I always use 2000 calories because my maths, it's just easier for my maths. If you are on 2000 calories per day, seven days a week, seven days of 14, that's 14,000 calories over the whole week.
00:11:34
Speaker
And I'm a big fan of this, right? I like have a little bit more on a Friday, a Saturday and Sunday, you know, out and about with Dave and the kids, you know, we tend to do movie nights on a Friday night or a Saturday night. We have a little bit of popcorn and a bit of chocolate and stuff.
00:11:45
Speaker
And I like to do that. And I think that's important quality time
Balancing Weekday and Weekend Calories
00:11:48
Speaker
with my kids. And I know it's not all about food, but I like to be able to have little snackies with them. Okay. So I like have a little bit more calories at the weekend. So when I'm in a calorie deficit, if I was tracking 2000 calories, it doesn't matter what calories you're on. Okay. I'm just using 2000 as that's an example.
00:12:01
Speaker
I would have 200 calories less on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. it's two, four, six, eight. I've now saved 800 calories to put towards Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
00:12:16
Speaker
And this is not a restrict and binge kind of thing because 800 calories spread over two days, three days, sorry, my God, is like just slightly over 250 calories extra, which means then I can have 2,250 calories instead of 2000 calories on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So if you get what I mean, I'd be having 1800 calories Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, then Friday, Saturday, Sunday, I'd be having between 2200 to 2300 calories the weekend.
00:12:41
Speaker
and then that balances out as an average ah two thousand calories per day So it is about the weekly average calories. And this is what we do with the with Kate Hamilton Health app as well, the Daily Habit Forum.
00:12:53
Speaker
You know, when you input your calories each day, you can see your average calories for the week. And that's what it's about. And that's about ah getting a sustainable routine that works for you. Now, it is never about super restricting. at the way If you super restrict during the week, you will binge at the weekend.
00:13:09
Speaker
Restrictive eating always leads to overeating. I'm actually going to repeat that because that's so important. Restrictive eating. always leads to overeating. So never save more than 200 calories per day.
00:13:22
Speaker
Even if your current calories are 1600, you can save. If you can stick to the 1400, you can save that 200 per day to have a little bit more at the weekend, you know, to go out for dinner or to meet a friend or just to, you know, move on with your kids, whatever.
00:13:34
Speaker
But never, never save more than 200 per day because then you're malnourished on those four days. So that's really, really important. And then also you don't
Setting Up MyFitnessPal
00:13:42
Speaker
want to be binge eating. at the weekend. And that's really, really important. So 200 calories per day can be saved to put towards an event. and a give And then it means you can keep making progress.
00:13:51
Speaker
And it is just about tracking ahead of time and being organized, which I think I talked about in yet in my last solo podcast, where I talked a little bit about tracking in the evening time for the day ahead is so, so important.
00:14:04
Speaker
If you are new to tracking your calories, you are going to use MyFitnessPal. Okay, this is an app. It will try and make you pay for the premium version. You don't need to pay for the premium version. My fitness pal is absolutely perfect on the free version. Okay. My fitness pal will try and give you super low calories.
00:14:20
Speaker
Do not go with the calories that my fitness pal is giving you. It's going to try and tell you that you should be on 1200 calories or something ridiculous like that. You don't need to be on calories that low. Use my calorie calculator.
00:14:31
Speaker
on my website or on my social media link in bio, ah and then you're going to input them. So when you're inputting your calories on MyFitnessPal, if you click the three dots down the bottom where it says more, and when you do that, you'll see a big list of things and you'll see thing that says goals.
00:14:46
Speaker
Click on goals. And then you'll see nutrition goals there and you'll see calorie, carbs, protein and fat goals. And then you'll click on that and you will be able to, it you won't be able to adjust your calories without the premium version, but you will be able to adjust your macronutrients and you'll be given macronutrients from my calorie calculator.
00:15:06
Speaker
You'll be able to adjust them by percentage to as close to your calorie total as you're going to get. And you will be able to do that that way. So that is the first thing you need to do on my fitness balance, get your calories right.
00:15:16
Speaker
If you're my fitness pal is connected to your Apple watch or your fitness watch or whatever, do not eat the extra exercise calories it gives you. Okay. The calories that you get from my calculator, you'll be putting in your activity levels in there and it will be incorporating your activity levels into the calculation. So just stick with the baseline calories that I give you and don't eat the any extra calories that are being added on. You can actually, I'm not sure exactly how, but you can, you Google it, disconnect your fitness watch from my fitness pal. You don't want it to be adding extra calories on for you.
00:15:50
Speaker
In relation to when you start tracking your calories. Okay. The most important thing is to be patient with yourself. Just start playing around with the app. Okay. Get used to it and don't be worried about being perfect.
00:16:01
Speaker
Okay. It has a huge database. Now, apparently someone has told me that anyone who is new to MyFitnessPal, I think you you can't scan barcodes without the premium version, but what you can do is search their database. So for example, if you're having pasta, you can type in pasta Tesco and it will then Tesco pasta will come up.
00:16:19
Speaker
And you'll see it, you know what i mean? So you can actually type in the name of the brand and the product and it will come up for you. Or then generic things like potatoes, eggs and things like that will be in there. The blue ticks will be the verified items.
00:16:31
Speaker
If there's an item that isn't verified, you'll see loads of different options I've put in there. Go with the one that seems to come up the most. Okay. You will be able to track an item. And when you click on a food, okay.
00:16:43
Speaker
So here on mine, I'm looking at basmati rice. The serving size might just say a hundred grams. So you can actually change that 100 grams to one gram. And then you see number of servings, then you could put, if you wanted 60 grams rice, you could put 60 servings of one gram to get the correct amount of weight. So you can change the actual quantity of the food there.
00:17:04
Speaker
That's really, really important as well. So what you're weighing and measuring, make sure it's the same as what you're inputting into MyFitnessPal. When it comes to dinners and lunches and things like that, you can save things as meals and you can save things as recipes.
Meal and Recipe Tracking with MyFitnessPal
00:17:19
Speaker
So if you go back to the home section of MyFitnessPal, if you go back to the dashboard, again, if you click those three dots down the bottom that say more, and then you can go to my meals, recipes and foods.
00:17:31
Speaker
You can create a recipe on MyFitnessPal and like it it will calculate a portion for you. So for example, if you've got a cottage pie recipe for four people, input all the ingredients exactly as it says in the recipe, put in the amount of servings, four servings, and then press save.
00:17:49
Speaker
And then MyFitnessPal will actually... calculate the one portion, the calories in one portion for you. So then every time you have cottage pie, you just need to go to that recipe and click that.
00:18:00
Speaker
The important thing when you're cooking the the dinner then is to follow the weight and the quantities from the recipe correctly. And then just give yourself exactly one quarter of the recipe.
00:18:11
Speaker
Then you know that you're within your calories there. That's how I do meals like that. I have five people in my house. I tend to cook dinners for six people. And then I usually take up one extra portion for myself for lunch the next day, one portion for me.
00:18:22
Speaker
And then I just divvy the rest up between the other four people in my house. So I know I've got one sixth of the recipe that I've put into my fitness pal. With recipes, it's a bit tedious at first, but...
00:18:33
Speaker
You will build up a recipe bank. You only ever have to save a recipe once and it's done for good. So if you're anything like me, your kids probably eat the same few dinners on rotate. Like we always have like a Bolognese or a lasagna or a cottage pie or enchiladas Korma or trying to think like, you know, a chicken pasta dish or like, you know, it's always the same shit different day. Like, so all of my recipes are now on.
00:18:55
Speaker
My fitness pal. So it gets so easy to track after a while and you'll get used to it. In relation to like meals, like breakfasts, lunches, I tend to have the same couple. I have like a protein smoothie or I have my protein Weedabix every morning and for breakfast.
00:19:10
Speaker
So I have them saved as a meal. I literally just copy and paste everything. breakfast from one day to the next. So later on, when I'm tracking for tomorrow,
Encouragement for Beginners: Patience and Honesty
00:19:19
Speaker
I will go to my diary and I look at today and I look at meal one or breakfast, whatever it's down at. And down the bottom of that, where it says, beside where it says add food, you can click those three dots and then you can click copy to date.
00:19:32
Speaker
If you copy to date, you can then save it to meal one, copy to date meal one tomorrow. And then you've just saved the same breakfast across to the next day. And it's so easy. And I do the same for lunch.
00:19:44
Speaker
And then it means it becomes much less tedious. It's tedious at first. That's why I say be patient. stop trying to be perfect. You'll get used to it. You'll get into a routine with it. Tracking is a skill. It's like driving. It's like walking. It's like dancing. You get better at it with practice.
00:19:58
Speaker
And that's really, really important to remember. So yeah, lots to take in there, but I thought I'd just give a little kind of beginner's guide to tracking calories. As I've said, you don't have to track calories to be in a calorie deficit. But it is really important to note that just because you're eating healthy doesn't mean you're going to lose weight because food quality is hugely important.
00:20:19
Speaker
Nourishment is hugely important. You know, being in a calorie deficit on pure crap is not going to necessarily give you the results you're looking for. you know It's going to make a hell of a lot harder to stick to it. But energy balance does matter.
00:20:30
Speaker
In my opinion, hand portion method or tracking calories are the way to go so that you don't feel like you're trying so hard and getting nowhere. And it makes it measurable. and when something's measurable, it's achievable.
00:20:41
Speaker
The main thing I'll say is with tracking though, if you are tracking, be patient at first, give yourself time to find your feet with it. Okay. It gets easier. then be honest with yourself.
00:20:51
Speaker
Start tracking exactly as you're eating now and go from there. You can reduce slowly from there. Okay. But at least just, you know, learn about what your eating patterns look like right now and go from there and improve from there.
00:21:04
Speaker
But be honest with yourself because then if you're not making progress, you'll be able to see where the problems are.
Community Engagement and Coaching Program
00:21:10
Speaker
If you're lying to yourself, you'd be like, oh, I just can't lose weight. And you tell yourself a really disempowering story that you can't lose weight when you very much can.
00:21:18
Speaker
you're You're probably just a few steps ahead of yourself. And there's a few little issues that you need to fix first, which you can only know if you bring attention to it by tracking it and recording it and reflecting on it.
00:21:30
Speaker
So I hope that helps. As always, if you feel like you'd like an extra a little bit of help and support on your health, fitness, fat loss journey, please do check out my website, KateHamiltonHealth.com, which gives you all the info on my coaching options.
00:21:45
Speaker
We offer elite coaching, which is by application only. You can apply through the website or i have a group coaching service. We do intakes every eight weeks. Next intake is the 28th of April is when we start. We'll be intaking a week or so before that.
00:22:00
Speaker
And if you're listening to this after that time, the intakes do happen every eight weeks. Go to my website, KateHamiltonHealth.com and you will be able to see when the next intake is happening.
00:22:12
Speaker
So thank you so much as always for listening. And as I always say, if you did enjoy this episode, please do like, leave a comment or a review, share it in your WhatsApp groups, share it on your stories. If you share it on your stories, make sure to tag me, Kate Hamilton Health.
00:22:27
Speaker
And if you are not subscribed to the podcast make sure that you do and thank you so much all these little bits help and i will chat to you all next time