Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
#155: Calorie Deficits - Myths, Methods, and Practical Applications
913 Plays1 month ago
In this episode of the Kate Hamilton Health Podcast, I return to the basics with an in-depth discussion on calorie deficits, addressing common misconceptions and emphasising the importance of proper nourishment.
I explain how a calorie deficit works, clarify the role of basal metabolic rate in calorie burning, and demystify tracking calories for effective fat loss.
I introduce practical methods such as the hand portion method for those who prefer not to track calories and offer tips on maintaining a balanced diet.
Additionally, I highlight the benefits of gradual, sustainable fat loss and the importance of consistency over restrictive dieting. Tune in to learn how to tailor these insights to your lifestyle and achieve lasting results.
00:00 Introduction to Calorie Deficit
00:55 Understanding Calorie Deficit
01:49 Calories In vs. Calories Out
06:11 Tracking Calories: Methods and Tools
19:47 Hand Portion Method Explained
25:19 Conclusion and Coaching Services
Links & Resources:
- Learn more about KHH coaching here
- Subscribe to my weekly coaching newsletter here
- Access my FREE calorie calculator here
- Connect with me on Instagram here
- Connect with me on Facebook here
- Connect with me on TikTok here
- Connect with me on YouTube here
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with friends who might benefit.
Music b LiQWYD Free download: hypeddit.com/link/xxtopb [http://hypeddit.com/link/xxtopb] Promoted by FreeMusicPromo [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbycji-eySnM3WD8mbxPUSQ] / @freemusicpromo
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Calorie Deficits
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of the Kate Hamilton Health Podcast. Today i want to bring things back to basics. I want to start talking about the dreaded calorie deficit. I want to talk about all things calories. I want to talk about why a calorie deficit is important. I want to talk about how You don't have to track your calories to be in a calorie deficit. And
Understanding Calories and Myths
00:00:29
Speaker
i just kind of want to lay everything out on the table so that you can take from it what you want and what is relevant to you and apply it to your life in the most practical way. That's my thoughts behind this. I'm aware that I've spoken about tracking calories before and I've spoken around this topic a lot because it's what I do. I feel like coming at it from a different angle is always helpful.
00:00:52
Speaker
So with that in mind, let's get stuck into things. When it comes to like what actually is a calorie deficit. So but like if any of you have been listening to me long enough or, you know, most of you will know that calories are the measurement of energy in your body. A calorie deficit is when you are consuming energy.
00:01:09
Speaker
less energy, less calories than what your bad body is burning. So
Calorie Burning and Daily Activities
00:01:13
Speaker
when I talk about consuming calories or energy, we get that from food. From diet culture, we think that calories are a bad thing that we need to avoid or minimize.
00:01:24
Speaker
Absolutely not. We need fuel and nourishment from calories to function properly, to stay alive. They are so important. They're not something that we need to super restrict. We want to start getting smarter with our food choices. So we're getting the most bang for our buck with our calories and that we're being properly nourished and fueled. So that's the calories coming in is coming from food. The calories going out is often a huge misconception that we to burn the calories we have eaten to lose fat. Eating that donut means three hours on the treadmill. We have to separate that. That's not what calories in versus calories out is. Our bodies are far more complicated than that. When it comes to burning calories, your body burns calories by just being alive. Lying in bed asleep at night.
00:02:11
Speaker
Your body is burning calories by your heart beating, you breathing, you digesting your food, everything. So the when you go about your day to day life, your body is burning energy.
00:02:23
Speaker
It's burning the fuel that you've given us to function. Someone who has a very active job and lifestyle will need more calories than someone who has a more sedentary job. We actually burn most of our calories from just our day-to-day lives by basic bodily functions. That's called our basal metabolic
Resistance Training and Metabolism
00:02:43
Speaker
rate, often known as coma calories. have no control over these calories. You're just burning them by being your fabulous self.
00:02:52
Speaker
Where we think we have the most control in burning calories is going to the gym and doing a really intense workout or getting on the cross trainer for an hour and looking at the amount of calories. Our gym time and our workout time has the least amount of impact on our calorie burn than anything else. can control the amount of energy we burn is in our day-to-day life. This is where the whole kind of 10,000 steps thing comes into place, which you don't really have to hit 10,000 steps. It's just about how many steps are you doing and can you start moving a little bit more? Having a step goal that's suitable for you can be really helpful. If you're someone who currently gets 3,000 steps and you start doing 5,000 steps, that's going to be a huge difference to your daily calorie burn. Little things like doing more housework, gardening or Parking further away when you're going to the shops, walk the kids to school. All of these little things control our calorie burn by being a little more active and less sitting around. You know, even things like standing desks can make a huge difference. It's just to kind of have an understanding of what's going on.
00:03:51
Speaker
And the last a place where we can really control our calorie burn, I like to keep it as simple as possible. It's how my brain works. with building lean muscle tissues. This is with our resistance training. Again, this is a whole other episode and I will get so deeply passionate about
Healthy Calorie Deficits for Fat Loss
00:04:09
Speaker
this topic in another episode. But the more muscle you have on your frame, the more calories it takes the more energy it takes to keep your body going because muscle mass requires more energy.
00:04:21
Speaker
Doing resistance training two to three times a week over the period of time, you're going to increase your basal metabolic rate that those coma calories, the calories of just keeping you alive because you'll have more muscle on your frame. When you eat more protein in your diet, protein has the highest thermic effect, the amount of energy it takes to break down and digest the food. Also, when we eat lots of non-starchy vegetables, the amount of calories in the vegetable versus the amount of energy it takes to break down That food, you know, all of these things add up and this is how we feel fuller for longer as well. I really want to zone in on this for a while and step by step, we are going to go through all of these areas and really dive deep in them so that you can really understand why you're doing what you're doing when someone says, oh, eat more protein or eat a rainbow or something. what like whatever it is, you know, like work out and lift weights twice a week.
00:05:14
Speaker
Why? We're going to really get into that in the coming weeks. So make sure you stay tuned for that. I just wanted to talk about the calories in versus calories out. So when I talk about a calorie deficit, what we want to do is consume slightly less calories than what our body is burning.
00:05:31
Speaker
That does not mean
Tracking Calories: Benefits and Misconceptions
00:05:34
Speaker
reducing your calories to the bare minimum and be like let's get this over and done quickly your body doesn't work like that if you restrict too much is you're going to mess with your hormones you're going to not just burn body fat you're going to start burning into muscle tissue you are not going to get the results quicker restrictive eating will always lead to overeating it's not a case of eating as little as possible. It is counterproductive. Yeah, crash diets and extreme restrictions backfire in the long run. You want to get into a slight calorie deficit. We are going to talk about two of the main methods to do it, which is tracking calories and the alternative that I like to use as well with clients, which is the hand portion method. and I'm going to talk about both of them when it comes to tracking calories. So when it comes to all these different diets, I don't care whether you'
00:06:29
Speaker
doing intermittent fasting, you're a vegan, you eat meat, you don't eat meat, you eat carbs, you don't eat carbs, you're paleo, you're keto, you're this, you're that. It doesn't matter. If you are not in a calorie deficit, you will not lose body fat.
00:06:44
Speaker
Because what happens is your body's going to use the food that you're eating to burn energy, to get the energy it needs. If you reduce the amount of calories you're eating, the body still needs energy and that's when it will take the energy from the body fat.
00:06:57
Speaker
There's all of these different diets. I've named keto of intermittent fasting, the vegan diet. Some people do different diets for health reasons or ethical reasons, and that's your own business. i by no means cast any type of judgment on anyone. Everyone has to do what's right for them. My job is to give you the scientific facts and help you make healthy choices in a way that makes sense for you. It doesn't matter which diet you followed or had success on, to lose body fat. and If you were successful in losing body fat,
00:07:26
Speaker
it had you in a calorie deficit because that is the science. It's the calories in versus calories out. Like I talk about quite often as well, we are a lot more complicated than calories in versus calories out. So that James Smith narrative of, oh, it's just calories in, calories out. That's probably more relevant to men, not always, but for women, we have a lot more going on with our hormonal fluctuations that can make things more challenging. It doesn't matter how healthy you eat. If you are not consuming less calories,
00:07:56
Speaker
than what your body is burning. You're not going to lose body fat. but Like i'm so healthy, eat loads of nuts and seeds and avocados and, you know, I don't eat whole grain bread. And that is really healthy. That can clock up the calories if it's not managed. I'm talking about fat loss as a goal here.
00:08:11
Speaker
If health and maintenance is your goal, that's not something you need to stress about as much. Just eat a healthy balanced diet. But if
Tools and Strategies for Calorie Management
00:08:17
Speaker
you want to lose weight, we have to get a grip on portion control, which is where tracking calories comes in.
00:08:27
Speaker
So why track your calories? Tracking calories can get a bad rep. People think it's super restrictive, it's damaging, it causes eating disorders, it's obsessive, it's restrictive. And like, yes, if used with the wrong intention, in the wrong context, it can be harmful. But the same is true of anything.
00:08:47
Speaker
We track our finances, medical markers through regular blood tests or regular checkups. We track our steps. We track our educational progress. There are so many things in life that we track. So why should tracking what we eat be branded as a bad thing when tracking all the other things that are considered positive? So I think that's the first thing we need to realize.
00:09:12
Speaker
And. I think that tracking calories creates an awareness of what you're actually consuming versus what you think you're eating. Now, I do have a free calorie calculator.
00:09:26
Speaker
I will share the link in the show notes below this episode so you can check it out to get that calorie calculator so you know where to start. My calorie calculator is great because it'll give you all of that information. It'll give you your BMR, your basal metabolic rate. It'll tell you what your maintenance calories are, how many calories it takes to maintain your body weight. And then it'll give you fat loss calories in a slight calorie deficit. It'll also give you muscle building and weight gain calories, and it'll give you the right ratios of protein, carbs and fats.
00:09:54
Speaker
So it's really, really detailed, really, really helpful. So if you do want to try tracking your calories, check out the calorie calculator, give it a go and see what you think.
00:10:08
Speaker
Now, if you don't want to use the calorie calculator, what you can do is try this method. I recommend everyone does this anyway because it's great for self-awareness. However you're eating right now, just start tracking your calories as you eat. Don't change anything. Track everything.
00:10:26
Speaker
Weigh, measure and input. And we'll talk about apps in a minute. Track it all, okay? And just see how many calories are you consuming every day. Do it for a week.
00:10:38
Speaker
even two weeks. So you can see the pattern. Some days you might eat lower, more like are you eating way more at the weekends? Check out how much protein are you consuming? How much healthy fats are you consuming? How much saturated fat are you consuming? Are you getting enough fiber? What is your sugar intake? Calorie trackers will give you all of this information. Just eating as you are will give you a really clear idea. and then be able to figure out an average. What are the average calories that you are currently on? And then all you'll need to do is bring it back by about 300 calories.
00:11:10
Speaker
And stick at that number. So let's just say you're currently eating 3000 calories. If you bring that back to 2700, even 2600 and stay like that for a week or two weeks, that's going be enough for you to see a difference. Looking at our calorie burning activities, we add in a little daily walk. That's also going to help. but Your body will get used to that. Keep tracking your progress. Weigh yourself every day. There will be ups and downs. We'll talk about the scales on another episode.
00:11:38
Speaker
Take photos and measurements as well. Have a tight pair of jeans that you're using as a measure. Be patient, but be consistent with your measurement of the progress. Then you'll be able to be like, OK, that's not working anymore. We'll bring it down to 2,500 calories, 2,400 calories. You might be consuming 2,200 calories and you need to bring it down to 1,900 calories. doesn't mean any of these numbers are your numbers. If you do the calorie calculator and it gives you really high fat loss calories, trust it.
00:12:03
Speaker
This is about consistency. Now, obviously, as you start to lose body fat over time, you will probably need to reduce your calories a little bit further eventually. But the actual tracking calories will just show you how much you're eating, how little protein you might be eating. We're going to talk about protein, all these things in the coming episodes. how to increase it, why we need to increase it and how much is too much. Once you start tracking where you're at, you get a really clear picture of where your food is at to start. When it comes to apps, I'm a big fan of my fitness pal.
00:12:32
Speaker
There are other tracking apps like NutriCheck. A lot of our clients use NutriCheck as well. I always give my advice around my fitness pal because it's the sword one that I use and I'm not familiar with the other ones. My fitness pal is great. It will always try and make you buy the premium. I pay for the premium one.
00:12:46
Speaker
You don't have to. And there's always like a sneaky little X button and that you can click out of the ad. The free version will be absolutely perfect. If you want to pay the little bit for the premium, I don't think it's that expensive. With tracking on MyFitnessPal, you're going to be able to to you know scroll down to the bottom of your food diary, click the nutrition button and look at the different nutrients that you've consumed. You will be able to save your recipes and your meals on the app as well.
00:13:11
Speaker
What's really important when you get going with a tracking app like MyFitnessPal is They will give you calories. You'll have to put your details in and they will give you calories and the calories will be always too low.
00:13:23
Speaker
They will be too low and sustainable. But it's so important that you go with the calories that you have gotten from my calorie calculator and that you're consistent with it. If you're not seeing progress after a week or two, you can lower them by 100 at a time. Be patient with this. Cutting calories right down to 1200 is not going to work. That's what causes this diet cycle that hasn't worked up until now. If you're listening to this episode, you're interested in finding it a method that actually works. Just trust this process. You will be able to input your own calories into MyFitnessPal. If you go to the goals section, you might need to do it by percentages, but you'll be able to get it as close as possible to what MyCalorieCalculator app has given you. When you get, then just get started tracking at, like if you've started just tracking where you're at and you're bringing calories down gradually, then you're getting it down into a deficit. Be patient with yourself. You're not going to be perfect at first. There'll be days that don't go according to plan. Don't wait till the following Monday.
00:14:17
Speaker
This is why I'm always a big fan of taking progress every day. Each day is a new day. Each meal is a new meal. And you will learn from things that aren't working. Tracking your calories. It's always a good idea to track the night before for the day ahead. So you're heading into the day with a little of a plan What am I having for breakfast, lunch and dinner?
00:14:33
Speaker
What kind of snacks am I going to have? Always leave a few calories for your chocolate bar, your bag of crisps or whatever, and then fill the rest of your day like regular meals, breakfast, lunch, dinner. Make sure each of them have some protein, carbohydrates and healthy fats in them and plenty of vegetables.
00:14:51
Speaker
We'll get into why in the coming episodes, but for now, just make sure you're doing that much and track it all. You'll be able to be like, oh, God, yeah, I really need to start bringing my protein up. Maybe I need to have a little bit more chicken here or Greek yogurt. The main thing is awareness, patience and awareness when tracking and not be getting annoyed with yourself and things are not going according to plan. You will need a digital kitchen scales. You will need to weigh and measure portions to understand your true servings. Like if you're guessing, you're messing.
00:15:21
Speaker
you need to know what you're having. When it comes to eating out, AI is amazing for this. You can take a photo of your meal, give it to your AI app, whatever one you use. I actually use one called Claude. I'd be like, hey Claude, how many calories do you reckon are in this meal? I sent a photo and he gives me a whole breakdown of it. And then I can find something similar in my fitness pal to track it.
00:15:43
Speaker
It's game changing. Like I don't think anyone who's only starting to track calories now that you understand the struggle for any of us that did this before. Eating out was just so stressful. If you really wanted to stick to your deficit, you would end up just saying, no, fuck it, because it was just too hard.
00:15:58
Speaker
Now we actually have something to do the thinking for us. It's incredible. When it comes to tracking calories as well, it's like I said, accuracy, weighing, measuring, super important, but also like remembering things like milk in your tea, butter, oils, like everything. You want to start tracking everything. Just make it a non-negotiable while you're in this fat loss phase.
00:16:21
Speaker
that you're tracking no matter how many calories you're over. If it passes the lips, it's going into MyFitnessPal or whatever app you're using. If you're over your calories, it doesn't matter. At least you're facing it. Just put it in and see how many calories you come out with. We need to detach the emotion from it because it's like, why do I feel guilty? You haven't killed anyone. Calm down.
00:16:41
Speaker
You're over your calories a bit. You add a whole packet of biscuits, so what? It doesn't make you a bad person. It's that guilt we attach to it that is soul destroying and ruins us being able to to move past it. Instead of it being like, oh my God, I'm such a bad person. Why can't I do this? Being like, did I skip breakfast? Have I had enough protein? Have I eaten enough vegetables today? Did something really bad happen today? Like really stressful? What's the cause of this? We start to get a little bit reflective on it. Detach the emotion from it.
00:17:10
Speaker
Track everything. Because what you're not aware of, you can't fix. You will also get frustrated if you haven't put everything into my fitness pal. And you're like, I've been tracking my calories for two, three, four weeks. And I'm not making any progress.
00:17:22
Speaker
But have you been tracking them accurately? And if you have, are you in a calorie deficit? That's how powerful tracking can be. When you can just take it as it's not a stressful thing. If you can come from a place of curiosity rather than judgment on yourself, it can be game changing for you.
00:17:45
Speaker
As well with tracking calories, no cheat days. Okay, there is no cheat day. You will send yourself out of a calorie deficit. you stick to your deficit calories, seven days a week. What you can do is bank 100 or two calories each day have a little bit more flexibility at the weekend, but never more than 200 per day. Because if you do more than 200 per day, you're getting into that restrict and binge cycle, which you want to avoid. So you want to look at your calories as an average throughout the week. If you're on 2000 calories and you only have 1900 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, you've saved 400 calories to put a little bit more towards Saturday night. You're going to the cinema or something like that, or you're going out for dinner. It'll give it more flexibility. Having slightly lower days, slightly over days, it'll balance out. Remember, if
Alternatives to Calorie Tracking
00:18:29
Speaker
you have a night or a meal out,
00:18:31
Speaker
The scales will be up the next day, but that doesn't mean it's body fat. It's just the extra food, the extra salt, the extra sugar, the water retention from all of that. It'll come back down. Okay. So you just have to realize like there will be ups and downs throughout the week as well. And that's normal. We'll talk about weighing and measuring kind of further down the line again. So yeah, that's everything I want to say about tracking. Oh yeah. Also you don't have to track forever. It's a tool. It's a skill. Once you know how to track and once you get to where you want to go, you can like what we get clients often do then is we bring their calories up, get them tracking at maintenance.
00:19:10
Speaker
And then when they feel comfortable, they take the tracking away. they Just keep the habits in place. So any habit that you put in place, like your daily walks, lifting weights, eating plenty of protein, eating enough vegetables, drinking enough water, they're there to stay. You need to keep those habits in place, but you don't need to be weighing, measuring and tracking everything forever. But what you'll be able to is keep an eye on your progress. If your genes start to get a little bit tight, it's just like, right, OK, maybe I'll track for a few weeks and just pull back. Be like things are s slipping a bit.
00:19:38
Speaker
It's really empowering to have that tool in your back pocket to use as you need it. When you get to maintenance, using the hand portion method for portion control can be a really good way. want to talk about the hand portion method because you're someone who doesn't want to track calories.
00:19:52
Speaker
Tracking calories is not always recommended for someone who has suffered with disordered eating. A much better idea to take a more intuitive eating, healthy balance hand portion method to get yourself into a calorie deficit if you want to lose body fat or even for maintenance. Let's talk about the hand portion method. So with the hand portions,
00:20:10
Speaker
A portion of protein is a palm size portion. So the palm of your hand. A portion of carbohydrates is a cupped handful. So a cupped handful carbs. So like imagine like dry carbs, like, know, pasta, rice, oats, that kind of thing. A portion of fat is thumb.
00:20:29
Speaker
Depending on your, like whether you're male, whether you're female, your body size, you might need one, two or three portions protein. of each of these per meal.
00:20:41
Speaker
You need at least one portion, if not two portions of protein with each meal. Your carbs and fats portions can be a little bit more. Some people prefer slightly higher fat diet. Some people prefer it slightly higher carb diet. That's really down to personal preference. With the hand portion method, you want to be having at least three meals a day, breakfast, lunch and dinner. You can have four or five mini meals if you prefer. With each meal, you want one to two palms of protein, at least two cupped handfuls of carbohydrates and at least one to two thumb portions of fat. Now, this is where intuitive eating comes in. You need to eat slowly and mindfully. See how much feels enough for you. You will need to monitor your progress with this.
00:21:28
Speaker
and eat as much non-starchy vegetables as possible, like onions, garlic, peppers, spinach, cucumber, and all of those things, as much of them as possible. You don't need to measure your non-starchy vegetables. The starchy ones like potatoes, sweet potatoes, parsnips, consider them carbohydrates when you're measuring. You don't actually need to physically put the chicken fillet onto the palm your hand or the oats into your, but you'll get an idea by, <unk>s it's just a great visual for you. If you think about protein, like,
00:21:57
Speaker
One palm sized portion of protein be a chicken fillet, a turkey burger, two eggs, 100 grams of Greek yogurt or a scoop of protein powder. but That would be one portion of protein. Carbs, we tend to overeat, but I don't think you need to worry too much about restricting your carbs. If you focus on actively putting more protein into each meal, it'll pull back from the carbs a little bit anyway. This just makes portion control and tracking much more doable. It's not just random because everyone's hands...
00:22:24
Speaker
the size of your hands are in proportion with the size of you, like the size of your body. so A six foot man is going to have a bigger hands than a five foot six woman. I'll say about the hand portion method, it it doesn't give the same flexibility of food choices that tracking calories can, which can be a good and a bad thing. But you know, if you fancy a little chocolate bar or a packet of popcorn or whatever, it's like, where does that go? So what I'd always say is stick to your hand portions and then allow up to 300 calories to for the snack foods and to just don't go over that 300 mark. Maybe try two portions of each per meal for now, like two pounds of protein, two cupped handfuls of carbohydrates, two thumbs of fat per meal. That might need to be reduced or it might need to be increased. But that will depend on your hunger levels, progress and consistency. You need to give it a week or two weeks monitoring monitoring your progress, stepping on the scales every morning. There will be ups and downs, like just noting the ups and downs and then looking at the average for the week, looking at the average the following week.
00:23:26
Speaker
Are the scales coming down a little bit? How are the measurements? How are your progress photos looking? How are those type pair of genes feeling? You need to keep an eye on all of these things. If you're not making progress, you might need to reduce one of the portions of carbohydrates or one of the portions of fat. Always reduce from the carbs and the fats before you reduce from the protein for that thermic effect. But just
Sustainable Weight Loss Approaches
00:23:48
Speaker
for keeping fuller for longer, stabilising your blood sugar levels, it's so important. You also might notice if you're feeling hungry,
00:23:57
Speaker
what on this method, you might need to increase the hand portions. It's a little bit more flexible, but again, this is all about patience. If we can take the time limit off this and we can just really dedicate ourselves to, I'm going to explore this. I'm going to find out what works for me.
00:24:15
Speaker
like you and you'll be highly successful. And the thing about losing body fat in this slow and sustainable way, whether you're tracking calories or using the hand portion method, is the skills that you're learning and what you're learning about yourself in this slow and steady way.
00:24:28
Speaker
You will keep this off forever. This will be the last time you'll have to lose weight. You might need to do a tidy up after a holiday or an indulgent Christmas, but you'll have skills. You'll have the habits in place. but
Nourish Her Coaching and Conclusion
00:24:38
Speaker
This is sustainable fat loss. So what is the rush? We have to slow down. We have to take our time and really immerse ourselves in the process, fall down, pick ourselves up and go again. It's like a kid learning to walk. They don't just try walking and then fall over and be like oh, I can't do that. I give up.
00:24:57
Speaker
I'm a failure. I can't do like what's wrong with me they get up and they go again and they go again and we've lost that along the way and it's because we attach it's the emotional attachment to not failing so we need to just be like right well what do need to change here what needs to fix and you will get there and especially if you keep listening to my podcast because I will be helping you all the way along the way and so that was everything I wanted to talk about around a calorie deficit I hope it has been helpful if you would like more support with your fat loss journey. I have the most amazing online coaching service called Nourish Her Coaching. And I would love to work with you. Myself and my team will take really good care of you. It is group coaching with one-to-one support as well.
00:25:46
Speaker
So you get the best of both worlds. If you are interested, the link will be in the show notes. We do an intake every month. So check the show notes and you'll be able to click on the coaching link to when our next intake will be. And you'll be able to get your name on the list.
00:26:02
Speaker
And...
00:26:05
Speaker
I just want to say thank you so much for listening to the podcast. If you enjoyed it, please do share it with your friends. If you share it on your stories, please do tag me and Kate Hamilton Health. If you are not subscribed, please subscribe to the podcast. It makes all the difference. And thank you so much for all of your support. And I will talk to you all next time.