The most important thing for Fat Loss? A Calorie Deficit or Resistance Training?

This is a question I have battled with my whole career. As a Personal Trainer, I take money off of people to help them “achieve their goals”. To get them to “where they want to be” or whatever other “….” cliche we want to put in there.

And my conflict often comes from knowing that “Calories are King” when it comes to losing weight…so why do all Personal Trainers insist on lifting weights and exercising as much as they do?

“Eat less…move more”

Personally I detest the above quote…because it oversimplifies something that is just not that easy to figure out. It's a crass phrase that shames those who are struggling with their weight and doesn’t take into account the most important thing about them…their humanity. But this article will change that quote into:

“Eat less...vs…Move More”

and all that goes into that. It started with my client this morning, and we got into this discussion, which inspired me to sit down and write this for you.

So let's break it down, in this article, we will look at:

1. Why are calories so important for Fat Loss?

2. Why do we lift weights for Fat Loss?

3. What role does cardio play? And quick-fix low-calorie diets?

4. Conclusion

Why Are Calories so important for Fat Loss?

It doesn’t matter what way you spin it. It doesn’t matter how you look at it, and it doesn’t matter how many times your scream the word “Insulin” the facts are the facts. Are the facts.

The only way to lose weight is a Calorie Deficit [1, 2]. I know it's not what you want to hear. But if all things in your life stayed equal then nothing will change. If we then change one factor, that being the number of calories you eat, then you will start to see a difference on the scale. How big a difference will depend on the amount of a calorie deficit you implement.

Sounds a little too good to be true. Just eat less…right? (eye roll)

To understand this a little better, and the importance of a Calorie Deficit you need to first understand what a Calorie is:

Calorie /ˈkaləri/noun

1. The energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 gram of water through 1 °C (now usually defined as 4.1868 joules).

2. The energy needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water through 1 °C, equal to one thousand small calories and often used to measure the energy value of foods.

So Calories relate to how hot they make water? Which is a very confusing way of looking at the definition. The part of the definition you need to focus on…in terms of your fat loss…is “the energy needed”.

A calorie, all a calorie is, is a unit of measurement, and it measures energy. The same way a mile measures distance, or a litre measure volume, a calorie measures energy.

Our bodies are like engines, and these engines use calories for fuel. If you overfilled your fuel tank at the Car Garage, it would spill over. If you overfill your body with calories…you gain bodyweight.

Therefore the opposite would be true if we reduced our calories. If you didn’t overfill the car at the garage, you would have less fuel in your car…and, therefore, wouldn’t gain as much body fat.

You would also be able to travel less far…which brings up a great point regarding how being in a calorie deficit can affect your ability to keep your NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis) up as your body will not want you to reduce your calories because our bodies always like the state they are in, as they feel safe in that place…whether or not it might cause health issues later down the line. This is also where the “starvation mode” myth comes into the argument, and yes, it is a myth. But these are all arguments for another day. What we can draw from this paragraph is that it all comes down to balance, and balance is the most important word in the English and Fitness vernacular.

How you balance your calories (fuel) is to reduce to a point, so you can still reach your destination, but don’t reduce so much you have to fill your tank up again.

Now we have a grasp on what a Calorie is, I hope you can see how important it is for your Fat Loss, and why it is the governing rule for Fat Loss.

Why do we lift weights for Fat Loss?

My client this morning that inspired this Article sums this point up so well, I wish I could get him to repeat the conversation we had.

Quite often in my career, I have had clients stay with me for a number of years, despite the fact they aren’t really losing weight. They love the feeling exercise gives them, they love the experience, despite not having the results.

Now three things play into this I believe…

1. Exercising regularly helps them try and stay in balance when they aren’t taking their food intake seriously enough to get the results they decide. As the saying goes…“You can’t out-train a bad diet”;

2. They realise that weight training is an investment for their future self;

3. I’m just tons of fun and they love being around me.

Of these three things, only one of them do we really need to explain. And that's number three.

I mean look at me — fun or what?

Ok.

Fine.

Its two. Number two is what you need to focus on.

Let’s go back to my client this morning. He stated “I am now 16 stone and its not where I want to be” he has trained with me for nearly a year and although he had success in the past…it has wained of late and he realised this. What I found most interesting about the conversation was his next statement: “I’ve weighed this before…but this time I am wearing it better”

And my brain screamed Ah-Ha!

Despite knowing all the theory, knowing all the information that other fitness professionals say and do, and how they all recommend weight training for Fat Loss…I think as professionals we never truly understand it until you see a client go through it.

Like always when a client is in a situation like this, I immediately help them see their successes, and this client has many successes:

1. Can Bench Press 45kg for 3 sets

2. No longer has big bouts of back pain

3. Can do 3 sets of 12 Push Ups with ease

4. Gets out of breath a lot less

5. Can run a mile in 9:27

6. Looks stronger

7. Has bigger biceps

8. Prefers his physique

And the last three points are the key here. The last three comments are what justify his comment “wearing it better”.

Some of his weight probably is muscle gain, but if he hadn’t spent a year with me lifting heavy weights week in and week out, working on the areas of his body he felt self-conscious about and doing the work each and every week then he wouldn’t feel as motivated as he is right now to get back ontop of his Fat Loss goals.

The sheer fact he has worked hard and managed to get his body into a place where he is happier with the way he looks, despite gaining a little extra weight recently is truly wonderful, and a testament to his work ethic in the gym. I look at weight training in the Fat Loss field of fitness as the following:

Lifting weights is an investment into your future self to protect yourself from body fat increases. It is not a short term fix to the problem.

Sure. Lifting Weights does burn calories and lots of them. Far more than cardiovascular training because it improves your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)and your Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) (how many calories you burn via organ function and respiration) and that is exactly what has happened to my client. He has gained weight a lot slower than he would have, had he not spent the last year working hard in the Gym.

Muscle uses a lot more calories to maintain than body fat. This is why someone who is very athletic can eat the same as someone who is overweight, and they still both lose body fat. The muscle is like a high-performance car that needs just as much fuel as an efficient vehicle with flat tyres. The energy is being utilised far better and for a better outcome.

Therefore if you want solid, future proof Fat Loss then you have to get in the Gym and lift weights…as well as be in a Calorie Deficit. Because of how difficult a Calorie Deficit can be to maintain over a sustained period of time, there will be moments where you slip into higher-calorie refeeds [3] and momentum calories [4], you need to build yourself an insurance policy — and lifting weights is that insurance policy.

Your BMR and RMR is the biggest piece of your Metabolism at 70%. Therefore increasing it will take time because a lot of it is out of our control — namely your Organ size and your height. The portion of our RMR that is under our control is our Muscle Mass and Body Fat Mass— and therefore we are looking for small increments in this field.

As we build a muscle we basically put more Fat Burning Factories known as Mitchondira into our body. Mitochondria are little cells that are known as the batteries of your muscles…and the space we have for them (the bigger the muscle) the more of them we develop. As always…let's refer to an Instagram Post:

So think of your Weight Training and Resistance Training as your Pension Fund. Put away 6.25% of your wages every month for your pension when you reach 65 years old you will have a pretty good pot of money.

NB: I’m not a financial advisor so that percentage could be way off

Exercise does burn calories mind you, and a good solid hour in the Gym lifting near maximal lifts and working hard on compound movements will maybe burn 220kcal approx. if you weigh 154lbs and are male [5].

Building on your Metabolism is a great way of insuring your body's ability to not gain fat in the future. But for the present, although you should get started straight away on lifting weights because the benefits are astoundingly worthwhile like:

1. Improved Joint Health

2. Improved Mental Health

3. Improved Social Health

4. Improved Confidence

5. Improved Physique (despite not losing weight necessarily)

It will not in and of itself help you lose bodyweight unless you use it as a tool to get into a Calorie Deficit. Each Gym session just helps you get into a Calorie Deficit for that day by about 200 calories…but the yield of that over time, and the way you change your body's composition will and can last you a lifetime…as long as you keep at it.

What role does cardio play? And quick-fix low-calorie diets?

Ahhh Cardio. My dear friend.

And quick fix low-calorie deficits my immortal MLM enemy.

Now knowing all that you know about Calories and Resistance Training, I am sure you are on board, except for one nagging question.

“How come Sally from over the road who runs a 5km every day is losing weight?”

And that is a great question, to which you know the answer: Sally is in a Calorie Deficit.

“So lets go running then?”

Not so fast. Literally. In terms of time spent exercising for calories burnt, yes Cardio, for the beginner is a great option as you do burn more calories by running for an hour rather than lifting weights. But it poses a few problems.

Your body adapts to exercise and the stress you put it under quite quickly. Therefore in order to keep up the level of exercise intensity, you will either have to go faster or for longer on your run. Whereas in the gym you can just add reps and plates…not miles and minutes. And if you are reading this…I’m sure having to add time to your already busy schedule isn’t going to be easy.

Added to that…you are doing very little to protect yourself from your future self. We all know an injured runner who gained weight after they could no longer keep it up..and that's because although the running was great for their Cardiovascular health they didn’t add enough muscle to their body to keep their body an efficient calorie-burning machine.

All the runner is doing is losing weight. Not adding muscle to their bodies, and therefore opening themselves up to injury, and hitting an unbreakable plateau.

Now don’t get me wrong…I LOVE CARDIO. I have run marathons, my best 5km is ~21mins and I am long-legged and cover the ground quickly (it would be even quicker if my ears didn’t flap in the wind so much) and you should totally add Cardio into your Fat Loss Exercise Regime. That doesn’t mean run 5kms if you don’t want to. A brisk walk each day is going to help you get into a Calorie Deficit via NEAT, and its going to help you keep your joints and your heart healthy. It should be part of what you do. But not the entirety of what you do.

And quick fix low-calorie diets?

If it's all about a Calorie Deficit...then it stands to reason you should just drink water and maybe the odd protein shake and reap the rewards. That is one way of getting into a Calorie Deficit yes. But again, it is fraught with issues.

This study from 2012 which looked into “Very low-calorie diets (VLCD) and sustained weight loss” reviewed all of the literature relating to VLCD, and stated the following:

Therefore, the pessimistic 1958 view of Stunkard and McLaren‐Hume ((1)), that most patients will not lose weight, is no longer true. However, their statement that most patients regain their lost weight is still true. Although there are difficulties in comparing studies because of large variations in the design and control of study variables, the overall picture is still very negative [6].

A VLCD will work. In the short term. Most patients will regain their weight. Yes, there will be few, very few that manage to overhaul their lives enough to make a VLCD stick forever…but I highly doubt you are in that category. Just think of the stressors you are under right now, family, work, loved ones etc…

Can you change enough of them…to make sure that this diet is sustainable enough? I highly doubt it, and nor should you have to.

To Conclude…

The answer is, and always will be a Calorie Deficit is most important for you to lose weight.

Exercising not only helps you lose weight in the present moment, although it might not be as much as you first thought, it can also help you maintain your weight loss over much much longer period of time and protect you when your Calorie Deficit does, and believe me it will, go arry.

Exercise also helps you keep an improved physique if you do gain weight again, and it allows you to feel a bit happier about yourself at the higher weight you have become.

And by doing so… you will never have to consider a VLCD, that won’t work anyway, ever again.

Please remember….it takes time. I have spoken quite casually about time in this article, but you need to think in terms of 12–18 months. Not 6–8 weeks.

And thats it. A Calorie Deficit is still the King of Fat Loss, by me, Adam Berry

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Coach Adam

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References:

1. 2020. [online] Available at: <https://www.nature.com/articles/ncpendmet05https://www.nature.com/articles/ncpendmet055454> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

2. Publishing, H., 2020. Heart Beat: A Weight Loss. [online] Harvard Health. Available at: <https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/Heart-Beat-A-weight-loss-secret-Calories-matter> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

3. Syatt Fitness. 2020. Creating An Effective Fat Loss Program. [online] Available at: <https://www.syattfitness.com/fat-loss/back-to-the-basics-creating-an-effective-fat-loss-program/> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

4. Syatt, J., 2018. Fat Loss To Maintenance (How To Transfer). [podcast] The Jordan Syatt Mini Podcast. Available at: <https://anchor.fm/jordan-syatt/episodes/Fat-Loss-to-Maintenance-How-to-Transfer-e1httu> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

5. Choosemyplate.gov. 2020. How Many Calories Does Physical Activity Use (Burn)? | Choosemyplate. [online] Available at: <https://www.choosemyplate.gov/resources/physical-activity-calories-burn> [Accessed 17 April 2020].

6. Wiley Online Library. 2012. Very‐Low‐Calorie Diets And Sustained Weight Loss. [online] Available at: <https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1038/oby.2001.134> [Accessed 17 April 2020].