Why you should focus on fat loss and not weight loss!

A lot of our users on our platform ask us how to lose weight. Many are even concerned about reversing their lifestyle disorders like diabetes, thyroid, hypertension, high cholesterol, PCOD issues. In most cases, cultivating healthy habits will ensure that both fat loss and lifestyle issues are reversed naturally without medicines. However, its first important to discuss how to lose weight correctly and then use correct terminology always (Fat loss and not weight loss) so that there is no confusion about our expectations and fitness goals.

First of all, losing weight requires you to keep your daily calorie intake lower than calorie expenditure which is calculated as per your current age, weight, height, gender and activity level. But how much should you go down in calories is the question?

Many of us have been to dieticians who follow a very restrictive calorie diet like 800 calories or 1000 calorie diet. Such diet leads to weight loss and not fat loss. Guess what happens in such diet!?? You lose weight through muscle loss and become micronutrient deficient which is the main reason for hair loss, low energy levels, brain fog, confusion, forgetfulness and unwillingness to follow a diet and eventually you leave the idea of losing weight and accept who you are! The difficulty level of following such plans is also so high that we almost quit everyday and plan not to follow this ever.

If you are following such a plan with very low calories - your body will want to quit because clearly it’s not the correct thing to do and your body knows best when to stop. It asks you to stop such a diet because it is losing muscle becoming micronutrient deficient which will lead to even more problems in future.

Even worse, is the fact that such calorie restrictive diets usually rely on brown bread, oat breads, whey protein powders, granola bars, green teas, cornflakes, muesli, digestive biscuits, oats bran biscuits - which are all processed / packaged foods that are never recommended by Fitgalaxy.

In a limited calorie diet if you have bad quality food you will always feel hungry. Why? Because most of these products are full of added sugar, refined flour, artificial sweeteners, chemical stabilisers, colours, flavours, stabilizers and chemical preservatives to increase shelf life of a product which are great for creating profits for companies but have no good impact on human health! They give instant gratification but this is followed by insulin spikes (which gives hunger pangs too soon) and hormonal imbalances which never gets cured with such diets.

So now the next important question you should ask is if not restrictive diets which diet to follow to ensure you lose fat and not muscles and also cure lifestyle issues?

Do the following:

• Eat a balanced diet consisting of only simple home made food (only foods available in nature and not made in a factory or lab. These are only foods available 150 years back with no processing. For example - roti, hand pounded brown rice, idli, dosa, all dals, sambar, chana, rajma, aloo ka paratha / methi / mooli / palak paratha, unprocessed non veg food items (chicken curry, mutton curry, whole egg (including the yolk which is rich in vitamins / minerals), all fruits, all vegetables including potatoes / starchy vegetables, cold pressed organic oils, ghee, milk, paneer, curd / buttermilk. Eat only such foods and not digestive biscuits, cornflakes, brown bread (which is mostly refined flour), dark chocolate (from the market) etc thinking you are on diet food.
• Ensure that you are exercising regularly - not just yoga, walking and meditation but proper strength training exercises and aerobic exercise done at a high intensity. By exercising, you create a demand from your body for good nutrition - which you can meet with natural and unprocessed food.
• Get high quality and adequate sleep - bedtime before 10:30 pm and duration of above 8 hours in complete darkness (no lights on at night) and lower screentime before sleeping.
• Also add in 30 minutes of minimum walk in sunlight to ensure adequate vitamin D and excellent circadian rhythm of the body (body's internal clock which requires sunlight during the day and sleep / darkness at night)
• Be motivated by your goals and not stressed out (cortisol levels go high with stress and lead to fat gain).

By following the above, in a few weeks, you will have high energy levels, better mood, strong hair, nails and skin - more importantly your body won’t want to quit as its not a drain on your mental reserves caused by intake of processed / packaged food. Your insulin level will also be regulated which means you won’t feel hungry too often and definitely you will see great improvements in all lifestyle diseases any of your thyroid issues, cholesterol problems, PCOD issues, diabetes…

Along with this, you will also achieve fat loss and not muscle loss - which is the way to do healthy weight loss! Your calorie intake should only be 250-500 calories less than calorie expenditure (which is calculated based on your stats and activity level).

Finally, just by eating only 100% natural, unprocessed, local and traditional foods, and maintaining a routing of regular exercise, sleep, sunlight and motivation (not being stressed) - your hunger levels will also autoregulate to a level where you will be eating the appropriate calorie intake naturally to take you to your ideal body weight. The same principles are to be followed for fat loss, muscle building and to reverse lifestyle diseases!

Now if you are a female reading this article, following such a plan will lead to only fat loss and retaining / building lean muscle mass. This is healthy and you will look lean and athletic and not bulky. Infact when you lose weight the right way, you look much much leaner with lower levels of fat and higher levels of lean body mass.

Hope we are clear on the difference between weight loss and fat loss and why everybody should aim to lose fat and not only talk about weight loss!

For now please feel free to write comments and share your experience with crash diets and anxiety of following such a crash / fad diet which humans were never supposed to follow!