We all know that consuming excess calories leads to weight gain.

Therefore, surely consuming less calories leads to fat loss?

But as mentioned above, this logic is not always true – here’s why in more detail.

While it is true that a calorie deficit (eating less energy than you expend) results in fat loss, a deficit of usually about 20% of maintenance calories is more than adequate (the more advanced you are, the less this rule applies to you).

• What this would mean for a girl weighing 65Kg with a maintenance level of approx. 2’000 calories would be to drop her calories by 400 (20% of 2,000) to 1’600 calories.

• What this wouldn’t mean for the same girl would be to drop her calories (often without even realising) to 1’100 which is well below her BMR of 1’350.

Why is this severe calorie deficit a problem?

Because you’re not even supplying your body with enough energy for it to carry out its basic everyday functions (breathing, blood circulation and everyday brain activities).

Therefore, when you do supply your body with some food, its going to prioritise putting that food to use to carry out those basic everyday functions at the expense of using food to fuel your exercise sessions, build lean muscle and recover.

The reason a lot of my clients (particularly women but also men) struggle to eat the amount of food I recommend to tone up and get leaner lies in their previous eating habits.

Often, prior to starting their lifestyle journeys with me, they were consuming high calorie but low nutrient foods.

These are foods which don’t necessarily make you feel satisfied or energised after eating them yet they bump up your calories significantly.

In fact, they’re often foods we want to eat more of because of the sugar cravings they give us yet after finishing them, we still feel like we could eat more.

Examples include cereals, white breads & wraps, scones, croissants, fizzy drinks & high calorie caffeinated hot drinks (latte’s – even though I agree they do taste awesome!) you get the idea.

So while its easy to consume a lot of these foods, its actually not a lot of volume of food.

Here’s two examples to show you what I mean:

• Having a croissant and a latté for lunch isn’t a large amount/volume of food yet this alone contains about 450 calories.

• Compare that to a chicken curry stir-fry with a chicken breast, steamed veg and 50g of rice. Both of these lunches contain the same number of calories.

While both of these meals have the same number of calories, one meal is low in nutrients, the other is nutrient dense.

One will make you feel tired and sluggish, the other energised, active and alert.