Weight loss comes with being in a calorie deficit, or eating less than your body needs to operate. Fat loss comes with how those calories are broken into specific macronutrients (protein, carbs, fats). You can 100% be eating healthy, but still gain weight, in fact, you can even get fat “eating healthy”.
First thing to do is log all of the food you’re eating, and be very specific with how much of it you’re eating. Then, calculate your total calories and the macronutrient breakdown. That’s your starting point. Then, use a tool like freedieting.com to calculate how many calories your body needs based off your age, height, weight, and activity level. (This is an ESTIMATE, everyone is slightly different) From there, you can explore different types of macronutrient ratios to see which works for you. If you’re going for weight loss and for fat loss, as mentioned above, you’ll want to be in a caloric deficit and have the right macronutrient breakdown. A good starting point would be 50/30/20 of protein: carbs: fat. There are other options, but that one in particular seems to work well (and is most balanced) for building muscle and losing fat. However, there are some exceptions because, as previously mentioned, everyone is different.
Very important note: There are a lot of experts and resources that will bash the idea of counting calories or counting macros, but the truth is, in my personal experience, if you have no idea what you’re doing and you’re struggling to see results, then you need to find your starting point. Once you find that starting point and get a better understanding of what you’re eating, how much you’re eating, and how your body responds, then you don’t have to worry about counting anything, but until then, you cannot have the expectation that you can “listen to your body”, eat whatever you want, and see great results without understanding how things work first.
Read this post on intuitive eating for lean muscle + the six steps to starting your own diet.
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