Hunger is the number one reason why people don’t achieve their long-term fat loss goals.

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Fat loss is achieved by consuming less calories than you burn. But you need to make sure that you don’t eat those calories back. Otherwise, you’ll end up back where you stated.

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One kilogram of fat is 7700 calories. Let’s imagine that you eat 550 calories LESS than your body needs every day for 2 weeks, you would lose 1kg of fat because this adds up to 7700 calories. Now imagine you eat 1100 calories MORE than you body needs every day for 1 week. You would regain that 1kg of fat that you lost because this is 7700 calories.  

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During these 3 weeks you may gain or lose a small amount of muscle, and you would lose a large amount of food and water weight during the diet and then gain large amounts during the overeating phases.

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When we eat less energy than we need, the hormones levels in our body change. These include:

• More ghrelin is released: which makes us hungry and crave food.

• Less leptin: meaning we feel less full when we eat and food feels more rewarding (especially high sugar/fat foods)

• More stress hormones: making us feel more anxious or depressed

• Less dopamine: reducing motivation for tasks unrelated to eating

• Less serotonin: meaning we feel less relaxed

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There’s an interesting quote that society is only 3 meals away from anarchy. Things run relatively smoothly when we our basic needs are met, such as food, but if we all had no food or money and hadn’t eaten for an day then we would probably be out looting supermarkets desperately trying to get something to eat.

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The purpose of this is a genetic safety mechanism to put psychological pressure for us to eat more and regain fat. Fat is our emergency energy supply when we can’t eat. Up until 150-200 years ago, our ancestors did not have the reliable surplus of food most of us today. If their hormone didn’t provoke an obsessive desire to eat whenever they were hungry, then they probably would have starved before they had the opportunity to pass on their genes.

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When we are dieting, we feel similar discomfort to starvation. This feels horrible but humans are incredibly resilient when we want to be. We can get through difficult dieting phases and achieve our fat loss goals.

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Some tips:

• Accept you are going to be hungry, and this will impact your mood.

• Focus on your goals. Your fat loss goals need to be more important than the temporary satisfaction of food.

• Avoid very large calorie deficits as these increase hunger (generally more than 500kcal)  

• Do not diet for too long as you will feel progressively hungrier. I recommend no more than 6 to 10 weeks. I’ve personally found 3-week diet phases work well for me.

• Periods where you don’t diet are just as important. This allows you hunger hormones to return to normal and prepare you for future fat loss phases. People that try to lose fat all year long do not get good results, end up burned out and frustrated with the process. You need to have diet breaks.

• When your diet phase finishes you still need to be conscious about your diet for the first few weeks as your hunger signals will remain high and it will be easy to regain fat if you are not careful. It’s extremely difficult to feel full when you have been dieting. I recently finished a fat loss phases and yesterday I accidentally ate 1400 calories above my maintenance. I was still hungry and would have eaten more if I hadn’t added up my calories and realised my mistake.

• TRACK YOUR CALORIES. Hunger is going to distort your perception of how much you are eating

• Be realistic if your current schedule or lifestyle will allow you to have a successful fat loss phase. If you are travelling often or have lots of social events where you will be eating and drinking socially then it’s probably best to wait until a period where you are in a better routine to attack the fat loss phase. December is the worst month for fat loss, due to Christmas. The start of spring often isn’t a good time, as people want to socialise more. January to March and September to November are the usually the best times of the year to put good fat loss phases together.

• Don’t make big increases in training while you are dieting. It will be harder to recover in a calorie deficit, and this will also make you feel hungrier. Build up gradually. Walking is probably the best activity to burn calories.

• Eat foods that provide high satiety (fullness) for lower calories: lean proteins, vegetables, beans, fruits.

• Limit or avoid highly processed foods high in fat or sugar. It’s much easier to eat lots of these foods without feeling full.

• It’s ok to eat more calories if you are extremely hungry or having a terrible day. If you don’t do this too often. Just know what your maintenance calories are and don’t go over, otherwise you will gain fat. This is where tracking your calories is crucial.

• DO NOT GET DRUNK OR DRINK OFTEN. Moderate alcohol consumption makes fat loss more difficult, but not impossible. If you drink more than a maximum of twice per week and more than 2 beers/glasses at a time, then you aren’t going to lose fat. You need to be prepared to cut down or give up alcohol if you want to achieve your goals.

• Don’t get discouraged if you slip up, this is certain to happen at some point. I’m a professional that tracks my diet and body composition EVERY DAY and I still have the occasional day where I go over my calorie limit before I realise. Even on my worst days of eating like Christmas Day or my Stag I’m in a 2000 calorie surplus, that’s about 250g of body fat gained. This isn’t the end of the world, as long as it doesn’t happen too often and I get back to good habits. The important thing is that you recognise the mistakes and learn from them.