When looking at science our body seems to work differently from one another. Nothing to be surprised about. Some people do well with low fat and some people do well with low carb when it comes to fat loss. Although there is a basic science about carbohydrate increase insulin secretion which is not ideal for fat loss, however, it is also fact that some people have done well losing fat with low fat diet.
Personally, my body prefers low carb diet when I want to lose extra fat. However, increasing carbohydrate in my diet works well when I want to perform in soccer or during my own training session. It is important to know the purpose and what works better for you.
Know the Difference
It is important to understand how the diet looks like for both low carb and low fat diet. Although I don't practice calorie counting, for our conversation purpose it may make sense to differentiate the two diet. Let's set the calorie to 2000 calories per day to keep the math simple.
There are three types of macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates, and fat. In 1g of protein and carbohydrates there are 4 calories and 1g of fat possess about 9 calories.
When practicing low fat diet the ratio of carbohydrate, protein and fat would be 6:3:1. This is the example of low fat diet. Ratio can be adjusted according to your needs. But lets keep this ratio and work with the calories and amount of each nutrients. Carbohydrate from above example will be 60% of 2000 calorie which will be 1200 calories. Since carbohydrate has 4 calories per gram, amount of carbohydrate per day will be 300 grams. For protein which will be 30% (600 calories) would be 150 grams. Fat is 10% (200 calories) in this example so it would be about 22 grams.
When practicing low carb diet the ratio of carbohydrate, protein and fat can be 1:3:6. In 2000 calorie diet, carbohydrate will be 50 grams, protein 150 grams, and fat about 133 grams.
Majority of times people mix these two concepts and not being specific to the body. When you are wanting to gain muscle and lose fat, which are specific goal, information you give to the body also needs to be specific. Imagine you are at the work and has specific goal set by your managers but instruction given to you is not specific. It is going to be hard to attain the goal. This is same for the body. Don't mix the diet!
Although I'm not huge fan of calorie counting, however, I do monitor what I eat and assess what I should eat for the next meal. If I am working on low carb diet but I had pasta for lunch, I will minimize carbohydrate (rice, pasta, bread) for dinner and have fish and vegetables.
Don't Mess With Protein
People tend to get weird about protein. During fat loss, along with other macro-nutrients, they have tendency to lower the protein intake, which is not a clever way to lose weight because it leads to muscle loss.
Most likely when you are on fat loss program, you are exercising or being active on regular basis, which is very important to maintain higher metabolism. However, without adequate amount of protein you will not have enough building blocks to repair muscles, tendons, and ligaments that has been damaged through your physical activities.
It is critical, especially in fat loss, to have adequate amount of protein whether you follow low fat or low carb diet.
If you are having difficulty meeting the protein requirement, it is ok to take them from supplements like protein powders. There are various protein powder available to meet everybody's needs including people who have lactose intolerance to those who follow vegan diet. If you are not sure of which to choose, you should ask your trainer or nutritionist for more advice.
Choose Your Fuel
When you are choosing low carb or low fat diet you are technically choosing what energy you are preferring to use. In other words, regardless of what diet you are following you will need adequate amount of energy source.
Often times when people follow diet, they tend to be consuming both carb and fat or equally lowering both. What this process does is it teaches the body to utilize protein or amino acids from consumed protein or muscles, to breakdown into fuel. I hope that is not what you are wanting to do. The body can use protein or amino acids as an energy source but that is in a process of starvation, which creates more complication making fat loss even harder.
Some of the consequence of inadequate amount of energy source (carb or fat) is lower metabolism, hormonal imbalance and decline in immune system.
When you are choosing a diet make sure to appropriately consume adequate amount of energy source. If you are on low carb diet you will need to increase fat intake and lower carbohydrate intake. If you are on low fat diet you will need to increase carbohydrate intake and lower fat intake.
In a 2000 calorie diet example above, if you are on low carb diet your daily allowance of carbohydrate is 50g and fat intake is 130g. If you are on low fat diet you should be consuming 300g of carbohydrate and 20g of fat per day.
Add Cheat Meal When Plateau
When you are going through fat loss, there will be a plateau. The body will become efficient at functioning at the diet you are in. Timing of adaptation may vary from person to person, however, it may happen.
The common question is should you change the diet or lower the calories. The answer is add cheat meal every 2-4 weeks. When you are on diet, you want your metabolism to be high at all time so you cannot afford to lower the calorie anymore to bring the metabolism lower. This will make the fat loss more harder. Instead add a cheat day. Although I say cheat day it is clean cheat day. Clean cheat day means you are still consuming healthy food but not needing to worry about carb or fat.
By adding cheat day, not only you can enhance your metabolism but you will also get to avoid boredom of the diet. Let's face it. It does get monotonous after awhile. Typically for me, I would be on low carb diet for most of the time so I would add in carbohydrates like rice, noodles, bread and potatoes during my cheat day.
Keeping Track
Initially, it can be challenging to know how much of what you have ate. It is tedious work but it does help to keep track of what you have been eating and your weight and body fat percentage, ideally everyday, for 30 days. This will give you an idea of how is your body is responding to the changes that you are making. Typically, what I look for in tracking for fat loss are date, weight, body fat%, what you ate, hours you've slept at night.
For monitoring weight and body fat, choose a scale that you will be using. This does not need to be super expensive scale. My scale at home is about $60 and show all the data I want on my phone app. May not be the most accurate tool but with enough data points it will at least give me a trend of how I am doing. When weighing in, make sure to take measurement at same time and same condition. Preferred, first thing in the morning after using a restroom.
For tracking, you may use app or notebook. Choose the one that you feel comfortable using. Become your own researcher. Once you get the process, it will become a fun project and able to learn about your body.
Kota Shimada
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