Start Strong: Sustainable Fat Loss & What Actually Works

The science of fat loss isn't complicated, but it's often made harder or more confusing than it needs to be.

In this bonus episode, give you 5 fat loss fundamentals to stick to that make the whole process less confusing. 

We go over the biggest things that contribute to weight loss and the most common mistakes that slow progress and how to approach weight loss in a way that supports your training, energy, and long-term health.

You don't need a new trend or fad, just the things we know work and some support along the way. 

In today’s episode, we cover:

•  What a calorie deficit actually is 
•  Calories and why restriction backfires
•  Hunger and fullness: why hunger cues are so important 
•  Why protein matters, especially for women
•  How strength training supports sustainable fat loss
• How to get out of the endless diet cycle for good 

The episode is ideal for anyone starting the gym or a fat loss journey and wants a solid place to start with clear, calm direction and a long term strategy. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

In today's episode of the Unbloom Unfiltered Podcast, we are going to go over everything fat loss. So if you feel like you're constantly on and off of diet, you feel like you really struggle with your relationship with food, struggle to lose weight, this is the episode for you. By the end of this episode, you're going to come away with five key takeaways and our top tips for successful fat loss. Emma, what is your first tip?

SPEAKER_00 0:29

So I think the first thing that we need to clarify is that fat loss will only happen if there's a calorie deficit. So what that means is that foods contain calories. If it's protein, it's four calories per gram, same as if it's carbs, and if it's fat, it's nine calories per gram. So all foods contain calories and they add up depending on what they're made up of and how many grams you have in front of you. And we also burn calories on a day-to-day basis, and we do that in five different ways. So that will be our resting, when we're resting, our body has to still function and it burns calories that way. That will be when we're doing some light exercise, like just walking or clean cleaning around the house or moving about. That's also when we are exercising, um, also when our body goes through a uh like a transition of food. So when we're digesting food, our thermic effect of feeding. And then also when we're just like sitting around or working, or right now for me, talking, using my hand gestures, that kind of thing. So there's five ways that we burn calories, and the only way we consume calories is through eating and drinking. And what we need to ensure is that if we want to lose weight, that our overall how many calories we burn per day is slightly more than how many we eat or drink a day. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

Yeah, and I think where a lot of people go wrong is like you said, you need that slight deficit. If you go too far with that restriction, your body's gonna probably try and retaliate and make you hungrier than you would have been before. So that's why I think a lot of us will go into the mindset of a diet thinking I must restrict as much as possible and then I'll lose as much weight as possible. But actually, in the long term, you're better to be in a smaller deficit and it will you'll be able to continue it for much longer.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Absolutely, it goes back to what we were talking about in a previous episode, which is that all or nothing mentality of can I see myself doing this in a year's time? And if you can continue to see yourself on that, you know, slight reduction of calories for a year, then that's a great way of doing it.

SPEAKER_01 2:44

Yeah, definitely. And I think it's much smaller tweaks than people think. There's just tiny little portion differences or like balancing your meals differently can make a really big difference instead of just completely dropping it and just having lettuce and chicken for lunch or skipping breakfast, you're gonna find that you end up overeating at other points in the day because of the fact that you've restricted too hard early on.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Definitely. And I think another point to make around calories is the fact that you are not gonna be, you're not gonna need the same amount of calories as your husband, you know, and that's actually quite hard when you see your husband. You know, we've had many conversations with with ladies who are like, My husband can eat so much, and you know, I just can't get away with it. And that's a fact. We're we are smaller than men are, but also looking around to your peers, it depends on your height, your weight, how much muscle you have, what your activity levels are like, and let's be honest, how much you burn naturally when you are sitting and doing nothing, and that has a massive factor on you know what weight you were as a kid and growing up and and whether you've yo-yo'd before. Um, so there's lots of things to factor in, and that's why I don't think we can ever compare it to so-and-so did this diet and they lost weight.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

I think that's what's quite frustrating about you see the what I eat in a day videos on social media, and they're quite a nice bit of inspiration. But if you're looking at that and being like, right, I'm gonna eat exactly what that person's eating, like you said, there are so many other factors that come into their makeup that's so different to yours that I think we really need to be really careful with stuff like that. 100%. Um, I think one more point for being in a calorie deficit is you don't want to chase the big scale drops. The quicker we lose weight, the quicker we are likely to put it back on. So if you're losing if your aim is too high, then we just need to be really careful because your body doesn't actually want to lose that weight. Your body wants to keep you alive, it wants to maintain that body weight. If you then suddenly drop your calories by over 500, it's gonna be a bit of a shock to the system. So be really uh considerate yourself with how much you want to wear how much you want to lose, and just take it as slowly as you can.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

And I think one to two pounds a week is a really, really good amount. Um, and you know, I was at a women's health conference before with some of the top, top scientists and also surgery specialists as well. Um, and they were saying people that are losing weight quickly are now developing real risk to themselves because when you lose weight quickly, you don't just lose your body fat, you also lose your muscle mass, your bone density, lose the nutrients that your body uses day to day to keep your skin, your hair, your teeth healthy, and also you start to lose that structure. So, you know, we know that people that do tend to lose weight quickly then worry about their skin, and then they worry about their structure of their face and end up then going on to have maybe surgery. So I would also say no matter how you're losing weight, it's really, really important to stick to that one or two pounds a week maximum. And if you're doing that across like a year, you will see such good progress. Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

I think that comes on really nicely to our next point, like you said about the muscle mass and the uh bone density, strength training for fat loss. So when you lose weight, so when our body needs more calories, it needs more energy from somewhere. So when you lose weight, your body has to get that energy from somewhere because your intake's not enough. The main thing that happens first is that your body will try and get rid of your muscle mass because muscle mass is quite costly for our bodies to keep there compared to fat, fat doesn't keep need much to keep it going. So if you can strength train alongside your calorie deficit, you're much more likely to keep that muscle mass, especially as you get older, your muscle mass is starting to decline anyway. Muscle mass is really going to be helpful long term for you. It's also very metabolically active. So because it requires so many calories, day to day, you're gonna increase that resting rate of calories.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

Yeah, absolutely. And it also improves things like insulin sensitivity. So we know that if you strength train, you are more likely to be able to handle things like carbohydrates better, you're gonna feel better when you wake up in the morning, your body is gonna cope better under stress because it's used to a certain amount of stress from strength training. Um, I really do think that that weight loss without strength training is it feels like you're only doing half the job, right? And it doesn't feel like you've got all of the tools to be able to set you up for because none of us want to be thin and brittle, right? It's really important that we stay strong no matter how much weight we want to lose.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

When I do, I find that with a lot of people that come when they first start in the gym, they think they just want to lose weight, they think all they want to do is lose body fat. But once you understand the feeling of feeling strong, like your clothes fit slightly differently, your body will change shape. Weight loss doesn't become the most important thing in the world. It's actually like I want to feel strong in my body, I want to feel confident in my body, I want to feel like really good in my body. Also, a lot of people come to the gym in the morning and say that they just naturally eat better throughout the day because of the fact that they've used their energy, they've got themselves up, they've got themselves going, they're probably in a bit of a better headspace. So they're all things to consider. One thing I will say about strength training, along with fat loss, is weigh yourself slightly less because actually, people talk about this in the gym this morning, is that they either weigh the same or they weigh slightly more than they did when they started, but their body has completely changed. Yeah. So strength training will change the scales, it might not necessarily be in the way you want it to be, but that is not a bad thing.

SPEAKER_00 8:41

And this is why we really recommend that if you are on any kind of fat loss journey that you do use things like measurements, and whether that's through a pair of shorts that you know were were quite tight on you before, or a pair of jeans, or whether that is through actual measurements, um, because I have heard, you know, if I had a pound for every time I hear I haven't lost weight on the scales, but my jeans feel looser and my body looks different, um, then I would be rich.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

So if we go on to our next point about hunger and fullness, and I think for me, this is normally the biggest light bulb moment for a lot of women. We are told for years to not rely on our hunger signals to ignore the hunger signals and just try and restrict as much as we can. But hunger is a natural biological response from our body, you can't expect to never be hungry. I think like I speak to women, it's almost like they just get cross at their bodies for being hungry, but your body needs food, your body needs energy. Instead of expecting that hunger not to come, you are better off trying to plan for it instead. So if you know that around 3 pm you get really, really hungry because you had lunch at 12, can you put a snack in place? Can you put something in place, make your dinner smaller, and just have a snack in the afternoon to tide you over? Hunger hormones are gonna naturally increase when you reduce your food intake because your body doesn't want to lose that weight, your body's gonna respond to that by saying, I need to be hungrier because I have actually lost weight. So I think mentally preparing yourself that for that and not restricting too hard is gonna be really helpful.

SPEAKER_00 10:16

I love the point on hunger and fullness because I think it's you know, for so many years we were told, as you said, not to listen to our hunger hormones. And I even have had, you know, ladies come to me and say, I don't eat in the morning because as soon as I eat, I'll know I'll be hungry. It makes me hungrier for the rest of the day. And I'm like, that's a really good thing. Like, we need to be seeing that as a really good thing because your body signals you things, and you have to, and in order to be on any kind of journey, whether it's to get stronger, to lose weight, just to feel healthier in yourself, you have to be able to listen to your body and respond to what it needs. And I'm talking on a you know, on a level of I might need a we in 10 minutes, or I might need some food in 10 minutes, and actually, the the more you recognize about what what how those signals come out. So, for example, your digestion starts in your mouth, you start to salivate. Is that how you say it? Salivate, salivate, thank you. You start to salivate at least like 10 to 15, 20 minutes before your body will then start to to rumble. And that is that should be seen as a signal to think, oh, actually, I'm hungry. A lot of people say, I start, I think about food all the time. And I would say that is your body's way of saying, I'm about to tell you that I'm hungry. And if we can start tuning into these signs, then we stop getting to a point where we get overly hungry. And actually, I think you know, a great take-home from this for people that don't necessarily listen to their hunger hormones would be can you recognise before your belly's gonna grumble that you're hungry? And if we can eat in that window, we're more likely to eat less, we're more likely to eat slower and more mindful, which is so kind to our body. Our body does not like us eating fast, and we're then more likely to get the results that we want.

SPEAKER_01 12:19

Yeah, definitely. And I think, like you said, if you can learn to eat when you are a five instead of a two, you'll be able to go into that situation a lot more controlled. This is when women start to feel really out of control with food, where you've barely eaten anything all day. You get home, you start to eat, and then it's that sudden out of control feeling. If you balance your food a lot more, so you have a good breakfast, you have like a better lunch, you're gonna get home and feel a lot more in control of that in the evening. But I also think a lot of people get caught up in the fact that hunger doesn't always have to be physical. So you get so many women that's like, Oh, my hunger, my stomach's not rambling, I can't be hungry. That's actually not true. Like, we see it in mood, we see it in energy. Like you said, salivating. Like, there are so many different ways your body will give off that hunger. Because I think sometimes when you're very busy, your body's not tuned into your hunger, but you might be a bit snappier than normal. And instead of just putting food off because I'm not physically hungry, is that a way of your body's saying we probably need a bit more energy right now?

SPEAKER_00 13:18

Yeah, hunger. I could do a whole podcast. Maybe we should do a whole podcast because it's the most fascinating thing. Because, like, we are as women, we are told that it's a bad thing, or we're taught to ignore it, and therefore, if you have spent a lot of your time ignoring it, your body will stop doing it. And I find that this is the kind of cycle that our uh a lot of clients that we see get into is the fact that they're like, I don't get to that belly rumbling stage, and it's because your body gave up doing that 13 years ago because it wasn't really weren't, you know. It's like, what's the point of me sending that energy to you when you don't listen to it and it doesn't get me what I need? So, yeah, I I think if anyone can take anything away from this, it's starting to tune into that hunger.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yeah, definitely. Moving on to protein, I feel like it's a bit of a buzzword at the moment. Do you want to talk us through why protein is so important for fat boss?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

Protein's so important for so many different reasons. So, number one, it keeps us nice and full. So realistically, it slows down that um thermic effects of feed in, so that process that you your body goes through in order to digest what you're what you've eaten. So, because it takes longer to digest, it essentially makes you feel fuller for longer. It also means that your body has to work harder to break it down, which again is a use of energy, a use of calories, if you like. Um, but also it is so important when we are talking about maintaining that muscle mass because you physically cannot maintain muscle mass without protein, like it just isn't possible. So, when we are talking about mixing strength training with a slightly reduced calorie diet, we do need to be mindful of the protein so that we can ensure those muscles are being built back, they are feeling like they can repair themselves and we're not losing that muscle mass and we're keeping it because again, that muscle mass is then gonna have an effect on how many calories we burn in a day. Because without muscle mass, our body doesn't need to burn in as many calories to keep those muscles alive and working, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:32

Definitely it all supports each other, doesn't it? Completely, yeah. Our final point is a big one, and it's actually something we did a podcast on last week. So if you haven't listened, go back and listen to our podcast on black and white thinking. Because this is where a lot of ladies trip themselves up, is that like Emma was saying earlier, you eat that one piece of cake in the office, and then you are done for the week. You're like, that's it, I'm gonna start again on Monday. One single meal, one single day, they are not going to change your progress. That is like going into the gym and expecting one set or one session to make you stronger. It's not gonna make you put on weight. People get scared because they have a higher volume day food of food, jump on the scales and they've put on two or three pounds. It's water. Like your body's just gonna retain more water because you've eaten a little bit more food. It's not something to be scared of. Some days I actually would recommend for people to eat more, but there are just gonna be some days you're more tired than normal, you are during your period, you're feeling a bit hormonal, you're knackered. There are so many reasons to actually some days you can't, the deficit's not gonna be there, and that's okay. You're better off accepting that and saying, I'm gonna really nourish my body today, I'm not gonna worry about trying to be in a deficit, I'll try that again tomorrow, but it's not a reason to really overdo it. You don't need to constantly be starting again.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, and I think it's a really important point that 3,500 calories equals one pound of fat, right? So that is probably two days of eating for most of us, and so therefore, if you are thinking, oh, I ate out for dinner, I had a bit of wine, and maybe that's like 500 calories over my you know daily allowance. Well, actually, if you break that down over the course of the week, well, that's less than 100 calories a day. So, could we claw back that 100 calories from somewhere else? So I do think it's really important to look at it as a week rather than a day, and making sure that you've got points within that week where you do go out and socialise with friends and have the wine or the meal that you want to have, or you do go and celebrate a friend's birthday and have that piece of cake. Like this fat loss journey shouldn't be about restriction, it should be about learning to live with all of those situations and still getting results. And I think that's where the coaching becomes really, really important because you have that person to reflect off. I did this today. How much is that gonna push my boundaries and therefore affect my results? And having a coach kind of work through that with you is a much more supportive and efficient way of doing things.

SPEAKER_01 18:17

Yeah, definitely. I think sometimes we're tripping ourselves up without even realizing it. So, like you said, having that person to reflect back is really important. I think the gym can provide a lot of structure and it can help you get into your exercise routine and can definitely benefit fat loss. But a lot of fat loss does come down to our eating behaviours and how we feel around food. So hopefully you found these tips helpful. Is there anything you want to finish on, Emma?

SPEAKER_00 18:41

There's one point that I would add, which we didn't speak about, but that's the importance of fibre. And again, going back to protein, saying like it slows down your metabolism in the way that you break down food, fibre does this like 10 times, and fibre is also mainly water and it's mainly vitamins and minerals, so that means that it's near to no calories. So we can get the same satisfaction out of food. And I go back to that husband analogy. If you do think, oh, my husband gets to eat loads of food, actually, if you filled half of your plate with vegetables, and you know, the vegetables that you enjoy, the vegetables that you really, really like and feel really nourishing, and there's ways to do this if you don't love veg. Um, but if you fill your plate with vegetables, then you do get that, you do feel fuller, you do get that. Oh, I've eaten a lot, I'm satisfied, but also your digestion slows down again. And so not only are you getting extra vitamins, extra minerals, and therefore probably saving on your supplement cupboard, saving money, literally, um, but you're also feeling fuller for longer, you're you've got more energy, and you're feeling really satisfied by that meal. And I think that's really important to note as well. So that'll be my bonus point of the bonus episode.

SPEAKER_01 20:02

Not that. Yeah, I think we've got to turn our heads around from thinking that fat loss always has to be very extreme, very restrictive, punishment to our bodies. Like you said, we nourish with fibre and protein and feel strong with strength training, and we be kind to ourselves and we eat slowly, and it will come with patience.

SPEAKER_00 20:23

Absolutely, absolutely. I would have loved this episode before I got into nutrition. So thank you for putting this together. And we really, really hope that it was helpful. Please do leave us a comment in the comment section with any kind of light bulb moments that you had or anything that you're gonna go away and focus on.

SPEAKER_01 20:42

Thank you.