Trying to Lower Body Fat

Pretty Polly

Hi,

Im 24, female, 5ft 4 and currently weigh 9.7 stone.
My daily calorie goal is 1572 and since the 5th July my macros have been changed to 40p 40f 20c.

Im on Day 8 of my low carb diet and im suffering through the carb flu!! Im on my holidays at the moment so its not impacting me as badly as if I was in work. Problem is I look and feel wrecked. I tried this diet last year but I gave up. I didn't have enough fat in my diet and I had too few cals the last time.

Exercise- I go for a walk in the evening and I have tiny weights in my room which I have started to do 4 times a week. Im not a member of a gym. I know ideally I should be lifting heavier weights and doing more weight training but it's not possible at the moment.

Todays Low Carb Menu
Brekkie: Eggs and bacon
Lunch: Salad eg chicken, red pepper, boiled egg, feta cheese, rocket, avocado, sunflower seeds.
Dinner: Chicken, leek, red pepper + onion stir fry cooked in coconut oil with bulgar wheat.
Snacks: Spoon of peanut butter, sunflower seeds, protein shake.

This is trial and error for me but im wondering is a low carb diet the only way to lose body fat?

All replies would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks you

NoQuarter

Pretty Polly wrote: »

Hi,

Im 24, female, 5ft 4 and currently weigh 9.7 pounds.
My daily calorie goal is 1572 and since the 5th July my macros have been changed to 40p 40f 20c.

Im on Day 8 of my low carb diet and im suffering through the carb flu!! Im on my holidays at the moment so its not impacting me as badly as if I was in work. Problem is I look and feel wrecked. I tried this diet last year but I gave up. I didn't have enough fat in my diet and I had too few cals the last time.

Exercise- I go for a walk in the evening and I have tiny weights in my room which I have started to do 4 times a week. Im not a member of a gym. I know ideally I should be lifting heavier weights and doing more weight training but it's not possible at the moment.

Todays Low Carb Menu
Brekkie: Eggs and bacon
Lunch: Salad eg chicken, red pepper, boiled egg, feta cheese, rocket, avocado, sunflower seeds.
Dinner: Chicken, leek, red pepper + onion stir fry cooked in coconut oil with bulgar wheat.
Snacks: Spoon of peanut butter, sunflower seeds, protein shake.

This is trial and error for me but im wondering is a low carb diet the only way to lose body fat?

All replies would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks you

Your calories seem high to me. You are probably only 200 cals below maintenance depending on how active your job is. You should increase that to 500 calories below maintenance so aim for about 1300 a day. You wont have to eat less food, just eat more lower calorie food.

There is also absolutely no need to eliminate carbs. You could eat 1300 calories of pure carbs and still burn fat so long as the calories youre eating are a couple of hundred below your maintenance.

Pretty Polly

Hi NoQuarter, thanks for your reply.

My job involves very little exercise but I do need to be mentally alert so that's why I was hoping this carb flu would pass in the next week or so.

I just calculated bodyweight x 12 to get the daily calorie goal. 133 x 12 = 1596 I think Stench Blossoms recommended it to someone but I could be calculating it wrong.

Neeson

You really seriously need to put on weight. I don't think anyone here should be telling you to lose any. 5ft 4 and under 10 pounds sounds very, very unhealthy.

Pretty Polly

Neeson wrote: »

You really seriously need to put on weight. I don't think anyone here should be telling you to lose any. 5ft 4 and under 10 pounds sounds very, very unhealthy.

Ha thanks, just after updating my weight!:D

Stench Blossoms

NoQuarter wrote: »

Your calories seem high to me. You are probably only 200 cals below maintenance depending on how active your job is. You should increase that to 500 calories below maintenance so aim for about 1300 a day. You wont have to eat less food, just eat more lower calorie food.

There is also absolutely no need to eliminate carbs. You could eat 1300 calories of pure carbs and still burn fat so long as the calories youre eating are a couple of hundred below your maintenance.

Completely disagree with this.

I was a similar enough weigh when I did the whole low carb thing and I consistently lost at 1450-1500.

I'd keep it at what you're eating at the moment for a few weeks and THEN if you don't lose, drop it lower.

Edit: Low carb is not the only way to lower body fat %.

I go with 40p 40c 20f with a calorie deficit, heavy lifting 3 days a week and I'm dropping body fat.

Pretty Polly

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Completely disagree with this.

I was a similar enough weigh when I did the whole low carb thing and I consistently lost at 1450-1500.

I'd keep it at what you're eating at the moment for a few weeks and THEN if you don't lose, drop it lower.

Edit: Low carb is not the only way to lower body fat %.

I go with 40p 40c 20f with a calorie deficit, heavy lifting 3 days a week and I'm dropping body fat.

I have lost a few pounds but its the carb flu symptoms that are putting a dampner on things.

I'll give it another week or 2 and if im not back to myself i'll up my carbs and ill change my macros to what you recommended.

Thanks for the advice

Stench Blossoms

Drink lots of water.

Come back and let us know how you get on.

Best of luck

NoQuarter

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

Completely disagree with this.

I was a similar enough weigh when I did the whole low carb thing and I consistently lost at 1450-1500.

I'd keep it at what you're eating at the moment for a few weeks and THEN if you don't lose, drop it lower.

Edit: Low carb is not the only way to lower body fat %.

I go with 40p 40c 20f with a calorie deficit, heavy lifting 3 days a week and I'm dropping body fat.

My advice was to drop calories more (on the assumption that she isnt losing bodyfat as is considering she is posting here) and to indicate that there is no need to stop or drastically reduce carbs, a simple calorie deficit is enough. What part of that do you completely disagree with??

Rather than multiple your weight by 12, try a TDEE calculator to get your calories.

Roughly, 3500 calories is the equivalent to 1lb of fat. So at a 500 calorie deficit, you lose 1lb per week. At a 200 calorie deficit, it'll take you over 17 days to lose that pound.

Stench Blossoms

NoQuarter wrote: »

My advice was to drop calories more (on the assumption that she isnt losing bodyfat as is considering she is posting here) and to indicate that there is no need to stop or drastically reduce carbs, a simple calorie deficit is enough. What part of that do you completely disagree with??

Rather than multiple your weight by 12, try a TDEE calculator to get your calories.

Roughly, 3500 calories is the equivalent to 1lb of fat. So at a 500 calorie deficit, you lose 1lb per week. At a 200 calorie deficit, it'll take you over 17 days to lose that pound.

I disagree with the part of dropping calories.

She's already said she's losing weight at 1500ish, why drop them lower?

She's suffering from 'keto-flu' which is what a lot of people suffer from when they go low carb.

Dropping calories isn't going to help that.

NoQuarter

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

I disagree with the part of dropping calories.

She's already said she's losing weight at 1500ish, why drop them lower?

She's suffering from 'keto-flu' which is what a lot of people suffer from when they go low carb.

Dropping calories isn't going to help that.

To speed up the fat loss. 500 cals below maintenance is fine and can be done without any keto-flu like symptoms. In fact, there shouldnt be any sickness involved in burning fat at all, even 500 below.

Either way, we are both right, it just depends on the speed she want to burn the fat. You're right about the macro breakdown though, id switch to what you said considering what the OP has said about too low carbs. My original post had tried to get the point across that the macro breakdown is less important than a calorie deficit simpliciter and that dropping carbs so low is unnecessary.

doctorwhogirl

NoQuarter wrote: »

To speed up the fat loss. 500 cals below maintenance is fine and can be done without any keto-flu like symptoms. In fact, there shouldnt be any sickness involved in burning fat at all, even 500 below.

Either way, we are both right, it just depends on the speed she want to burn the fat. You're right about the macro breakdown though, id switch to what you said considering what the OP has said about too low carbs. My original post had tried to get the point across that the macro breakdown is less important than a calorie deficit simpliciter and that dropping carbs so low is unnecessary.

You drop calories to that extent when there isn't a huge amount (probably given the op's weight) of fat to drop? She has very little room to go come maintenance time.

I eat about 35-40p 35-40c and 30 f...pretty even. Most carbs coming from oats and vegetables, dark choc and the odd cracker/rice cake/corn cake or lentils.

I'm 5ft 4, about the same weight as the OP now but have dropped a good bit of weight and body fat eating about 1650-1700 cals (gross) on workout days and about 1500 on rest days working out 5 days a week. I do three days heavy lifting and two days jogging usually. Have to say I have been in or around this weight but I can see the difference having lost actual fat and not muscle.

Before I was eating 1200 or less plus exercise and whenever I had a bad day or tried to maintain weight just piled on. Now because I'm eating a nice amount of calories I don't have the need to have bad days as much because I have enough wiggle room in my cals and I'm still losing. Yes, I'm losing slowly but at least I know I have more of a chance of maintaining.

No point OP just cutting cals to drop fat fast when she may not be able to maintain it.

I wouldn't worry too much about the carbs OP so long as you're getting them from good sources like veg, pulses or if you want stuff like brown rice and sweet potato etc...

Transform

Stench Blossoms wrote: »

I disagree with the part of dropping calories.

She's already said she's losing weight at 1500ish, why drop them lower?

She's suffering from 'keto-flu' which is what a lot of people suffer from when they go low carb.

Dropping calories isn't going to help that.

stick with what you are at as the balance is good (less than 100g carbs per day - you look like you are at about 75g/day at the moment which by the way is NOT super low carb or keto from what i have experienced with clients).

I would then advise cycling carbs back up to about 120-130g once every 3-4 days using safe starches e.g. rice, sweet potatoes, oats, butternut squash etc or what ever you feel like you can get away with. The drop back just under 100g/day for another 3 days. This helps with not going too low carb all the time (certainly not ketosis) so you prevent the adrenal glands being tapped on which for most are working too hard anyway due to work/life stress, lack of quality sleep, going bonkers training too hard too often etc.

The single biggest issue i have with clients initally is that they simply dont eat enough fats. You need to make sure you are eating plenty of butter, coconut oil, olive oil, fish, avocadoes, nuts, seeds etc I guarantee if you really boost your fat intake you will feel better (so long as you are not drinking like a mad eejit on holidays!).

All the best

Pretty Polly

My diet in college was awful, survived on pasta and other crap. I eat much much better now and a lot of it is down to what I learnt in this forum from the advice shared by posters like ye. So thanks for taking the time to reply:)

My main concern is my body fat, I would say its fairly high. I would have had no trouble eating a whole bag of doritos in one sitting a few years ago, same goes for Ben + Jerrys! I suppose I wasn't aware of the effect that the added calories would have.

DWG + Stench Blossoms- I know you both do heavy weight training. Would you have been able to lower your body fat percentage without doing the weight training? Is it something that you can do by diet + walking/running?

Transform- Thanks, i'm going to stick with 1500ish cals and i'll try the carb cycling every 3/4 days. My fats are ok I think, coconut oil is the best!:)

Stench Blossoms

Pretty Polly wrote: »

DWG + Stench Blossoms- I know you both do heavy weight training. Would you have been able to lower your body fat percentage without doing the weight training? Is it something that you can do by diet + walking/running?

Can't speak for DWG but this is what happened me.

I did bucket loads of cardio and just counted calories (too low calories). Didn't bother trying to track protein etc. Lost a stone. Still looked pudgy, body fat didn't reduce hugely.

So I don't really know if I had done all that cardio and ate properly if it would have made a huge difference.

I do know though that eating properly with heavy training I've actually stayed the exact same weight but went down in BF%.

Transform

track it, track it, track it.

Use myfitness pal or fitday for at least a month. This will get you far more aware of your ACTUAL fat, carb and protein intake.

I might add that training need not be HEAVY it just needs to be properly structured and not end up looking like sh1t soup training i.e. a bunch of movements stuck together so you feel wrecked after e.g. bootcamp classes or the programs most commercial gyms give.

Thats NOT smart training.