Your rate of fat loss can be determined predominantly by the weight that you’re currently starting at (bigger individuals can lose more weight more quickly) and the size of your calorie deficit so as said previously a calorie deficit is the number of calories that you are burning minus the number of calories that you are taking in and what we are left with is the size of the deficit.

The weight of the individual:

Larger individuals with greater body fat can expect greater initial rates of fat loss therefore using bodyweight makes the weight loss relative, so here we are going to use a percentage based on your current size. E.g 100kg vs 60kg, so if these two people are looking to lose 2% per week then the 100kg individual will be losing 2kgs whereas the 60kg individual will be losing 1.2kgs so we’re going to lose relative amounts of weight loss.

Body fat percentage

This table will give you a rough idea of where you sit within the categories based on body fat percentage and if you’re not sure then you can ask your coach.

As we get older the categories change slightly and especially for females as females naturally carry far higher body fat percentages than men but you can roughly try and get an idea of roughly where you are at.

Are you an obese individual who has got a lot of weight to lose on this journey? Are you someone who is kind of average, looking to get leaner? Or maybe you are an individual who’s already lean looking to get in very good shape.

From there we take that and we look and use the table that is below in order to roughly get an idea of how much bodyweight we can look to lose per month.

70kg/ 154lbs/ 12 stone 10lbs - Moderately overweight
3-4% = 4.5- 6lbs = 1-1.5lbs week

Per month an obese individual can look to lose 4-6% of their body weight so, again if they are 100kg they can look and lose 4-6kg per month. Moderately overweight is 3-4%, the average is 2-3%, lean is 1-2% and very lean is 0.5-1% so we should be able to tell here that the bigger that we are then the more body fat that we’ve got to lose and the quicker that we can lose it initially, but obviously as you start to lose weight and you become lighter then your weight loss is going to slow down, so this works out at weekly losses of 2-3 pounds for very obese people, for moderately overweight it’s 1-2 pounds, down to half a pound- 1 pound if you’re a lean individual.

I know that some of you may be sitting there thinking “well I’ve actually lost 8 pounds within a week”, well that probably isn’t going to be fat and there’s also going to be more to it than that which we will talk about when we talk about the scales but to give you some context then here’s an example.

Let’s take that 70kg individual who is 154 lbs/ 12 stone 10 lbs, say that they’re a moderately overweight female and that they can look to lose 3-4% per month which is 4 1/2 pounds to 6 pounds a month or that equates to 1-1 1/2 pounds per week.

Looking back at the table above, the middle column is the monthly percentage that they can lose and the right-hand column is the weekly percentage that they can lose.

Now, we’ve talked about the size of the individual and that the bigger you are then the more chance that you’ve got of losing weight quicker but then it also comes down to, for the same individuals to the size of the calorie deficit so how many more calories do you want to burn than you’re currently eating?

It could be 100 calories, 200 calories or 500 calories and it could be all of the way to 1,000 calories difference between the number of calories that you’re burning and the number of calories that you’re actually taking in.

We have two broad-brush categories here:

We have one category that is a larger deficit and this is where we have really hard dieting followed by a period of recovery and then maybe dieting again so this is a diet break which we’ve mentioned before, or there’s the other category which is where we might have some smaller deficits where we look to work on behaviour change and things like that.

Here’s a quote to look at relating to this-

“ There are many routes to the same destination, some are quicker, some are slower ”

So here’s an analogy for you..

When we decide to go on a faster route which is a larger deficit or on a small longer route which is a smaller deficit, well they both have similar inherent problems that types of cars would have, so if we think of the faster route in which they’re dieting hard, well if we we’re in a car, well that faster route could be slightly more dangerous, there could be more chance that it’s going to take more out of you, increased risk of a flat tyre which in this case is you falling off the diet and having a binge, for example having takeaways that you’re not supposed to have or taking on some sort of damage to your car because you’re going over roads that you shouldn’t go onto and that can happen to you psychologically as being on very few calories is very tough but if you can stick to it and if you can stay on the road then you’re going to get there quicker so that’s going to be your larger calorie deficit in which you’re cutting calories quicker.

On the flip side, we have a smaller deficit so you’re in a safer car, not moving as fast but you’re going to get there. The journey takes longer and that’s the analogy of the kids in the back seats asking ‘are we there yet?’ As for some people, only losing very slow rates of weight loss is just boring for them and they don’t want to know that they have got to diet for 20 weeks as they only want to diet for 10 or 5 weeks and in that instance, a faster route may be more applicable.

Next, I’m going to layout to you some of the pros and cons of each approach as again what’s right for you may not be right for someone else so for example, what might be right for you now in the current circumstances might not be right for you in a months time or next year as things change so circumstances may change for other people too.

When we look at a smaller calorie deficit and by that, we mean something that’s less than 15% so to give you an idea of that, if someone was consuming 2,000 calories a day and that’s maintaining their weight and that’s at calorie maintenance, a deficit for this individual would be 15% of 2,000 so therefore it would be 300 calories so this individual would be on 1,700 calories or more because the deficit would be less than 300.

A smaller deficit(<15%)

The pros:

Less restrictive as it allows you to eat more food/more calories so we have a bigger calorie allowance/budget that you can go and spend.
The above results in less side effects as you’re probably not as hungry, not as miserable and it doesn’t affect your mood as much as you’re not hungry.
There’s a chance that because you’re not as hungry/you’re not as restricted then you’re going to stick to that diet more and and it’s a greater adherence so this is even better.

The cons:

It is going to take you longer to diet, it will take you longer to reach your target goal.
It is easy to fall off the tightrope so if we only have a very small calorie deficit then a forgotten mars bar here or slightly larger portion sizes there or even an extra beer here or there can quickly wipe out a deficit.
As the deficit is so small it leaves very little margin for error and people find that they’re losing little to no weight as what we thought was a 15% calorie deficit is actually no deficit at all and this can become de-motivating.

Moderation isn’t sexy to people as individuals might say “I’m really motivated to lose weight and I need to change my life so I’ve got to drop 20 lbs”. These individuals might get the response of “little and often, go steady as slow and steady wins the race and just make small changes to lose 1 pound a week” but this for some people just isn’t enough as sometimes we’ve got to match your motivation with the level of dieting because if you’ve got six good weeks of really hard dieting in you then let’s milk it and hit it hard for six weeks and then re-access as the plan can always be changed after that so moderation sometimes just isn’t seen sexy for people.

Who is this diet applicable for?

Those individuals that have a longer time to diet.
For some people if they’re going to be on a diet for a long time then keep them on it and look to change their behaviours. People who are looking for behaviour change, maybe they’ve done the crash and burn diet and maybe they’ve yoyo dieted a lot and being on a restrictive diet leads them to poor patterns like they’ve done in the past so we would keep them away from that.
Individuals who have high life stress and so they can only commit a smaller reserve of mental capacity to a diet as being on a diet is demanding and there’s only so much willpower that you’ve got that you can spend so if you’re already spending lots of that on your job, your kids, work, on exams etc you’re actually probably going to have less willpower to put towards your diet so we might have to go for an easier phase of dieting so by having a smaller deficit.

So now let’s look at what a larger deficit brings us and normally we’re looking at something over 30% so for that individual who is on 2,000 calories a day to maintain their body weight, this would be looking at roughly 600 calories below that so they would be on a 1,400 calorie deficit or more.

A larger deficit(>30%)

The pros:

Decreases the duration of the diet so instead of having to diet for 20 weeks well you might be able to get away with dieting for 10 weeks which for some people, this is really motivating.
We can match motivation with the levels of “suffering” so if for instance you’re super motivated and you’re in the right place then you could be put on low calories as long as you can stick to it.
Early results leads to early buy in so, if you are someone who is seeing the scale moving down then you are more likely to carry on eating the way that you are but if you are seeing slow progress to start with then you could feel like you are working hard in the gym etc but not seeing any results so then you are not feeling motivated.
Psychologically appealing - you know that it is going to be over quicker. If your coach says to you, ‘look I can get you to where you need to be in 8 weeks but it is going to be hard’ then you might prefer/want that as opposed to being at some level of restriction for 16-20 weeks.

The cons:

Less food - this becomes more restrictive so you can’t really get away with being as flexible with your dieting especially in social situations.
A coach has to match with your wanting to diet and your ability to diet because many of us have dieted before and put weight back on and sometimes people have developed a very poor relationship with food and they may really want to lose weight fast and quickly but actually they’re not in a place psychologically in their life at this point in time to be able to do so.

A coach has to make sure of what people are capable of doing as well as mix matching it of what they want to do. This is important because as a coach we may know that when it gets to 3-4 weeks down the line that the wheels will come off and it’s just going to be too much for them and they will then go to a binge cycle of eating.

Reduced gym performance- you may reduce this and if someone who is looking to get stronger, to push up those numbers, maybe run faster, to improve their sporting performance etc then actually reducing calories too low, yes whilst it might be brilliant for losing body fat, well it isn’t great for performing well in the gym and as mentioned before, some individuals may be predisposed to eating disorders where they go through a cycle of a really big calorie restriction then looking to binge and then that might then lead to the possibility of other problems.

Who is this diet applicable for?

People with high body fat.
People who need early success for motivation.
Those who like short yet tough diets.
Those who don’t have performance goals and when they’re main goal is fat loss.

So, above we have talked about our kind of rates of weight loss and what we can expect, we must remember that it’s based on the size that you’re currently at and then the size of the calorie deficit that your coach has put you on.

How much weight should you lose a week?