The Last 7 Questions About Fat Loss You'll Ever Need to Ask

The science of weight loss is simple in theory, but a little trickier in practice. Fortunately, MH UK fitness director and in-house nutritionist, Andrew Tracey, is on hand to tackle your burning questions.

-  Andrew Tracey

Do I Have To Count Calories To Lose Weight?

Calories always count – but that doesn’t mean you have to count calories. Precision calorie-tracking is the most simple way to ensure you’re in the all-important energy deficit, but there are plenty of methods that promote calorie reduction as a byproduct. Reducing portion sizes, sticking to an ‘eating window’ or building meals around satiating high-protein, high-fibre foods are behaviours positively correlated with weight loss.

How Many Calories Do I Need?

It might sound reductive, but if you’re gaining weight, you’re consuming too many calories for your lifestyle. There could be many reasons for that: genetic predisposition, lack of knowledge or simply because your focus is elsewhere. But, regardless, the only way you’ll truly know if you’re in a caloric deficit is if you’re losing weight. That being said, establishing a baseline to aim for is a wise place to start.

Many calorie calculations use your current body weight as a basis, but depending on how much weight you have to lose, this could skew your calorie target too high. Using your goal weight is a safer metric to start from, but even this can be confusing, as a ‘goal weight’ is often an arbitrary number – one that won’t always reflect how we want to feel and perform. I recommend using your height; there’s less variance than you think in weight at healthy body-fat levels across people of similar heights. Does having extra muscle mass increase calorie burn? Yes. But the effect is not that dramatic.