You could burn fat but not lose fat. You could lose weight but not lose fat. You could even lose fat but not lose weight. The terms weight loss, fat loss, and fat burning are often used synonymously, yet the three are more different than you may realize.
Most of us with physique-based goals want fat loss; meaning we want to remove excess adipose tissue from the body to yield a toned, muscular aesthetic.
If I’m working with an extremely overweight or obese individual, I typically want to put them on a program that will get them to a healthy weight as soon as possible. Naturally, a great deal of their weight loss will likely come from fat anyway, but this is the one instance in which I actually put stock into what the scale reads.
Fat burning, if we’re being technical (and that’s what we do here), can have absolutely no effect on weight loss or fat loss in certain circumstances.
Below you will learn the key differences among the three terms and at that point you can decide which is best for your goals.
Weight Loss
Weight loss is the simplest of the three. Your weight is simply what the scale reads when you step on it. The most accurate way to measure weight is first thing in the morning after using the bathroom. Losing weight is all about calories in vs. calories out… sort of.
If you can accurately determine your calorie maintenance and consistently eat below that number, 99% of the time you will lose weight. In other words, if you figure out that you need 2,000 calories to maintain your weight and you eat 1,500 calories for a month, you should lose weight. The one caveat is if you eat foods that you are intolerant to which can lead to inflammation and water retention which supersedes the negative energy balance you’ve created. That aside, eating below your maintenance will lead to weight loss.
Where is the weight coming from? It depends. If you are only tracking your overall calorie intake, the weight loss will be arbitrary. Could be muscle, could be fat, could be water, could be a combination of the three. To make sure you’re losing weight in the right places, you’ll have to dive deeper than just tracking calories (see fat loss).
Arbitrary weight loss isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Tracking calories is similar to the weight watchers protocol, in which each food is assigned a number based on the total calories it contains. As mentioned previously, when working with an obese person I want to get them to a healthy weight before worrying about anything else. And if you’ve noticed most people following weight watchers are in fact obese, so that program is okay in the short run.
An extreme example of arbitrary weight loss occurs in mixed martial arts and amateur wrestling, where fighters drop a tremendous amount of weight in a short period of time. The radical weight transformations you see leading up to a UFC weigh-in occur in as little as five days. Fighters load up on water leading up to fight week, then systematically drop their water intake along with carbohydrates and sodium. This ensures that they are excreting more water than they are taking in. Some fighters will use hot baths or saunas to lose additional water weight.
While that example seems outrageous, the point was to illustrate that not all weight loss is fat loss or even muscle loss. When you consider that 70% of the human body is water, it makes sense that at least some weight loss will be in that form.
Fat Loss
The core principles of bodybuilding are to gain muscle and lose body fat. But for years industry “expert” dogma stated that you either had to bulk to gain muscle or cut to lose fat.
There is growing evidence which shows that you can in fact gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously. With that being said, you wouldn’t necessarily have to lose weight in order to lose fat. An individual could conceivably add 3lbs of muscle and lose 2lbs of fat in a short period of time, resulting in 1lb of weight gain despite the 2lbs of fat loss. Most people would take this tradeoff every time.
It all seems too good to be true as you would literally be getting the best of both worlds. The term for this phenomenon is called body recomposition and it is indeed possible to achieve. In the case of a body recomposition you would be eating at your maintenance calorie level or at least very close to it.
A body recomposition is challenging but achievable for almost anyone, however two specific categories of people will have an easier time doing so.
Most untrained individuals who begin a workout program for the first time will likely experience some level of body recomposition. These people are introducing a brand new stimulus in the form of weight lifting which will increase muscle relatively quickly (i.e. newbie gains) while at the same time getting a metabolic bump which will lead to body fat loss.
The second example is of a person who may not be new to the gym per se but has yet to truly dial in their diet. Perhaps they’re from Exhibit A where they followed a weight watchers calorie tracking approach but have yet to understand the importance of the different macronutrients protein, carbohydrates, and fats.
So let’s get to the good stuff, how does one optimize their diet to lose fat? If you want to lose a significant amount of body fat, you would not follow a body recomposition approach. That sort of thing is for minor tweaks in one’s physique, not major fat loss.
The first step is similar to the weight loss approach, in that you would want to be in a calorie deficit. Unlike the weight loss approach however, we don’t want arbitrary changes in weight. We want to lose weight in the form of fat and try to maintain as much lean body mass as possible in the process. To this we need to take the diet one step further.
The only macronutrient that can grow and maintain muscle is protein. In order to preserve muscle on a diet, you should be eating around 0.8-1g of protein per pound of body weight.
It is up to you to decide how to distribute the rest of your calories, whether it’s in the form of carbohydrates or fats. The idea of needing to keep carbs low to keep insulin low to create fat loss is a complete myth. As long as you are in a caloric deficit and your protein is high enough, you should be able to drop considerable body fat.
With that being said, dropping carbohydrates is still likely the most viable method. We can’t drop protein, and we can only drop fats so much without potential hormonal problems.
I am a believer in the idea of carbohydrate tolerance. Some people can eat tons of carbohydrates without issue. They digest them easily and are absorbed directly into muscle, creating a fuller and more dense appearance. Other people have issues with digestion on a high carbohydrate diet and tend to hold water subcutaneously.
Next comes the idea of nutrient timing. We spoke about the idea of losing weight in the right places. By structuring our diet in a specific way, we can partition nutrients to muscle rather than fat. It is a very simple approach: just consume a greater proportion of your carbohydrates in your pre and post workout meals. This will ensure that they will be used to fuel and recover from the workout rather than potentially being stored as fat. Remember, you are not increasing your carbohydrate intake, you are simply timing them in a specific manner.
Again, it is up to you what your carb to fat ratio should be. The principles of fat loss still remain the same; to lose body fat you want to:
- Be in a slight caloric deficit (probably around 300-500 calories below maintenance initially)
- Consume a high protein diet (0.8-1g per pound of body weight)
- Weight train consistently (4-5 days per week)
- Partition carbs and fats as you choose, without letting fats get too low (I would not go under 20% of total calories for fats)
- Whatever carbs you are consuming, try to do so pre and post workout
Fat Burning
This is the one that probably has you scratching your head. How the hell can you burn fat without losing fat? Let’s think about what burning fat actually means.
Burning fat simply means you are using fatty acids for energy. Typically we are using all three substrates for energy (carbs, fats, and creatine) in different amounts throughout the day. Unlike fats, carbohydrates are the most favorable energy source for most physical activity because they create energy very quickly. Therefore, it is able to keep up with the physical demands of strenuous exercise.
But what if you’re on a low carbohydrate or ketogenic diet? If you don’t have carbohydrates in the diet you will essentially be forced to burn fats for energy.
More importantly, what if you’re on a low carbohydrate or ketogenic diet but are in a calorie surplus? You would be using fats are your main substrate for energy since carbohydrates are absent from the diet. But remember, in this situation you are in a calorie surplus. This is absolutely critical. Due to the calorie surplus you would be storing more fat than you burn. This is a scenario in which you would be burning fat but not losing fat since you are consuming more overall calories than your body needs.
This is where ketogenic dieters are misinformed. When you are in ketosis you are most definitely burning fat. There is no denying this. But if you’re pounding bulletproof coffee, cheese, bacon, and sausage all day at a surplus you will not lose fat.
In what situation would a person want to burn fat but not lose fat? Well, there aren’t many. Fats are a great energy substrate for low intensity, long duration, aerobic exercise. A marathon would be an example of this type of activity. But with guys running sub two hour marathons nowadays, I’m curious if fats would even work with that kind of pace!
This is not an indictment on the ketogenic diet. If you like it, do it. Some people find that the lack of carbs keeps their blood sugar stable and eliminates cravings, thus making the diet easy to adhere to. But going low carb and burning fat is not a magical tool for fat loss, which is what most people who follow the diet want. Calories still matter!