how eating more fat burning foods can ruin your diet

Hey guys, I wanted to talk about a common problem that most people run into – adding fat burning foods into your diet. I’ve been reading “Thrive” by Brendan Brazier (all about eating nutritionally dense foods to increase general health and athletic performance) and at various points I see myself thinking, oh yeah I should try adding “x” in to my diet too!

Here is where most people run into problems. They forget these “fat burning” foods have calories.

Lets say right now I have my nutrition figured out to a point where I have a 200 calorie per day deficit (this means I am eating 200 fewer calories than I need to maintain my weight.) I chose this number deliberately as it is low. Most people do not cut large numbers of calories per day as it is pretty unpleasant…

I decide to add in 1 tablespoon of ground flax seed because it “helps burn fat.” That adds 40 calories to my breakfast smoothie. That means I am now only cutting 160 calories per day.

Say I start taking fish oil too – that’s 40 calories per teaspoon. That would then add 40 – 120 calories to my day depending on how many times I took it. This would further reduce my daily deficit to 120-40 calories per day.

What happens if I skip my workout on a couple days or eat more than I planned? With such a small deficit, weight loss is next to impossible. At best my weight will stay the same (although I will be frustrated as I will feel like I am dieting and depriving myself) and at worst, I will start to steadily gain weight.

You see, most people add in nutritional supplements, “superfoods,” and other high performance “fat burning” foods like the calories don’t count – but they do. This is a key reason that people do not lose weight – yet – constantly feel like they are dieting.

Women frequently run into this problem. Many start drinking two or more protein shakes per day at the request of their trainer for proper pre and post workout nutrition. For most that’s an extra 200-300 or more calories per day. At best, this negates most of the calories burned during your workout, at worst – this can cause you to gain weight.

So what do you do? You have to trade something out every time you add something new in.There are a couple ways you can do this.

If you make your morning smoothie higher in calories, then I recommend cutting the calories in your mid morning snack (or cutting it out completely.) You could also slightly reduce the calories in your mid morning snack, lunch, and afternoon snack together so you don’t have to go long without eating. This could be reducing your snack by 1 almond. Or switching out a higher calorie snack for low calorie greek yogurt, string cheese, or fruit. Just some ideas…

Alternatively, you could lower the calorie content of your shake instead. First of all, make sure your protein powder is the lowest in calories. It should be 80-100 calories per 20 grams protein. Any more calories than that and you can bet you are consuming added sugars and fats. If that’s not going to do it, then cut down on the amount of fruit or cut it out completely on some days and swap in cocoa powder (20 cal per tablespoon,) Splenda, and some calorie free favorings like mint, almond, or coconut.

At a certain point though, you can only add in so much and still lose weight.This is why I recommend most people add in superfoods after the diet is over. During maintenance you have a lot more calories to play with. Otherwise, while dieting, you may only be able to incorporate a few items per day. If this bothers you, then just rotate your superfood add-ins per day. One day its flaxeed, the next fish oil, the next chollera and acai or whatever you are currently into.

Remember, as people its our fundamental nature to want to eat MORE not LESS. We will always come up with compelling rationalizations for why its a good idea. Just be aware of what you are doing and the calorie content of your foods, and you will not fall in to this common trap!
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