How To Be In A Calorie Deficit Without Counting Calories

Introduction

Burying your head in the sand and trying to ignore the fact that a calorie deficit is essential for weight loss, isn’t going to get you anywhere. You can have the healthiest and most nutritious diet known to man, however, if you regularly consume more calories than you need to, you will not lose weight. I am well aware that the thought of regularly counting calories isn’t exactly the most thrilling of ideas, which may make you wonder how to be in a calorie deficit without counting calories.

A Calorie Deficit Is Essential For Weight Loss, But Counting Calories Is Not

While you may not be interested in counting calories to lose weight (I don’t blame you), we must respect the fact that a calorie deficit must be in place.

So, to begin with, it’s important to figure out what areas of your diet/lifestyle you could look to make some small, but sustainable changes to help you to create a calorie deficit.

Remember, when you’re looking to make any changes to help you with weight loss, it’s absolutely fundamental to realise that a lot of the changes you might make to reduce your weight, must often be kept up to maintain that weight loss. People regularly forget this, and when they hit their goal weight, think “FINALLY! I can go back to how I used to eat!”, and their weight comes flying back on, with a bit more on top for good measure.

Nobody wants to repeat the process of weight loss, so the sooner we can get in the mindset of thinking of this as long-term change, the better.

So, what kind of changes could you think about introducing to help with your weight loss?

Let’s have a think.

Aim For A Regular Eating Pattern

Whether you prefer to eat one, two, three or four meals a day is irrelevant.

However, when trying to lose weight, it can be beneficial to adopt a fairly consistent eating pattern. This can help with planning your meal times, what you’re having, and so on.

This can help prevent having huge gaps between meals which can ultimately lead to overeating as you’re absolutely starving when it comes to time to eat.

It can also help you plan for those longer gaps if, for example, you’re working and have a 6-hour gap between meals. This could allow you to throw in some tactical snacks to somewhat manage your hunger until your next meal. This might sound counterproductive, but adding a snack here and there can ultimately reduce how much you eat overall as you’re not as hungry at your next meal.

If your eating pattern is all over the place, it can make it much more difficult to plan, as well as make healthier choices as we may rely on more convenient options if we’re just eating as and when.

When it comes to weight loss, it doesn’t matter at all how many meals a day you eat, as long as you’re eating less calories than you need on a daily/weekly basis. You don’t need to fast for 16 hours to lose weight.

Focus On Nutrient-Dense Foods

Nutrient-dense foods are those that pack a lot of nutrition in a small package. On the opposite end of the spectrum you have energy-dense foods. However, the two aren’t always separate, as you can have some foods that are nutritious, but also high in energy, such as nuts, seeds and oils.

Ideally, you want to mostly (which doesn’t mean 100% of the time) be aiming more for foods that are high in volume and/or satiety (how much something fills you up). Examples include whole foods which have been minimally processed, such as fruits, vegetables, meats, wholegrains etc.

Note that absolutely nobody has a “perfect” diet. Nobody is expecting you to have a 100% perfect diet, simply because that doesn’t exist as everybody’s needs and preferences are different (I know, crazy!).

The idea of focusing more on nutrient-dense foods, is these are much more likely to fill you up for longer, fuel your body better, and generally have an overall better impact on your health and wellbeing.

This is because if foods have been minimally processed, they’re likely to be higher in things such as vitamins, minerals, and fibre, and are generally better at filling us up for longer. For example, protein is the most filling out of carbohydrates, fats and protein, so, including some protein sources such as lean meats at mealtimes can significantly help with managing hunger.

Foods that have been heavily processed often have less nutrition, less fibre, are way easier to eat more of, and tend to be higher in things such as saturated fat, sugar and salt, making them much less filling and much less beneficial to health.

Be Mindful of Portion Sizes

Even the healthiest diet can lead to weight gain if you regularly over-consume calories. People are always baffled by this.

“Why am I not losing weight? My diet is so healthy!”

Sometimes, it seems like people believe healthy, nutritious diets are only reserved for people wanting to lose weight.

Whatever your aim is, whether it’s gain weight/muscle, lose fat, or maintain your weight, this can all be done eating a healthy diet, however, something as simple as portion sizes at mealtimes can change the outcome.

Portion sizes are often the best place for pretty much everyone to start with when it comes to weight loss if your diet is already somewhat decent.

A simple example could be spaghetti bolognese. This meal could be very low calorie, or very high calorie based on ingredients/sides, but could still be classed as having spaghetti bolognese.

High calorie version:

• Large portion of spaghetti (100g uncooked = ~350kcal) .
• Large portion of bolognese made up with 20% fat beef mince cooked in oil (because more spaghetti means more bolognese, of course!). (150g beef = ~380kcal and 1tbsp oil = ~125kcal)
• Large portion of cheese on top (a measly 30g of cheese is 120 calories).
• Side of garlic bread (half a garlic baguette = ~292kcal).

Lower calorie version:

• Smaller portion of spaghetti (60g uncooked = ~213kcal).
• Smaller portion of bolognese made up with 5% fat beef mince. No oil used to cook (done in non-stick pan). (125g of 5% beef mince = ~155kcal)
• Small sprinkling of cheese on top for taste (15g of cheese = ~60kcal).
• Side of garlic bread (quarter of a garlic baguette = ~146kcal).

High calorie version total: around 1267kcal

Lower calorie version total: 574kcal

Same meal. Some reduced fat swaps. Different portions.

It is so ridiculously easy to have what we think is a healthy meal, and it be over 1000 calories. And when you realise that, on average, most people are aiming for less than 2000 calories per day to lose weight, this makes an enormous difference.

Healthy diet aside, portions matter.

Listen To Your Body (And Be Honest With Yourself)

When you’ve struggled with your weight for years, it’s very easy to confuse a habit or craving, with hunger.

We can often get used to eating at certain times of the time even if we’re not hungry.

For example, George might have breakfast at 8am. George then drives to work and someone fires up the kettle at 9:30am. They then pop the lid off the biscuit tin and offer them to George. George might think he’s hungry, but he only had breakfast an hour and a half ago, so is more than likely just engaging in a deeply-engrained habit.

If George honestly asked himself “Am I actually hungry?”, the answer would probably be no.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with snacks here and there, but it can be a very useful habit to get into, to start to acknowledge how we actually feel when it comes to food.

Am I hungry?

Is this just a craving or habit?

Am I just bored, stressed, anxious etc. and trying to take my mind off things?

We don’t just eat because of hunger.

Being able to identify why we’re eating is a great start to helping you think differently about your food choices.

If it’s not hunger – what is it?

Finish Your Meal – Now, We Wait (At Least 20 Minutes!)

Cutting down your portion sizes can be a daunting thought, and many people are in the life-long habit of thinking “unless I’m stuffed after a meal, then I’m still hungry!”.

It’s like that old phrase – If you tell yourself something enough times, you will believe it.

I believe that is the case with a lot of us. If we tell ourselves “I’m never full after a meal!” then we’ll believe it eventually, and it’ll justify us eating massive portions and more food afterwards because that’s just the way you are.

In reality, many people I’ve worked with have found huge benefits in simply waiting around 20 minutes after their meal, to decide whether they’re still hungry or not.

Why, you might ask?

Research has found that it can take around 10-20 minutes for our body to acknowledge that we’ve had food, and to let us know that we’re full.

If you’re a fast eater, it’s super easy to wolf down your meal in less than 10 minutes. This can leave you with an empty plate, and what you believe is still an empty stomach.

You then find yourself either going for another portion, or with your head in the kitchen cupboards finding other snacks to top you up.

In reality, waiting around 15-20 minutes after a meal can have a huge impact on how you feel hunger-wise.

Wait a little while, and honestly ask yourself “am I still hungry?”.

Prioritise Protein Intake

You may have always thought that prioritising protein in the diet was exclusively for gym-goers hitting the weights, however, this certainly isn’t, or shouldn’t, be the case.

Out of carbohydrates, fats and proteins, protein has been shown time and time again to come out as the most satiating (filling).

In addition, previous research has also found that a high protein diet can contribute to better weight loss success.

Another often-unknown benefit of prioritising protein during a weight loss phase is something known as the thermic effect of food. In a nutshell, this is how much energy your body has to use to digest the food we consume.

With fats and carbohydrates, we only use about 0-3% (fats), and 5-10% (carbohydrates) of the total energy from these foods to digest them, whereas proteins can use up to 20-30% of their energy content, meaning we extract significantly less energy from protein we consume.

For example, if you ate 100kcal of fat, you absorb around 97-100 calories. 100 calories of carbohydrates would be around 90-95 calories absorbed, and proteins would be around 70-80 calories absorbed.

The combination of protein being the most filling type of food, as well as the body having to spend more energy to digest it, is a winning combination for helping you lose weight.

And the final mention for protein is that consuming an adequate amount will also help you with holding on to as much muscle as possible when losing weight, which is always a good thing!

Of course, to further help your weight loss progress, aiming for leaner sources of protein where possible is going to help keep calories lower.

Avoid Liquid Calories Where Possible

Drinking your calories is a sure-fire way of making weight loss a lot more difficult.

Calories consumed in liquid form are significantly less filling, and are much easier to be consumed in large amounts.

For example, a 150ml glass of orange juice (which isn’t even the size of half a can of pop), is around 62kcal. If you were to drink a pint of orange juice, this would be around 232kcal.

In reality, that’s not going to fill you up at all.

In addition, if you love your teas and coffees, adding a bunch of milk and sugar to these is a great way of slowing down your weight loss progress.

One (level) tsp of sugar (4g) is 16 calories. Just 50ml of semi-skimmed milk is around 25 calories.

So, one cup of tea with two sugars and 50ml of semi-skimmed milk is going to be around 57 calories. I’ve met many people who drink 7-8+ cups a day – that could easily be 450+ calories per day if that’s how you have your hot drinks.

And also, anyone for a custard cream with that?

Include Physical Activity

Physical activity, on its own, is not very effective at all for weight loss.

This is for a number of reasons (I summarise these on point #5 on this post – why am I not losing weight on a calorie deficit?)

However, when combined with many of the points above in this article, physical activity can provide an extra boost.

It can do so through, of course, burning additional calories each day, but also through improving your mental wellbeing, too.

When we exercise, it generally tends to pick our mood up, and the combination of an improved mood, and having put a lot of effort into being active, is likely to lead us to want to make better decisions throughout the rest of the day.

Be mindful, though. We often massively overestimate how much energy we burn through exercise.

And, unless you’re doing huge amounts of activity, it’s usually not at all necessary to eat back the calories we burn doing exercise.

Conclusion

Figuring out how to be in a calorie deficit without counting calories is definitely possible, but can be tricky. You’re never going to be certain, but calorie counting just isn’t something a lot of people want to do, and that’s fine.

There are a few things you can do to help you on your way to losing weight without counting every calorie, or weighing everything you eat and drink.

You can try to maintain a regular eating pattern, focusing on nutrient-dense foods for prolonged satiety (fullness). Be mindful of portion sizes, recognising that even healthy meals can lead to weight gain if overconsumed, as all foods contain calories (even the nutritious ones!).

Listen to your body, learn to distinguish between genuine hunger and other triggers, such as stress, boredom or habit. Implement a 20-minute waiting period after meals to accurately assess hunger levels; eating quickly often results in still feeling hungry and can lead you to hunting for more food shortly after.

Prioritise protein intake for its filling effect and benefits in weight loss. Minimise liquid calories and incorporate physical activity for and added boost.

In essence, achieving a calorie deficit without meticulous counting is absolutely doable through mindful choices and lasting lifestyle adjustments. Embrace these changes for a healthier, happier you.