What to eat to lose fat without hunger

What a real calorie deficit is

To lose fat you need to burn more energy than you eat. That's basic physics, not an opinion, but a deficit doesn't mean going hungry. A gentle deficit, around 300 to 500 calories below what your body needs to maintain itself, is enough to keep losing fat week after week. No suffering, and no alarm mode.

How do you work out what your body needs? Take your weight in kilos and multiply it by 28 if you don't move much, or by 32 if you train 4 or more days a week. That's your starting point, so subtract 300 or 500 and you've got your target. You don't need anything else.

Protein is your best friend

Protein keeps you full much longer than carbohydrates or fats. Your body spends more energy digesting it. And most importantly: it protects your muscle while you lose fat. Aim for between 1.6 and 2 grams per kilo of body weight a day. That 1.6 is not plucked out of thin air: when dozens of trials in healthy adults doing strength training were pooled, going above it stopped adding any more muscle. If you weigh 75 kilos, that is around 120 to 150 grams of protein a day.

The 10 foods that fill you up most with the fewest calories

The trick is lowering the calories per mouthful rather than shrinking the plate. In experiments run with adults and with children, serving food that was less calorie-dense cut daily intake sharply, and people barely made up for it at later meals.

• Eggs. 70 calories each, 6 grams of protein. Cheap, easy to cook and very filling.
• Plain Greek yogurt. 100 calories per 170 grams, 17 grams of protein. With a few strawberries on top you have a top-notch snack.
• Chicken breast. 165 calories per 100 grams, 31 grams of protein. The classic that never fails.
• Legumes. Lentils, chickpeas, beans. Plant protein plus fiber. They keep you full for hours.
• Oats. They release energy slowly. A 40-gram bowl with milk and you get to midday without trouble.
• Leafy greens. Spinach, arugula, lettuce. Plenty of volume and almost no calories.
• Cottage cheese. 98 calories per 100 grams, 11 grams of protein. Works with fruit or on its own.
• White fish. Hake, sea bream, sea bass. Between 80 and 100 calories per 100 grams. Lots of protein, almost no fat.
• Berries. Strawberries, blueberries, raspberries. Sweet, full of fiber and low in calories.
• Soups and broths. They fill your stomach with almost no calories. Perfect for dinner.

A day eating in a deficit that does not feel like a diet

Here is what a normal day can look like eating 400 calories less than you need without going hungry at any point:

• Breakfast (350 cal): A 3-egg omelet with spinach and a black coffee.
• Midmorning (150 cal): Plain Greek yogurt with strawberries from the market.
• Lunch (500 cal): Grilled chicken breast with a large salad of tomato, cucumber and half an avocado, plus a handful of brown rice.
• After training (200 cal): Protein shake with a banana.
• Dinner (400 cal): Baked sea bream with lemon and roasted vegetables. Zucchini, pepper, onion.

Total: around 1,600 calories. If your maintenance is 2,000, that is a deficit of 400 without going hungry all day. You eat well, you eat food you enjoy, and you are in a deficit. That simple.

Mistakes that will sabotage you

Cutting too much at once. A deficit of 1,000 calories looks like it will get you results faster. What it gets you is hunger, a bad mood, muscle loss and, sooner or later, a rebound where you end up overeating. It does not work. Go step by step. That sudden cut does not only take fat with it, and there are numbers that quantify it: losing weight fast takes muscle with it, and how to slow that down.

Obsessing over how many meals you eat. The split is not what decides it. Eating breakfast or skipping it does not on its own change what you end up eating across the day. Pick the split you can actually keep up and make sure you hit your protein at every meal.

Cutting out carbohydrates. Carbohydrates are your fuel for training. Without them your gym sessions will be miserable and you will lose muscle. Do not remove them. Reduce them a little and that is it.

Do not chase perfection, chase consistency

You don't need to eat perfectly every day, you need to eat reasonably well most days. An ice cream on Sunday doesn't ruin your week, but 5 junk food dinners do. Find your balance. Without stress, without guilt, with consistency. That's what actually works.

The foods that make eating reasonably well feel easy are listed here: what to put on the plate to arrive full at the next meal.

And when you notice your clothes fit differently, that you look better in the mirror, that you have more energy to train, you will know it is worth it. See you at the gym.

You can put all of this into practice on your own. But if you have been circling the same point for a while, a personal trainer on the Costa del Sol can spare you a lot of trial and error. You will know if that is your case.