Addressing Calorie Leaks: The missing key to fat loss?

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"I don't eat it because it's fattening for me"

This was a recent come back I got in a recent conversation with a prospect, and it got me thinking about what people think makes you gain weight. There are some misconceptions, but no food directly causes weight gain.

Here's one of the biggest factors I don't think people consider ????

Calorie Leaks: ??????

These are the calories you forget to account for. Hidden calories if you like. Some are consciously consumed, such as adding dressings, oils, cheese etc to your meal. But others are unknown, such as when you go to a restaurant and you have no idea whether the mashed potato is 90% butter 10% potato or whether it's a reasonably healthy portion.

Here's another example: ??????

1 x fillet of haddock?+ 1 x potato

[total calories approximately 400]

Whereas, the average portion of fish and chips is 1000-1200 calories.

Fish and potatoes are healthy foods.

But when cooking oils are added it skyrockets the calories. Does that mean fish and chips is fattening?

No. It's all within context. If Michael Phelps was consuming 12,000 calories a day at the peak of his training. He could eat 10 portions of fish and chips and still be incredibly lean.

Now, whilst you don't deep fry all your food at home. How many meals do you add some form of cooking oil to?

1 tbsp of olive oil - 120 calories.

Having that in just one meal a day is 840 calories per week.

Olive oil doesn't cause fat gain but the hidden calories that you use to cook with could be increasing your calorie intake massively. Leading to an increase in body fat, or struggling to lose body fat.

Other examples of calorie leaks:

???? Liquid Calories (milk, energy drinks, full-fat coca cola etc.)

???? Higher fat snacks such as dark chocolate, peanut butter, nuts

???? Leftovers (yes, they count as extra!)

???? I'll just have ones (the odd biscuit, sweet, etc.) the "one won't harm me" mentality is a slippery slope.

One biscuit at 100 calories, twice a day for a month is 6000 calories a month. (approximately 2lbs of fat)

You don't have to remove these you just have to account for them. For context, if you over ate 6000 calories of avocado the same thing would happen, so it's not directly a healthy food vs an unhealthy food argument. But, as we know unhealthy sweet treats are much easier to over consume than healthier foods.

Calorie leaks are like those direct debits you forget to cancel and you wonder where all your money has gone. You forget you're signed up to Netflix, Disney, Apple, Amazon Prime etc. ??

This is why I do recommend tracking calories if you are not losing weight. This is like going through your bank account and searching for the hidden expenses. Not only that, but it teaches you the contents of food. You realise that the 'protein' breakfast bar you eat every morning has only 5% of your daily required protein intake but 20% of your daily calories.

I don't think you should track forever. Just when needed. You'll be surprised at how much you do consume with even a healthy meal.

If you have any questions about how to get started with tracking, or just require some further nutritional information. Drop me a private message.

I hope you enjoyed this latest edition of The Health Upgrade??

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