At the beginning of June 2019, I put my summer fat loss goals on hold. Stress, death in the family, end-of-school-year bullshit, and exhaustion all warranted a short break from calorie restriction for me.
Good news: The break helped. I was ready to get that six pack after a few months.
Bad news: I had to be strict af if I wanted that six pack before fall.
See, I’m a woman.
(DUH.)
And I’m short.
(DOUBLE DUH.)
And I’m over 40.
(Is that one a duh? I think I look 30-something, so maybe.)
And those 3 things add up to something many women already know about getting leaner:
If I’m not strict about my nutrition, I won’t see any results.
I know folks who can “eat healthy” all week, can eyeball all their portions instead of measuring them to the gram, then can eat pizza and have a few beers on Saturday night and still lose fat. Those people, though, are mostly already overweight, and they’re not short little 42-year-old women.
The fact is, if you’re female, you don’t have the diet leeway that men, especially big men, sometimes have. Your metabolism is smaller because your body and your muscles are smaller.
And the smaller you already are, the tighter your diet has to be.
Here’s an example, with some numbers to help you see what I mean.
Let’s say I need around 2000 calories per day to maintain my current body composition. If I wish to lose about 1 pound of fat per week, I need to cut somewhere in the neighborhood of 3500 calories from my week. That’s an average of 500 calories that I need to cut per day.
So now I’m down to 1500 calories per day.
Now let’s say I successfully stick to my 1500 calories per day plan all week, and come Saturday night, I decide I deserve a little pizza and beer. Two slices of a medium plain cheese pizza at Domino’s comes to 400 calories. And two Coors Lights comes to 200 calories.
But WTF—this is Buffalo, right? And who the heck eats Domino’s and drinks Coors Light here? (If you do eat Domino’s and drink Coors Light, I don’t mean to insult you. You just aren’t really a Buffalonian.)
So in reality, if I have two slices of a large La Nova pizza, plus two IPAs, now I’m looking at closer to 1100 calories.
And my fat loss for the week?
Buh-bye.
Listen, the calorie example is an easy way to think about how this works, but the truth is, those numbers are estimates. We simply DON’T KNOW how many calories you, Susie Q, need to cut to lose body fat. We can take a smart guesstimate, though, and we can say, FOR SURE, that the smaller you are, and the more female you are, the less wiggle room you have for your nutrition plan.
[SIDE NOTE: Please don’t count calories. I would much, much prefer that you measure your protein, carb, and fat intake to make sure you’re getting the right kinds of foods into your body. Calories count, but so does your food quality. If you aren’t sure how much protein you need, or whether you need more carbs or fat, talk to a Fit House trainer!]
I know it’s hard to swallow this pill as a woman. Believe me, I spent a few years trying to make weekend “cheat” meals work for me and still get that six pack.
It didn’t happen.
In fact, all it did was make me miserable and mad.
Instead, I eventually had to re-frame how I thought about this. OK, so I can’t eat pizza and drink beer on weekends if I want six pack abs. Why did that make me so mad? What did I think I was missing out on by NOT eating pizza or drinking beer?
Turns out, I wasn’t missing much. I still hang out with folks who are eating pizza and drinking beer, but I don’t have to do either. And if my goal—that six pack—outweighs my desire for pizza and beer, then the choice isn’t hard at all. Plus, La Nova and IPAs are always there. I live in Buffalo, where there are 600 pizzerias in the immediate area. Saying no to those foods during my fat loss phase doesn’t mean I’ll never eat La Nova again. It means I’m just waiting until another time.
A lot of people struggle with nutrition because they think they’re depriving themselves. The truth is, you’re choosing your body composition goal over food.
That’s not deprivation. That’s free will.
And that’s the reality of six pack abs.
If you want them, you have to want them more than the other stuff.
About the author
Kristen Perillo
Kristen Perillo is a teacher by day, trainer and nutrition coach by night. She's also a Star Wars nerd, writer, dog (and cat) mom, peanut butter junkie, and Seinfeld devotee. Fitness has done nothing but make her life better, and she is privileged to show other people that it will do the same for them.
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