Carbs or fats? Which one is ideal for fat loss

Raise your hand if you’ve heard at least once that you should eat fewer carbs to lose weight?

Now raise your hand if you’ve heard it for fats?

Ok, interesting.

Well, I got some bad news to share.

Whether you’ve tried to cut carbs or fasts out of your diet, it doesn’t really matter.

Why?

Because research has shown that when protein and calories are equated, fats and carbs come more to a matter of personal preference.

So answering which one is better (or worse) for fat loss doesn’t make sense, as there’s no macronutrient in general that’s responsible for it.

Just pick more of what you want to eat and can follow through.

Can’t get over some pizza, ice cream, or donuts?… Then keep a high-carb diet.

Do you love to eat eggs, avocado, and bacon every day?… Then fats will be the main macronutrient compared to carbs.

The point is…

You don’t need to think there’s a specific ratio that will magically help you.

In fact, these studies show you that what really matters is the calories you’re in (and whether you’re in a real deficit or not) and the amount of protein you consume.

But let’s get practical.

Let’s say you’re a man who’s weighing 200 lbs and wants to get down to 160 lbs.

After you calculated your TDEE and know how many calories you need to eat per day, you find out that you have to eat (theoretically, at least) 1,700kcal… out of which 165g will be of protein.

Since every gram of protein has 4kcal, we’d multiply it by the total amount of protein to know the calories that will come from protein.

So 165 x 4 = 660kcal from protein.

If we subtract that from the 1,700kcal, we get 1,040kcal left… which we need to now distribute between fats and carbs.

Since it doesn’t really seem to make any difference when losing fat, you can go with ranges that work best for you.

You can use a 40/60 fat:carb ratio… or maybe a 70/30 carb:fat ratio.

The goal is that you should have enough of both fats and carbs to make sure you don’t get hungry throughout the day or starve yourself with cravings.

One thing to consider…

Whenever you’re going to set the ratio between fats and carbs, don’t forget that you’re not looking to choose the lowest range… you’re looking to set a manageable range that allows you to not feel like you’re starving yourself, but more importantly…..

that’s something you enjoy and can stick to it.

If you cannot stick to the range you choose, then you’re only going to end up not making any progress and wondering where is the mistake.

Never go below the 80/20 ratio on either of the macros, and you should never try to pick the 80/20 on either side.

But I get it, sometimes this can get a little bit tricky and we can even overthink this.

So if you’re somewhat confused about how this works and how to calculate how much you should be eating, then you’re gonna want to get the Cheatsheet I give as a Bonus when people sign up to the link below:

www.fitnessthetic.com

You’ll find everything I covered in here in a 2-page Cheatsheet you can use to know in detail how much you should be eating to start your fat loss phase.

Ivan @ Fitnessthetic