When it comes to dieting we all know that calories count. We have to consume less than our body burns in order to lose weight. There is no way to get around that, regardless of whatever you may have been told, you HAVE to eat and drink less calories than you burn or you simply will NOT lose fat.

However there are two different ways of achieving this calorie deficit and each way has it’s own avid group of supporters.

1. It doesn’t matter the type of food you eat, whether it is junk, processed, takeaway whatever, as long as your calories are right and your various macronutrients (proteins, carbs and fats) hit the right numbers then you will lose weight.

2. Food has to be ‘clean’, as in unprocessed, as natural as possible, fresh from the land. Minimal bastardising by mankind.

Either way, as long as the calories are right, will cause you to lose weight. There’s no doubt about that. You could quite comfortably eat McDonalds for every meal of every day and you would lose weight IF you were eating fewer calories than you needed. Indeed you could drop weight solely surviving off chocolate milk and crisps, as long as the calories were right. You get the picture.

So if you can lose weight eating the ‘nice stuff’, what is the point of struggling eating salads and the fresh stuff if it’s not really your thing? Well the answer as to what to do all depends on your starting point and the strength of your willpower. Before I tell you though you need to be aware of a few things that happen when you diet:

1. Calories are units of energy. Everything you consume apart from water has them. You HAVE to eat fewer calories than your body needs in order to lose weight, and you have to eat more than your body needs to gain it (fat cannot be created out of nothing)
2. How your body processes and deals with those calories is controlled by your hormonal system. It is responsible for everything your body does. Of concern to us in this post is how it breaks down existing fat stores, how it chooses where it takes the fat from and how it helps us control our hunger and energy levels.
3. Willpower is paramount when dieting. The very fact that on a diet you HAVE to be deprived of something (because you messed it up when left to your own devices), your brain naturally wants what you are telling it it can’t have. So willpower is required (and this is controlled by the hormonal system)
4. Finally, it’s all very well just ‘eating’ food but your body has to then break it down, digest it, extract all of the relevant nutrients and then shunt them around and do the right things with them inside your body. It does this by using enzymes that you have inside you and the enzymes that are contained within the food you eat. These two groups of enzymes marry together when you eat and then work to break the food down so the body can absorb everything.

So understanding all of that now, let’s look again at the two types of ‘dieting methods’

JUNK EATING

1. This food is satiating and satisfying to the brain. It makes us feel good. We like it because it is ‘naughty’ and of course it is convenient.
2. However any food that has been processed typically has it’s enzyme and nutrient content destroyed. Enzymes are responsible for foods breaking down and going ‘off’ so manufacturers tend to destroy them so that foods last longer on the shelf.
3. The problem with this for us as a dieter is that when we now eat this food the body is unable to digest it properly because it doesn’t have the ‘marrying’ enzymes to help it do so, they were destroyed in the manufacturing process.
4. This means that as the body can’t get to and absorb the nutrients properly it is unable to feed and fuel our hormonal system. Yes we get full, and are not hungry (for a while) but we are not actually ‘digesting’ the food properly.
5. So because the hormonal system is not being fed it doesn’t work properly, which means we get hungry again soon after, we can’t control our cravings as well, we don’t register when we are ‘full’ and you can imagine this makes it much harder to stick to your diet, not to mention the other health issues of a poorly functioning hormonal mechanism.

CLEAN EATING

1. Calorie for Calorie you can typically eat more ‘clean’ food than you can junk, as it tends to be lower in fat, so this is good from a filling you up point of view. It also works wonders for your motivation as eating clean food makes everyone feel righteous and powerful.
2. Unprocessed food, because it has not had the enzymes destroyed in the manufacturing process, can be fully absorbed by the body, meaning the hormonal system gets fully fed.
3. This means that your body realises when it is full, and more importantly when it is hungry. This makes it easier for you to avoid cravings and to ‘stick’ to your diet.
4. The problem though is most people just don’t feel satisfied eating only clean food, they need ‘a little something’ to finish off with and because it is not how they would ‘normally’ eat (because if it was they would not be overweight in the first place) it goes against what is natural and normally enjoyable for them, so it’s actually a constant battle.
5. Finally ‘clean food’ can be more expensive, doesn’t keep as long, spoils quicker etc. All of these things need to be taken into account.

SO WHAT TO DO?

It depends on 2 factors

1. Your starting point
2. The strength of your willpower.

If you have more than 2 stone to lose then regularly including processed food in your diet will certainly get you close to your goal. Be aware that it will be harder to avoid food cravings and urges as your hormonal system is not working with you (as it is not being fed optimally) so you will have a battle on your hands. But if you are the type of individual who can power through and is focussed with no deviation then you will be fine.

If you are ‘almost there’, as in your belly is flat but you are looking for the final touches and to be ‘better’, then you really need to be cleaning up your act. We need the hormonal system to be firing on all cylinders and working with us, not against, so there isn’t much room for eating food that doesn’t do us ‘much good’.

A balance is the ideal. Make your meals clean and as unprocessed as possible. What you put on your plate will directly impact not only your immediate results but your ability to stay the course and finish the job (by helping to control your hunger and fullness levels). Your main course wants to good quality proteins, plenty of veg or salad and healthy fats. Finish afterwards with a junky treat if you need ‘satisfying’ but make the bulk of your meals ‘clean’. Give your body what it needs in order to support you and help you reach your goals.

Now as a caveat to this I personally know, and follow many more on social media, individuals who have made a living being ripped and shredded fitness models and all they do is simply eat junk day in day out. They advertise the fact proudly and share pics of their food all the time. This is fine (we can’t comment on their internal health of course but that’s not the point of this post, we are focussing solely on losing weight), but understand that these individuals have willpowers of steel.

When you or I stuff ourselves with a pizza or chinese, and I mean STUFF ourselves, and we sit there thinking we could not possibly eat another thing, and then half an hour later we are picking at the leftovers or looking in the chocolate or biscuit tin, this has happened because our body has not been fed food that tells it it is full, it gets all confused, your hormones go crazy and now your just want to eat more. We ate food that was JUST food, apart from that it was pretty pointless as far as the body is concerned.

Well you and I would go looking for something else to eat, these ripped and shredded six pack models DO NOT. They have the willpower to overcome the screwed up hormonal signals the body is generating. They are steadfast, determined and focussed. If that is YOU, and your goal is purely aesthetics as opposed to overall health, then fill your boots.

But if you are like me, and need ALL the help you can get when dieting then that method of eating is not for you, trust me. You need to eat, on the whole, clean, unprocessed, nutrient rich foods that feed your hormones so they can help you get the job done. A little junk is fine as long as the majority of your intake is as unprocessed as possible. Dieting is hard enough as it is without you encouraging your body to work against you as well.

If you want to feel fuller for longer, control your hunger and your cravings better, then clean eating (whatever that technically entails) is for you. Include a little junk or processed food of course to keep you sane, but it should most definitely not be a large part of your diet.

The take home is this: junk and processed food will make you hungrier quicker and harder to control your cravings, clean, unprocessed foods won’t. Only you can decide which way you want to go….

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