Eating healthier but still gaining weight? This might be why
You’ve committed to becoming a healthier, fitter version of yourself and along with the new gym membership you’ve started to make more healthy choices with your diet.
A couple of weeks in and you aren’t seeing much in the way of change but that’s fine, change takes time - right? A month later and discouragingly there’s still no visible signs.
You’ve eaten salads for lunch every day and haven’t so much as eyeballed a chocolate bar, so what is going on?
What really matters
Body composition (your ratio of fat mass and muscle mass) is largely dictated by your calorie intake over time. Note, it doesn’t take into account how nutrient dense or ‘healthy’ a given food is.
I help my clients distinguish this by separating nutrition into two categories; eating for health and eating for body composition. They are certainly not mutually exclusive and in a perfect world (and for optimal long term results) you should look to work on both.
Eric Helms conceptualised this difference in his ‘pyramids of importance’. In this case, eating for body composition:
Basically what you need to know is that when it comes to losing weight, if you’re not eating in a calorie deficit then you’re not going to be losing weight. You can eat all the right macronutrients, micronutrients and supplements in the world, but if you’re not in a calorie deficit you won’t lose weight.
Surprise Calories
If a food is healthy, it’s very easy to jump to the conclusion it’s good for you and leave it at that. But now you know that calories are the most important factor for weight change, you might find it interesting to know that some foods typically considered healthy are actually pretty high in calories:
This isn't to say these foods aren’t healthy, they very much are. Remember no one food will cause you to gain weight, it’s the accumulative calorie intake over time that dictates this. But it’s useful to know that some foods might contain significantly more calories than you estimated.
A common trait amongst the examples above is fat content. Foods high in fat tend to be higher calorie because:
Healthy food is good!
It’s important to stress, whilst it’s possible to gain weight eating healthy, nutrient dense foods - the same can be said for any food group.
So even though the point of this article is to highlight that healthy foods aren’t exempt from calorie balance, it’s a very good idea to eat mostly nutrient dense foods. If you want your body to function at its best, supplying it with ample vitamins and nutrients is unquestionably the best route to go.
Also whilst some healthy foods are surprisingly high in calories, the vast majority of healthy, nutrient dense foods are lower in calories than a less nutrient dense alternative.
Real Life
It is completely feasible (although a bit unrealistic) that someone regularly consuming fast food could lose more weight than someone eating a very nutrient-dense diet. In fact, Jordan Syatt did just that and documented it here.
Why would that work?
Let’s say the person in question requires around 2,000 calories to maintain weight and around 1,600 calories to lose weight. A Big Mac burger is 550 calories, which fits well under the 1,600 calorie mark:
As you can see, the person eating the big mac has aligned their daily food choices to stay around the 1,600 calorie zone which should result in weight loss. The person eating healthier will likely see improved health (rocket science, eh?) but they won’t see weight loss because daily calorie intake is higher.
What you need to know
Making a conscious effort to eat more ‘healthy’ foods can still cause you to gain weight.
Eating for health and eating for body composition are not exclusive of each other, but there is a difference.
We should all aim to eat with an appreciation for both health and body composition.
Having an appreciation of calorie balance is crucial if your goal is long term weight change.
If you’ve made an effort to change your diet so it includes more healthy foods, you’re on the right track! Don’t be discouraged, your body will be better for it regardless of weight change.
