Question 1 What is the most important

determinant of fat loss?

Fat Loss Roundtable With The Experts

Layne Norton What is the most important determinant of fat loss?

“Well there are a lot of things but the biggest thing is to make sure that you are in a caloric deficit.

Obviously protein/carb/fat breakdown is going to heavily influence substrate utilization and exercise is important to maintain muscle mass but at the end of the day if you aren't oxidizing more than you take in you won't be seeing significantly fat loss in most cases.”

Alan AragonWhat is the most important determinant of fat loss?

“The most important thing is to sustain a caloric deficit over a prolonged period. The deficit will periodically close up, and plateaus in fat loss will occur, and getting past those plateaus is a matter of re-opening the deficit with either a further decrease in intake, increase in training output, or both.”

“I would say Consistency. It´s not usually a matter of the diet failing the dieter, it´s the dieter failing the diet. When things start to slow down, which it inevitably does on any diet when you get into low single digit bf%, is when you need a hefty dose of patience to stick it out. And by that, I´m not only talking about binge eating episodes, I´m talking about being over-ambitious and cutting calories harder or adding cardio to an already borderline excessive deficit. Trust the process and make sure you have sufficient nutrients to not only maintain training intensity, but to function in daily life. Take your time. If you´re always hungry and obsessed with food, you should seriously consider adding calories or changing your macros around - unless you´re at the very end of a contest diet where some suffering is bound to happen, of course...”

Borge FagerliWhat is the most important determinant of fat loss?

“Your diet.

You can't out train a poor diet. With diet my starting points are 4 meals a day, high protein, healthy fats and no starchy carbs.”

Gavin AllinsonWhat is the most important determinant of fat loss?

“Finding a balance which you can stick to which contains the right mix of deficit, muscle protection, nutrient delivery and sustainable longer term adherence.”

Matt LovellWhat is the most important determinant of fat loss?

“I'd like to respond to the no starchy carbs comment by Gavin: While I agree some people are extremely carb intolerant and need to limit their intake of starchy carbs, this is still a minority of people. Most can have a modest amount of starchy carbs in balance with a healthy, high protein/fiber diet.

I think that completely eliminating food groups is a big mistake as classifying foods as 'good' or 'bad' is over simplistic and can lead to people developing disordered eating habits and awkward/unhealthy relationships with food. Besides, if you are someone who can get lean eating starches why wouldn't you include them in moderation?”

Layne Norton What is the most important determinant of fat loss?