“Weight loss is more complicated than ‘Move more, eat less,’” he says. “Yes, all weight loss comes from a caloric deficit, but what is a caloric deficit?” He goes on to explain that knowing your basal metabolic rate (BMR) can be an incredibly useful tool if your goal is to lose fat. BMR is the number of calories your body naturally burns through its normal functions each day, excluding any extra physical exercise. BMR calculators are available online, and once you have that number, it’s easier to work out what kind of realistic caloric deficit to put in your diet so you can actually lose weight without having to increase your physical activity. “Your basal metabolic rate will actually decrease as you lose body fat because your body doesn’t need as much energy to run,” says Revelia. “It’s like driving a car on a highway and you have a trailer on it… If you drop the thousand-pound trailer, your car will be efficient and use less fuel to run.” He also points out that as you continue your calorie deficit and your BMR drops, you may feel more tired and your body will burn fewer calories to try to conserve energy. This is called mitochondrial efficiency, where the body becomes more efficient in daily movement. When you reach that sticking point, a common tactic is to add more cardio to your routine and drop a few extra calories, but Revelia believes this is where you’ll see diminishing returns. His advice is to introduce a “diet break”: as your BMR drops, temporarily increase the number of calories you eat and increase your energy expenditure through exercise. “As much as most people want to go straight for the goal … the results I see for people who take these diet breaks have been life-changing,” he says, “because when we get to our goal weight, we have I didn’t dieting so hard for so long that we’re basically on the run… My competitors get to the weight stage and can actually stay there with their calories close to where they were before they started the diet.” This content is created and maintained by a third party and is inserted on this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content on piano.io