How "Eat More to Lose Fat" Actually Makes Sense
No, it's not weird scammy pseudo science
Eat more to lose fat.
Sounds like a scam.
Sounds like the kind of thing someone would tell you when they’re trying to see you some “magic” program guaranteed to get you on the cover of Men’s Health.
But it’s legit. And in today’s letter, I’m going to tell you why.
How Eating More to Get Leaner Works
Let’s address the obvious here.
When I say “eat more,” I’m not talking about all-you-can buffets, daily donuts, or large pizzas.
I’m not advocating mindless snacking or gluttony.
I’m suggesting that if you properly fuel your body with high-quality, nutritious food, you will:
Have more energy to train with intensity
Have more energy to be active throughout your day
Be less likely to crash diet
This combination leads to more happiness, more muscle, and less fat.
Let’s break each down.
Training Intensity
Pushing your body hard is hard work.
If you go on a starvation diet, you’ll deplete your glycogen (the body's carb storage, mostly stored in muscles).
You’ll be tired, you’ll fatigue easily, and you won’t have the energy to push through tough workouts.
You’ll burn fewer calories during your workouts when you’re too fatigued to train properly, but more importantly, you won’t be able to optimize the fitness adaptation you’re going for.
You’ll struggle to lift with enough force to create the mechanical tension to build muscle, and if strength is the main goal, you’ll struggle to find the focus in your central nervous system required to perform heavy sets.
When you have more calories (from eating well and not putting yourself on a starvation diet) you have the energy to train well.
Training well means you can build more muscle (which increases your metabolism) and build more strength.
Daily Activity
One of the aspects of your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) is NEAT: Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
That’s the fancy pants term for all activity you do that is not specific exercise.
Sex, cleaning, cooking, getting groceries, cleaning up after your kids, doing the laundry, etc.
It may surprise you to know that if you’re not an athlete, NEAT represents a bigger portion of your overall TDEE than exercise.
An important note about NEAT - you don’t get to control it.
Anytime you start intentionally moving for the sake of moving, you’re exercising.
NEAT is subconscious, and it responds to how much energy you take in.
Studies that looked at the effects of overfeeding a group of people found some outliers will increase their NEAT to burn nearly an additional 1000 calories per day when fed well above their metabolic needs.
This happens essentially through fidgeting and spontaneous activity.
While 1000 calories per day would make you an outlier, the same effect happens to some degree.
More relevant to the point, it also happens in the other direction.
When you restrict calories too much, NEAT slows down.
You become lethargic and less motivated to move, and you’ll burn fewer calories because of this.
When you fuel your body well, you feel like moving.
You’re more likely to want to go for a walk, there will be a spring in your step.
You’ll be happier, and happy people are more active.
It Prevents Crash Dieting
But the most important reason that eating more helps with fat loss is that it prevents the thing that is most catastrophic to fat loss:
Crash dieting.
Binging.
What’s important to note here is that when someone binges from the stress and hunger from an extreme diet, they don’t go slightly overboard…
The types of food that people binge on are so calorie-dense, that these episodes can work out to several days worth of calories.
It doesn’t work out to being the same thing as if you had just eaten a little more over the past few days — binge episodes work out to far more calories consumed than that.
If you’d just given yourself a bit more room to eat high-quality food, you’d make it far less likely that you’d have the drive to binge.
It’s useful to see through a hypothetical example.
The Tale of Carl & Steve
There are two men with identical goals and metabolic needs.
Carl and Steve.
Both are 5’10, 32 years old, 183 pounds, and 20% body fat.
They both want to drop around 15 pounds.
They’re committed to going to the gym 4 days a week and getting 10k steps per day, so they’ll have a substantial TDEE of approximately 2800 calories per day.
Carl decides to take things slow.
He starts by eating between 2300-2400 calories per day.
This feels decent to him and allows him to eat things he enjoys and doesn’t feel too stressed by.
But Steve goes in the other direction.
Steve wants to get shredded, and he wants it now.
Steve jumps to 1700 calories per day.
Who loses more fat in the first few weeks?
Well of course Steve does.
Steve drops 7.5 pounds in the first 3 weeks, over 2 pounds per week.
Naturally, everyone on social media applauds Steve's amazing progress (because everyone loves fast fat loss…)
But 1 month in, after he’s lost nearly 10 pounds, Steve runs into an issue.
He can’t stop thinking about food.
He’s constantly famished.
His sleep has taken a hit (from cortisol) and his last few workouts have sucked.
How’s Carl doing?
Carl’s great. Carl has lost 4.5 pounds in the first month, less than half of Steve's.
But he’s chillin.
Workouts are good, not stressing about food — he’s fitting in food he enjoys every day and barely feels like he’s on a diet.
Steve begins to struggle to control his hunger, and the “cheat days” begin.
Fried chicken, cheeseburgers, pizza — one night, the man even put down a whole container of cookies from the grocery store bakery.
Instead of seeing these cheat days as a sign that he needs to increase calories, Steve gets mad at himself and only doubles down each time.
Steve only loses 2 more pounds the following month because his progress has been offset by the binges.
Carl, meanwhile, has been plugging away happily and is 8 pounds down (only 4 behind Steve).
In month 3, Steve breaks. He’s too hungry, he’s dealing with a stressful situation at work and he just can’t stick to the extreme starvation calories.
He gains 3 pounds back. Even though he’s still lost weight, he feels stressed and demotivated by the whole experience, and his performance at the gym has been mediocre at best.
Different story for Carl. Carl has been making gains the whole time, getting stronger each week.
After 3 months, he’s 12 pounds and looking more muscular.
He feels strong, confident, and is in a good place.
Steve decides to bail and is back to where he started within 6 weeks.
Obviously, this is an overly simplified fictional scenario.
But Steve’s situation does happen.
That pattern of over-restricting has been one of my biggest issues, and it’s negatively impacted my training and mental health.
Eat more to lose fat isn’t some pseudo-science BS.
It’s real.
The best way to permanently lose fat and live in a body you love is to ensure you fuel your body with enough energy to train hard, be active, and enjoy life. It doesn’t mean that you eat with reckless abandon, it means that starvation diets are never the answer.
Takeaway
The point I made about everyone applauding Steve’s fast weight loss is important. People on social media respond to fat loss by always assuming that more and faster is better.
But this is dumb — it’s much safer and better to lose fat slowly in a way that is sustainable.
Don’t be tempted by the crash diets that tell you how to lose 20 pounds in a month. These things aren’t the solution, they’re the f*cking problem.
Learn to be aware of your metabolic needs.
Limit snacking on processed junk(not because “processed is evil — because most of these things don’t make you full and have a ton of calories )
Eat whole, nutrient-dense food.
Steak, chicken, fish, veggies, potatoes, fruit.
Enjoy slowly and try not to overeat.
But do not starve yourself.
I can guarantee you that it won’t end well if you do.
When you’re ready, here’s how I can help:
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