Fat loss

Losing fat is simple on paper: eat a little less than you burn, for long enough. The hard parts are keeping your muscle, keeping your sanity, and not rebounding afterwards. This guide is about doing all three.

Pick a sensible pace

The app sets your deficit from a weekly rate of loss, as a percentage of body weight.

The deficit is worked out as weekly kg x 7,700 / 7, using the usual estimate of 7,700 kcal per kg of body weight.

0.5% a week is a good default. It is fast enough to see progress every few weeks and slow enough to keep strength, sleep and mood intact. Leaner people and those who are already strong should lean towards the slower end. People with more weight to lose can tolerate a faster pace, but keep any aggressive phase to about 4-8 weeks.

The calorie floor

The app will not set a target below 1,500 kcal for men or 1,200 kcal for women. Under that it is difficult to get enough protein, vitamins and minerals, and very low-calorie diets should be run with a doctor or dietitian.

Find your starting numbers with the TDEE calculator and read calories and TDEE for the method.

Set protein high

In a deficit, protein is your main protection against muscle loss and it keeps hunger down. The app sets 2.2 g per kg of body weight when cutting. If your BMI is above 30, it uses the weight you would be at a BMI of 30 instead, since protein needs follow lean mass.

Fat stays at 0.8 g per kg, and at least 20% of calories, and carbs fill the rest. Keep most of your carbs around training so your sessions stay strong. The macros calculator puts this in grams.

Foods that make a deficit easier

• High-protein, high-volume foods: hung curd, paneer in sensible portions, eggs and egg whites, chicken breast, fish, soya chunks, tofu, chana and rajma
• Plenty of vegetables: a big bowl of sabzi, salad or clear soup with every meal
• Fruit instead of sweets: guava, papaya, orange, apple
• Measured oil and ghee, since tadka and frying are the easiest calories to miss
• Fewer liquid calories: sweet chai, juices, lassi with sugar, cold drinks and alcohol

Keep your strength

The biggest mistake on a diet is switching to light weights and high reps “to tone”. Heavy loads are the signal that tells your body to keep its muscle.

• Keep the weight on the bar. Try to hold your working loads and reps.
• Trim volume if needed. If recovery suffers, cut sets by about 20-33% rather than cutting the load.
• Expect some stalls. Holding your lifts during a long diet is a win. Small drops late in a diet are normal.
• Keep creatine going if you take it; it still helps in a deficit.

The tracker logs your lifts so you can see whether strength is holding. Read how to build muscle for how to set up the training itself.

Steps before cardio

Daily walking burns a meaningful amount of energy without eating into your recovery the way extra intense cardio can.

1. Raise steps first. Aim for about 7,000-10,000 a day. Walk after meals, take calls on foot, use the stairs.
2. Then add easy cardio if you need more: 2-3 sessions of 20-40 minutes of brisk walking, cycling or swimming.
3. Keep hard cardio away from heavy leg days, and do not pair high-volume cardio with heavy squats on the same day.

The calories-burned calculator gives a rough idea of what an activity costs, and cardio and heart-rate zones explains how hard to go. Do not eat back exercise calories by estimate; let your weight trend tell you what is working.

Track the trend, not the day

Weigh yourself each morning under the same conditions and watch the weekly average. Daily numbers can swing by a kilo or more from salt, water, a late dinner or your menstrual cycle.

Also track your waist measurement and take photos every 2-4 weeks. If you are lifting well, your waist can shrink even when the scale is slow.

After 2-4 weeks of logs, the tracker estimates your real maintenance from your intake and weight trend, so you can set your target from data rather than a formula.

Plan diet breaks

After every 8-12 weeks of dieting, spend 1-2 weeks eating at maintenance. A diet break helps with energy, training and adherence, and makes the next phase easier to stick to. Eat at maintenance, not in a surplus; you will likely gain a little water and glycogen, which is not fat.

Festivals and weddings are good times to plan one rather than fighting them.

Sleep and stress matter more than usual

Hunger and recovery suffer most in a deficit. Short sleep raises appetite and makes it harder to hold onto muscle. Aim for 7-9 hours and read sleep and recovery.

Warning signs: stop and reassess

Raise your calories, take a diet break and seek professional support if you notice:

• Persistent dizziness or fainting
• Hair loss
• Missed or irregular periods
• Obsessive thoughts about food, or binge eating
• Several weeks of falling performance, poor sleep and low mood

None of these are a price worth paying for a faster result.

After the diet

When you reach your goal, raise calories gradually to your new maintenance over 2-4 weeks. Keep training hard, keep protein high, and keep walking. The habits that got you lean are the ones that keep you there.

This is general information, not medical advice; see a doctor before dieting if you have diabetes, thyroid disease, an eating disorder history or any other medical condition.