Hello and welcome to this episode of the ESG Fitness podcast.

This episode is going to be all about how diets work and an observation that I've made

that you can generally split diets into three categories.

Those that focus on limiting food, examples would be low carb diets, low fat diets, keto diets, clean eating, carnivore,

paleo. There's some kind of limitation on specific foods. Those that focus on limiting calories,

i.e. tracking calories and limiting them. Where would I put meal plans, probably in the first one,

limiting foods? And then the third group would be those that focus on limiting timing. So,

for example, fasting or time restricted eating. All of these methods work for fat loss by the

exact same method. They create a calorie deficit. You're either doing so by directly

counting calories or you're reducing calories as a side effect of the limitations that you're

putting on your diet in other ways, i.e. via time or via food choices. So, what is the best way to do it? And largely a lot of the debates around

nutrition kind of boil down to this. And it's really up to you. Now, I would argue that the best

approach will actually cover all three factors. So what you eat, when you eat, and how much you

eat. This is exactly how I coach clients. Some people

think that if calories are the primary driver of fat loss, which they are, then the only option

would be to track calories. But you absolutely do not need to track calories to create a deficit and thus to lose fat.

And some people, including myself, really just don't like tracking that much.

That doesn't mean ignoring calories.

It just means focusing on them slightly less.

If you want to lose fat and even if you want to maintain a healthy weight,

you're probably going to have to be somewhat calorically aware,

or energy density of food aware,

...