If someone feels they’re carrying around too much fat, they’ll probably say they need to lose some weight.

Ironically, if that’s their only goal–reducing the number on the scale–they’re like to run into a new problem along the way: becoming skinny fat.

You see, the phrase “weight loss” is tossed around by just about everyone, including myself, but what we really want is a bit more than that.

We don’t want to just “lose weight”–we want to reduce our body fat percentage and thus improve our body composition. That is, we want to reduce our total amount of body fat without reducing our total amount of lean mass.

If this is obvious to you, you’re in the minority. Most people don’t realize how much muscle they can lose with a poor “weight loss” diet and are puzzled when they succeed in losing weight only to be disappointed by a weak, soft physique staring back at them in the mirror.

Well, in this episode we’re going to talk about how many calories you should eat to lose fat and not muscle.

To make these calculations easier, I created a simple and accurate calorie (and macronutrient) calculator:

How Many Calories Should I Eat?

What did you think of this episode? Have anything else to share? Let me know in the comments below!

+ Scientific References