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How to Think About Fat Loss: The Law of Averages

Fat loss happens over the course of a month, not a single day. Once that clicks, you can plan for weekends, vacations and pizza night and still come out leaner.

So much of your progress lives in the philosophy and the way you think about this process rather than what you do through this process. That sounds backwards, I know. But after 27 years of coaching, the pattern is clear. The people who get lean and stay lean are not the ones with the most willpower. They are the ones who understand how fat loss actually works, so they stop fighting it.

Here is the part that changes everything.

Fat loss happens over time, not in a day

Your current shape is the accumulation, or the average, of all the food you've eaten and the activity you've done (calories in vs. calories out) over time. It may sound obvious but fat loss happens over the course of many days, not a single day. So instead of taking a single day view toward fat loss, I encourage you to take a 30 day view.

Everything we do, especially on the nutritional side, is governed by the law of averages. Don't think of this process as needing to hit your protein number and stay under your calorie number every single day. Instead, think of your progress to come as the average of your 30 day effort.

Understanding the process in this way alleviates the pressure of thinking you need to be perfect.

The monthly budget

Here's what I mean. Say your daily calorie limit to burn fat is 2,000 calories. Most of us will try to stay under that limit each day and get frustrated when we go over, counting it as a "bad" day. Fat loss occurs over time, so you'd be better served by thinking in terms of a monthly limit.

Take that 2,000 calories per day and multiply it by 30 days. That's 60,000 calories per month. As long as you come in under 60,000 calories by day 30, you'll be leaner on day 30 than you were on day 1.

"But what does it all meeeeean, Basil?" (Austin Powers, anyone?) It means that as long as your daily calorie average over the month is under 2,000, you're on the road to fat loss. If you know Friday night is going to be a 4,000 calorie beer bomb, you can work on creating lower calorie days leading up to or following your big night. With these numbers, four 1,500 calorie days would do the trick.

Don't have your daily number yet? Get your two numbers here. It takes about a minute.

Meet Jack

Let's use some quick, easy math. Let's say Jack's calorie limit per day is 2,000 calories.

Jack is good during the week and creates a 200 calorie deficit per day, netting a 1,000 calorie deficit from Monday to Friday. Jack feels good about this, so he kicks back and goes a little bigger on Saturday and Sunday, going 500 calories over each day.

Do you see where this is going? Jack created a 1,000 calorie deficit during the week and a 1,000 calorie surplus on the weekend. That nets Jack exactly zero progress, because the average equals zero.

Jack isn't lazy. Jack isn't broken. Jack just didn't know the math. And that's the reason "the diet starts Monday" never works. It all counts. Just because you were "good" during the week doesn't mean a complete knock-down, drag-out cheat day is warranted. That can and will set you back.

You can and should kick back as often as you'd like. You just need to be mindful of this law and make room for the things you love accordingly.

Use it to your advantage

Once you understand this, you can use it structurally to your advantage and plan for nights out, beers, chocolate, whatever you'd like.

If you know the weekends happen to be bigger calorie days for you, we build that into the structure and make it work by creating bigger deficits during the weekdays. If you know you've got a big vacation coming up next month, you create bigger deficits leading into it so you can go over on calories while traveling and still make and maintain progress.

My wife and I do exactly this. If we know we have a two week trip coming up, we dial things in a bit more each day beforehand, knowing that calories tend to be a bit higher when traveling. No guilt. No panic. Just math.

The same principle applies to protein. If you come up short one day, you're fine. What matters is that your average lands where it needs to be.

Thinking ahead

This is where the law of averages turns into a daily habit. The first conversation I have with my wife every morning always ends with "What are we doing for dinner?" It may sound funny, but we do this every day. Dinner is our time to unwind and reconnect. We love our dinners. So we think ahead about what we'd like to do and plan the day based off that.

We tend to be reactive with food and movement. We get to the end of a day and say, "Well, it's late and I'm starving, so let's just order a pizza." That approach doesn't work. Thinking ahead puts you in the driver's seat. It takes a minute or two a day, and at first it may feel a bit unnatural, but it becomes automatic and fun very soon.

1,000 restarts are better than 1 stop

The idea of perfect is robbing us of joy. I spent years either sprinting six days a week and eating like a bird, or hitting the gym twice a week and hitting happy hour as often as possible. Start, restart, start, restart. I realized the idea I had of how I should be was a self-generated lie. That perfect person wasn't me. I don't think it's any of us.

So I tell every single person I start to work with: expect there to be delays. Expect to fall off every now and then. The only thing that matters is that you keep moving. 1,000 restarts are better than 1 stop.

The law of averages is what makes that true. One big night, one rough weekend, one vacation does not undo you. Your 30 day average is what decides where you end up. Get back on track the next morning and the math takes care of the rest.

Your takeaway

Stop grading yourself by the day. Take your daily calorie number, multiply it by 30, and treat that as your budget for the month. Plan your big nights, plan your trips, and let the average do the work.