Frequently Asked Questions

No Nonsense Fitness is the parent educational brand behind FoodSussed. It publishes free guides and calculators on fat loss, muscle gain, food processing and peptide research.

FoodSussed: Food Check & Coach is the separate app for understanding food ingredients and tracking calories and macros. The free educational resources do not require an app subscription.

Anyone who wants practical explanations of nutrition and training: losing fat, building muscle or understanding food. Start with the free guides and tools, whether you are a beginner or already train regularly.

Start with the Day One Guide — it walks you through the basics step by step: what to eat, how to track it, and how to set up your first week in the gym, all in one free PDF.

If you want the numbers first, use the calorie calculator to see roughly how much you should be eating, then the macro calculator to break that down into protein, carbs and fat. From there, Fat Loss Basics and the blog go deeper on specific problems — hidden calories, plateaus, eating out — as you need them.

There's no sign-up and no order you have to follow. Start wherever your actual problem is.

Basic nutrition and training information should be accessible. The guides and calculators are free to use without an account. FoodSussed is a separate commercial app; its availability and subscription information are on the app page.

FoodSussed Snap checks a photograph of a food ingredient list and estimates a processing level using our own NOVA-informed method. It explains the ingredients behind the result. It cannot establish every manufacturing process from a label, and an unclear or incomplete label can limit the result.

Watch the FoodSussed Snap demo or read the processing method.

FoodSussed Coach is the built-in feature for reviewing your logged nutrition and weight trends against your selected goal: fat loss, muscle gain, recomposition or maintenance. The Sunday nutrition report brings calories, macros and processing patterns together.

It depends on what you log and is not medical care or individual advice from a person. See the FoodSussed overview.

The Android app is coming soon to Google Play. The web tracker is available in your browser with an account. Check the FoodSussed app page for current availability and subscription information.

A short flat spell on the scale does not necessarily mean fat loss has stopped. Water, food in your digestive system and normal weight fluctuations can hide the trend.

Compare a few weeks of consistent measurements and check portions, cooking oils, drinks and weekend meals. The calorie calculator gives a starting estimate, not a precise measurement of your energy needs. See the fat-loss guide for the full explanation.

A calorie deficit just means eating fewer calories than your body burns in a day. Your body needs energy to keep you alive and moving — that total is your maintenance number. Eat below it consistently and your body pulls the shortfall from stored fat. Eat above it and you gain weight, whatever the food is.

That's the whole mechanism behind fat loss. It doesn't matter if the deficit comes from chicken and rice or takeaway pizza — a deficit is a deficit. What does matter is whether you can stick to it: high-protein, filling food makes a deficit far easier to hold than skipping meals and getting hungry.

Use the calorie calculator to get a rough maintenance number, then eat a few hundred calories below it. That's the deficit — everything else is detail.

No. Tracking can help you learn about portions and meal patterns, but it is optional. Some people use it temporarily; others find a regular diary useful. FoodSussed combines a calorie and macro diary with processing information.

Yes. No food is banned in a fat loss plan, including takeaways — what matters is whether it fits inside your calories for the day, not whether it's "clean" or "dirty" food.

The practical bit: takeaways are usually calorie-dense (oil, sauce, cheese, portion size), so one meal can easily be 1,200-1,800 calories. If you know you're eating one, plan around it — lighter earlier in the day, more protein, maybe skip the side and the sugary drink. You don't need to skip meals to "save up" for it either; that usually just makes you starving and more likely to overeat.

Order smarter where you can: grilled over fried, sauce on the side, single portion instead of a large. But the honest answer is you can have takeaways regularly and still lose fat, as long as the week averages out.

Not automatically. Processing includes freezing vegetables, pasteurising milk and canning beans. A processing category alone does not tell you whether a food suits your needs.

Consider ingredients, nutrients, portions and your overall diet together. See the processing guide for definitions and examples.

No. NOVA is a published system that classifies foods into four groups by the nature, extent and purpose of processing. FoodSussed uses its own ingredient-based processing method, informed by NOVA; its Levels 1–4 are estimates, not official NOVA classifications.

Level 1 means minimally processed, Level 2 means processed culinary ingredients, Level 3 means processed, and Level 4 means ultra-processed within our method. A level is not a health score. Read the method, rules and limitations.

A sudden jump is often water and digestive contents rather than an equivalent gain in body fat. Salt, carbohydrates, menstrual-cycle changes and the timing of meals can affect the number.

Compare measurements taken under similar conditions and look at the trend over several weeks. A single weigh-in cannot show how much fat you gained or lost.

Roughly 1.6-2.2g of protein per kg of your bodyweight per day covers almost everyone trying to lose fat or build muscle — that range comes from sports nutrition research on muscle protein retention during a deficit. If you're 80kg, that's about 130-175g a day.

Higher up that range matters more when you're in a calorie deficit, because protein is what protects your muscle while you lose fat — without enough of it, more of the weight you lose is muscle rather than fat. You don't need to hit the number exactly every single day; getting close, consistently, is what counts.

Whole foods first — chicken, eggs, fish, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, lentils — with a protein shake to fill gaps if you're struggling to hit the target through food alone. The macro calculator will give you an exact gram target based on your own weight and goal.

Yes, in the right circumstances — this is usually called body recomposition. It works best if you're new to training, coming back after time off, or carrying more body fat, because your body has more room to build muscle and pull energy from fat stores at the same time.

The requirements are the same either way: enough protein, resistance training that progressively gets harder, and a modest calorie deficit rather than an aggressive one — too big a deficit makes it much harder to hold onto muscle, let alone build it.

The further along you are as a lifter, the slower this gets — very lean, experienced lifters usually need to pick one goal at a time. But if you're earlier in the process, don't assume you have to choose between losing fat and building muscle. For most beginners and intermediates, a sensible deficit with proper training does both.

Not specifically for fat loss — the calorie deficit is what causes fat loss, and you can create that through food alone. Cardio just gives you another way to create or widen that deficit without cutting food further, which is useful if you like it or if you're already eating close to your minimum.

Where cardio earns its place is everything else: heart health, recovery between weights sessions, fitness for actually enjoying your life, and giving you a bit more room to eat. It's not mandatory, but I'd still recommend some most weeks for the health side of things, separate from fat loss.

If you hate running, you don't need it — walking, cycling, swimming, a match of five-a-side, all count. Do a version of cardio you'll actually keep doing.

For most people, yes — walking is genuinely underrated for fat loss. It burns calories without adding much hunger or fatigue compared to harder training, and because you can do it every day, the total adds up fast. An extra 30-40 minutes of walking a day can be the difference between a deficit and a stall for a lot of people.

It won't build your fitness or your heart health the same way as harder cardio (running, cycling, rowing) eventually would, so it's not the only cardio you'll ever need long-term. But as your main lever for fat loss alongside a calorie deficit and some resistance training, walking more is one of the simplest, most sustainable changes you can make — no gym, no kit, no excuse about time.

The calorie calculator estimates daily energy needs. The macro calculator estimates protein, carbohydrate and fat targets. The body-fat calculator uses the US Navy tape-measure method.

These are estimates, not measurements or prescriptions. Find them on Free Tools; no account is needed. For a daily food diary, see FoodSussed.

Accuracy depends on the food entry and the portion recorded. FoodSussed includes Irish supermarket foods and barcode lookup, but labels change and external or user-entered records can contain mistakes.

Check an entry against the pack and record the portion you ate. Consistent logging is useful; it is not laboratory measurement.

Yes, the calorie tracker needs an account. Signing in means your diary, targets and weights sync, so a lost or replaced phone does not lose your history.

Diary entries, targets, weights and preferences sync to Supabase in Ireland. Progress photos stay on the device and do not sync, so those photos will not automatically appear on a replacement phone.

The tracker needs an account. Diary entries, targets, weights and preferences sync to Supabase in Ireland (eu-west-1) and stay until you delete the account. Progress photos never upload. Meal and label scanning sends the image you select to our recognition service; barcode lookup contacts food services.

Export and account deletion are in Account. Original device records and downloaded backups remain until you remove them. See the Privacy Policy for details.

Yes. The guides and calculators are available wherever you read the website. Many food examples focus on Irish supermarkets. FoodSussed availability depends on your platform and country; check the app page for current information.

No. No Nonsense Fitness and FoodSussed provide nutrition education and tools, not medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. FoodSussed Coach is a built-in app feature; it is not individual advice from Keith or a healthcare professional.

For individual medical needs, speak to a qualified healthcare professional. Calculator results and processing estimates are not a substitute for that advice.

The guides link to peer-reviewed studies, reviews and guidance from recognised health bodies. Check each guide for its sources and the limits of the evidence.

FoodSussed processing estimates use our own NOVA-informed method. Its methodology page explains the rules and limitations.

The guides and calculators on this site are free.

As for what's actually worth taking: for most people eating a reasonable diet, very few supplements make a real difference. Creatine monohydrate and a vitamin D supplement (especially through an Irish winter) have decent evidence behind them. Protein powder is just a convenient way to hit a protein target, not magic — food does the same job. Beyond that, most of what's marketed hard (fat burners, detoxes, "testosterone boosters") does very little or nothing.

Food and training do almost all of the actual work — supplements are a small edge on top, not a shortcut.

The best way to reach me is by email at keith@nononsensefitness.ie. Whether it's a question about nutrition, feedback on the tools, or you've spotted something wrong on the site, I read everything myself and I'm happy to hear from you. I can't offer one-to-one coaching or personalised meal plans over email, but I'll point you to the right free guide or tool for whatever you're asking about.