Back in April of this year I was about 180lbs, 5'10". Sometimes I would have weeks where I was 185-190lbs depending on how I ate but most of it was water weight and I normally fluctuated around 180. I had developed a little bit of a stomach and was not happy with what I saw in the mirror and how my clothes looked on me.
I finally got sick of it and decided that I wanted to be lean again.
Over the next 6 months I went from a size ten jeans to a size four. Here are some strategies that I used to help me along the way. I didn't always stick to each of these strategies religiously but I was largely consistent:
Tracking My Calories
Losing weight is fundamentally a problem of managing energy balance in a sustainable way.
You can think about energy balance in terms of a daily balance or a weekly balance.
But it will always balance out: if you eat more calories than your maintenance level you will gain weight and vice versa.
I used the app My Fitness Pal to track my calories so that I could be in a calorie deficit. For the first 10 lbs I probably averaged a 500-100 calories deficit every day and 300-500 calories deficit for the rest of the weight loss. My maintenance when I first started was around 2500-2600 calories and now it's closer to 2400.
There were frequent diet breaks and free days over the course of the 6 months and I even spent 3 weeks half-way through bulking and putting on muscle.
While tracking carefully isn’t necessary for weight loss if you’ve never done it before then you probably have no idea how many calories you are consuming on a daily basis.
Try tracking your calories diligently (including buying a scale) for a week and you will probably be amazed on how easy it is to over-eat in modern food environments.
For some people tracking calories carefully can trigger disordered eating - for these people who still want to lose weight it's important to learn how to be in a calorie deficit by listening to our natural hunger signals.
Focusing on protein
If I was going to have a single dietary rule-of-thumb to use when deciding what to eat, I think it would have to be "focus on eating more protein".
Setting a goal of 1g of protein for every 1lb (.5kg) of lean body mass is an excellent goal if you are doing any kind of strength training.
Protein has the highest thermic effect (30%) of any macronutrient. That means for every 100 calories of protein you eat, 30% of that energy is used to digest the protein.
Protein also contributes to muscle growth. More muscle equals a higher metabolic demand, which makes weight loss easier. This is why some people bulk before they cut. But if you are obese and have never worked out much then you will probably be able to lose fat and gain muscle when you are first starting. That won't last forever though and when you are intermediate to advanced in your fitness you will probably have to engage in traditional bulk/cut cycling.
Protein also fills you up and turns off your hunger and keeps it off better than any other macronutrient. Try binging on chicken breast compared to potato chips. Carbs and sugar can sometimes just make us hungrier whereas protein satiates us.
Strength training
Strength training is important because it builds muscle, which is important for keeping your metabolism revved up.
This is especially important when we are in a calorie deficit for sustained periods of time because without it we would love both fat and muscle mass. By retaining as much muscle mass as possible during weight loss we can help prevent our metabolism from slowing down too much as we stay in a caloric deficit for months at a time.
Metabolism is adaptive - when you are in a sustained calorie deficit for a long period of time your metabolism will slow down to maintain homeostasis. The more muscle you have, the more you can compensate for the metabolic slow down and the easier it will be to lose body fat.
Strength training is important for preventing the so-called "skinny fat" phenomenon where people with little muscle mass go from overweight to skinny but are still "fluffy", for lack of a better term.
Strength training has a host of other positive health effects as well. It helps strengthen our bones and prevent muscle loss as we get older, which can eventually result in a loss of mobility and functionality. It can also help fight obesity, diabetes, osteoporosis, low-back pain, stress, depression, anxiety, and a host of other conditions.
Flexible dieting
Flexible dieting is sometimes called “If it fits your macros”. In a nutshell, it’s a dietary strategy that focused on flexibility in what we eat so long as it fits within two parameters: our calorie goal and our protein goal If you want to eat a donut, eat a donut, so long as you fit it into your overall balance of energy and you are still getting enough protein.
You probably can't eat donuts everyday. But eating one once in awhile? And eating 1-2 instead of 5? Eating a donut once in awhile isn't going to ruin your diet or health.
It's cliche to say "moderation is key" because that means different things to different people. But in my opinion, moderation in everything as opposed to severely restricting food choice is likely more sustainable in the long run for the majority of people.
Going out to eat tonight? Then maybe skip lunch so you can budget the extra calories.
Roommate just brought a pizza and you ate way too much? Budget it out for the rest of the week.
Flexible dieting focuses on two main things: calories and protein. So long as you are (1) eating the right number of calories and (2) consuming sufficient amounts of protein, the rest of your diet is not as important.
Of course, flexible dieting is not an excuse to just go out and eat like shit. Nutrient density is important. Food quality is important. Veggies are important. But having highly processed food isn’t going to ruin your progress so long as it fits into your calories and daily protein requirements.
Intermittent fasting
Intermittent fasting is basically just a way to manage the hunger of being in a calorie deficit. For me I utilized IF by skipping breakfast.
Skipping breakfast allows you to control your calorie intake in a way that manages hunger. Late night binging is always a problem for me but with IF I could push my eating window later in the day/evening so that I am not hungry at night when I am getting ready for bed.
Not eating 3 meals a day won't kill you. For the vast majority of human history we didn't have steady access to three meals a day let alone snacking all day long. There were times of famine where we had to ration food and likely fast. Fasting is actually good for us and most people are surprised at how long they can comfortable go without food while drinking plenty of water and electrolytes, coffee, tea, etc.
Fasting sets off a whole host of biological processes that are essentially cellular housecleaning.
Top ten fasting myths debunked
Diet breaks
If you’ve been in a calorie deficit for awhile it is important to take occasional diet breaks. This is important both psychologically and physiologically.
From a physiological perspective, our metabolism and hormone levels get out of whack the longer we are in a calorie deficit because the body fights the weight loss process - it wants to maintain homeostasis and so it will increase the hormones which control our appetite the longer and more sustained the calorie deficit is.
Taking a break from our diet and eating at maintenance for a few days or even over maintenance is important for resetting our metabolism and getting our appetite-controlling hormones back to normal levels.
Taking maintenance breaks also teaches us the important skill of eating at your maintenance level. It's not easy in modern food environments and is for most people a skill that has to be practiced until it becomes intuitive.
From a psychological perspective, it’s especially important to take diet breaks because otherwise we risk being totally burnt out and then falling off the wagon altogether only to gain all our weight back. Yo-yo dieting is extremely common and most people who lose weight end up regaining it all back.
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