Guaranteeing Fat Loss
Getting on the scale for the 4th week in a row, you’re praying that your weight went down. The moment of truth, you look down and… the same exact weight you started with. Frustration sets in, you’ve tried every diet that has existed, and it starts off great, you lose weight but then you reach a point and it no longer decreases. You cut out sugar, stopped eating your favorite foods, tried a dreadful diet, did everything that you possibly could have, and it hasn’t work. Yet, you see it all the time on social media, people going through transformations where they lost a ton of weight and now look phenomenal, so what are they doing, that you aren’t? What’s their secret? Their “secret” is that they eat less calories than their body needs. This is the first rule; you are eating less to force your body to burn fat in order to account for the difference.
Now that you know the secret, we can begin the process of learning how to utilize it to lose weight, which can be easily broken down into several steps.
1) Determine your TDEE.
2) Eat less calories than your TDEE on a consistent daily basis.
3) Weight yourself at least once a week, if weight loss stalls or is not as fast as you like, lower the number of calories you eat.
4) Be patient, experience the journey instead of rushing through it while being miserable, Champions are patient, while Losers are restlessly eager.
Determining TDEE
To determine your TDEE, there are numerous calculators online that will provide you with your TDEE once you input some information regarding yourself. However, I’ve found that people tend to overestimate their physical activity and as a result, have an inaccurate TDEE. There is a huge misunderstanding between the levels of physical activity. To clarify them, being sedentary would relate to someone who has a desk job and outside of climbing stairs or walking in general to get into their house or job, does no other physical activity. An individual who is lightly activity is someone who goes out jogging or does light resistance training 1-3 times a week, this individual when they exercise gets their heart rate up but just slightly. Jobs for this activity level can include being a server, a teacher, jobs where you are on your feet, however, there is no extreme exertion on the body. An individual who is moderately active is someone who workouts 3-5 times a week, whether it is with resistance training or cardio or a combination, their heart rate during their exercises go up a decent bit and it can involve being out of breath during resistance training. For this activity level, jobs can include being a plumber, carpenter, jobs where at times some heavy lifting is needed, however, not always. Moving on to being very active, this is where an individual is training 6-7 times a week, where they are pushing themselves, their heart rate goes up beyond the moderate exercises and being out of breath is consistent in this type of physical activity. This physical activity can include jobs where heavy lifting is involved on a consistent basis. Being extremely active involves having a labor-intensive job, such as a sanitation worker, or a construction worker and working out on a daily basis where maximal effort is exerted. For the majority of individuals who work an office job, they will fit in the sedentary-moderately active levels.
Utilizing the TDEE
At this point you should have obtained an estimate of your TDEE, regardless of whether or not it is correct is not the point, the point of using a calculator to get an estimate is to have a starting point. At this point we’re ready to set how much weight we are going to lose per week. In order to lose one pound in a week, our body must be at a deficit of 500 calories on a daily basis, because there are 3500 calories in a pound. As a general rule of thumb, you should never lose more than 1% of your bodyweight a week, however, a good starting point for most people is usually a pound per week. This deficit isn’t too drastic and will allow you to ease yourself into the process if you are planning on losing more than a pound per week. I usually give it 2 weeks for your body to adjust to the deficit because in your first week, you will lose a decent amount of water weight simply because you are eating less, and you have less food in your digestive tract. Once the third week comes by, if everything is going as planned, your weight should have dropped about a pound from week 2 to week 3. What I like to do and what is extremely helpful is to weigh yourself on a daily basis and get the average weigh in for the week to track your progress, simply because on a day to day basis your weight will go up and down due to a number of factors. Hence why you shouldn’t go based off the scale alone. If the number on the scale has a big impact on your mood, weigh yourself less often, and utilize other metrics, such as measuring your waist, photos, how your clothes fit, etc. If the scale weight begins to stall for more than 2 weeks, don’t drastically decrease your calories, a simple 200-250 drop below what you are currently at should be fine.
Macronutrient Breakdown
One of my best tools I have ever used is MyFitnessPal, although I don’t necessarily agree with it on a couple of things, once in it, you are able to customize your calories and goals. After inputting your information, it will spit out how many calories you should eat per day, which if you did your TDEE correctly the first time, the number will be close. Once in the app, you can set your daily calories and it has a super easy interface to input foods and track what you eat. It is a must and is something I have used to drop all the weight I have and to keep everything in check for my own goals. In addition to inputting your calories, the app has an option of changing the goals of your macronutrients.
To make the macronutrients extremely easy to understand, you can associate protein with your muscles, fats with hormones and carbohydrates with energy, although there is a lot more to each macronutrient for the moment this is sufficient. So, how much of each does someone need? Although each person is slightly different and will respond differently, protein can be around 1 gram per lean bodyweight in pounds, this is not something I expect everyone to know so you can shoot for anywhere between .75g-1g of protein per pound of bodyweight, or simple 80% of your bodyweight. This means that if you weigh 200lbs you will shoot for 160grams of protein per day. Fat can range anywhere from 20%-30% and Carbohydrates make up the rest. If you are doing any type of resistance training, you want to keep carbohydrates as high as possible, so for me, I stick to 20-25% of my calories as fats, protein around 80% of my bodyweight and carbohydrates making up the rest, simply because more carbs means more energy during your resistance training, which can help maintain muscle mass and in some cases build muscle.
Strategies
Although it seems easy on paper, losing weight requires patience, adherence and willpower. It is extremely easy to become discouraged when your expectations aren’t being met, however, it just means you have to be a little bit more patient, possibly work harder and put more focus into it. So, with this in mind, a couple of things that can make achieving a caloric deficit easier is downloading the MyFitnessPal app or some variation of it, buying a gram scale to weigh your food, tape measure and to plan your meals ahead of time. By planning your meals ahead and if it’s possible to cook your meals ahead of time, it makes it super easy to reach in the fridge and eat as opposed to having to pick in the moment what to eat and having to cook it. What I have found to work is by having meals planned out, it makes it much easier to decide on eating healthier. Weighing your food with the scale makes everything much clearer in terms of what your eating and the MyFitnessPal has everything in one place. Although the tape measure is not needed, I enjoy having it because it helps me track my waist circumference, which can be decreasing if your weight is staying the same, meaning fat loss is occurring.
In addition to this, you should be doing some type of resistance training in order to maintain muscle mass or as a beginner, to build some muscle. Not only this, but cardio is not needed for losing weight, it will definitely make it easier since your body is expending more overall calories. However, with resistance training and a caloric deficit you can lose fat, cardio is a tool to increase your TDEE, or in other terms, it lets you eat more. Although cardio should not be used as a driver for weight loss, but instead for improving your heart, it can be a tool where instead of eating 500 calories less, you eat 250 calories less and increase your activity by 250 calories, netting a 500-calorie deficit. Obviously, it is not that simple and clear but something to keep in mind. Preferably cardio should be on the days that you aren’t performing resistance training or the day before or after you perform leg exercises if you are doing HIIT (High intensity interval training). If you are doing low intensity cardio, such as walking or biking at a leisure pace, it can be done pretty much whenever. Regardless, your main objective is to build muscle or maintain it and as such, the majority of your energy and focus should go to resistance training. Hence, cardio is simply a tool to aid in fat loss, resistance training needs to be performed to maintain muscle mass or add muscle mass as a beginner.
Additionally, there are numerous ways to go about how you eat, such as Keto, paleo, etc., however, as we discussed earlier, carbs are extremely important for providing energy, and carbs are not the reason we gain weight, but instead being in a caloric surplus. One technique that has been getting popular and, in my opinion, makes losing weight more manageable is intermittent fasting. This eating technique is where a person will fast for part of the day, usually skipping breakfast and instead having 2 big meals, lunch and dinner. Intermittent Fasting usually consists of fasting for 16 hours and eating within an 8-hour window or fasting for 20 hours only eating in a 4-hour window. Some individuals even fast for 24 or 48 hours, however I highly discourage fasting for that long. On the other hand, if you enjoy eating smaller meals, than that is what you should do. Aim to eat 6-7 meals to constantly feel full. In the end, all these ways of eating food are meaningless to losing weight, where a caloric deficit is needed. Thus, whichever way you enjoy eating is the way you should go about it, if you enjoy big meals like myself, intermittent fasting is fantastic, if you enjoy smaller meals, intermittent fasting is not the way to go.
Losing weight will not be easy, however it is possible. Patience and a caloric deficit are all that is needed, there will be times where you will want to stop because you aren’t seeing results. However, you will not achieve your goals quickly, it will take time, just like it didn’t take you a couple of weeks to gain that amount of weight, you shouldn’t aim to lose 10 pounds of fat in 3 weeks. From my experience, losing weight itself is relatively straightforward, eat less (in terms of calories) and move more, the process is what takes extreme amounts of patience and focus to achieve your goals. Give yourself a reasonable amount of time, the first couple of weeks to the first couple of months will be the hardest but from that point on, you will notice all the changes and so will everyone around you. With all the weight dropped, imagine how you will look and feel, the confidence you will have, it will be phenomenal, and you must learn to appreciate and love the process of getting there. Above all, be patient and give it your 100% this time.