Point 1

When you first start changing your diet and incorporating new foods and decreasing other foods there can sometimes be a sudden change in your water volume. This is transitory, and its important to know that upfront because it can be discouraging if you think you have done great the first week and then stalled due to some kind of lack of effort. That is not the case.

Point 2

There is something called “Recomposition” where someone can have a decrease in fat tissue and increase in lean muscle mass. Due to the density in muscle tissue this can lead to a person’s scale weight not being the greatest representation of their diet effort. There is a solution for this.

These definitions are meant to offer a simplified perspective. No one needs to know what the “glycolytic energy pathway” is to lose weight.

Definition 1

Total Calories In – this is all the calories in the food you eat. The food stuff you eat, and drink, are made of different nutrients that have a differing number of calories. All the calories, nutrients, and other information about food stuffs can be found on the nutritional facts panel…or on google. This number is hard to track, even when people use a food tracking app with a food database they still underestimate by logging in the wrong foods, smaller portions, forgetting sauces and seasoning, etc.

Definition 2

Total Calories Out (or “burned”) – your body uses “calories” to keep you alive and moving. The number of calories you expend is affected by your metabolism, movement, and the kinds of food you eat. This number is hard to get 100% accuracy on, but there are calculators out there that do pretty good. However, people’s metabolic rates differ, people overestimate their activity, and people will have a variety of internal responses to weight loss that can affect this number.

The Cold-Hard Truth

Weight loss happens when you eat less calories than you expend. However, it’s hard to track both calories coming and going out. Furthermore, as you lose weight your body will adapt with some hormones increasing, others decreasing, things becoming more efficient, resulting in increased hunger, decrease fullness, and ending with you looking for yummy food. This is why I tend to rarely have people track calories out or in. Instead, I have people track their body changes and change their behaviors. If someone has been maintaining their weight steadily for the past 6 months then we can assume that their calories in and out are about even, so we just need to make some changes to their dietary habits that will result in decreased calories in and increased calories out. Now, the Tips….

Tip 1: Measure the Things that Matter

Weight – weight yourself at the same time every day and log it somewhere. Most people I work with weigh in the morning when they wake up. If an aspect of your goal is to see the scale go down, you should know what the scale says.

Waist – you should measure your waist because it is also a good measure of fat loss and can help if someone has some “recomposition” and the scale isn’t going down as expected. I have people measure this every 2-4 weeks. Take a circumference measuring tape or a rope you can mark on and wrap it around your belly, right above the top of your hip bones (probably around your belly button) and keep track of it.

Food – you need to be aware of what you’re eating. You can accomplish this through reading nutritional labels, tracking foods in apps, or jotting your food down in a journal for a week. You need to know what you’re eating before you can decide on what foods to keep, toss, decrease, or increase. Taking this information to a nutrition expert is a great step as they can help you learn how to collect this information and decipher it. This is to gain insight, not to determine calories – although that’s an added benefit.

Tip #2: Eat Plants and Protein

Why do weight loss diets suck? A big reason is people get hungry and give in because the diet becomes very unpleasant. We need to have lots of foods available that will fill us up. These foods are going to need to have lots of fiber, protein, and/or water which play a huge role in how filling a food is. Also, the food should have low calories (~1.5-calories/gram is good). So, what foods fill us up and don’t have tons of calories? That would be plant foods and lean proteins: vegetables, beans, fruits, whole grains, low-fat diary, lean meats, etc.

A good place to start could be shooting for about 6 servings of vegetables and fruits/day, a few whole grain servings/day, a serving of beans daily or every other day, eat mostly low-fat meats and low-fat/fat-free diary. If you want to, you can remove one “category” and replace it with another. For example, if Kyree doesn’t like beans, then he would just add another serving of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, lean dairy, etc. Find some foods that fit these examples, learn how to cook them in ways you enjoy, and eat them often!

Tip #3: Leave what you Love

Another huge reason why people give in on their diet attempt is they will eliminate foods they love. While this can work for some people, I find it to be beneficial to keep some tasty, pleasurable foods in the diet with either modifications or parameters. An example of this could be, Danielle loves Snickers and has a bar everyday when she gets off work. Instead of having one every day we switch to Monday, Wednesday and Friday after her Zumba class and make other changes that result in calories being lower than her expended calories. Danielle loses weight and doesn’t pull her hair out, win-win.

Tip #4: Decrease your Ultra-processed Foods

Here is the truth, you can lose weight and eat nothing but donuts. However, a single, plain donut is about 200 calories (at ~26 grams that’s 7.69 calories/gram-not good) which would leave you eating about 8-9 donuts/day, if you wanted to lose weight (assuming some things). Aside from the adverse health consequences, this would leave you raffishly hungry and that’s not sustainable. That’s the trouble with ultra-processed foods, they have lots of calories, tend to not contain things that would fill you, and they encourage you to over eat them. So, what is “Ultra-processed”? The definition is different depending on who your reading, a great article discussing this in the Current Development of Nutrition Journal highlights the “NOVA” classification system of food which I think does an awesome job of describing “Ultra-processed” as “industrial formulations made entirely or mostly from substances extracted from foods (oils, fats, sugar, starch, and proteins), derived from food constituents (hydrogenated fats and modified starch), or synthesized in laboratories from food substrates or other organic sources (flavor enhancers, colors, and several food additives used to make the product hyper-palatable). While that’s quite the mouthful a quick way to test this is by looking at the nutritional facts panel on your food product and looking at the ingredients list. If the food has a laundry of list of ingredients that are additive or synthetic it is ultra-processed. If you can’t visualize what the ingredient is in real life, it’s probably “additive” or “synthetic” – try to imagine what hydrogenated oil looks like…. you can’t because you’ve never seen it, because it’s synthetic. The research paper I mentioned above had a pretty good list of ultra-processed foods HERE if you’re interested.

Tip #5 Physical activity

You cannot exercise yourself to weight loss. However, people who exercise regularly do maintain their weight loss better than those who do not. That is why this recommendation is here. Because while you can be successful with weight loss without exercise, it is important. Also, you will look a lot better after losing that weight if you have some muscle mass gains to go along with it. Ill make this short and sweet – you need to do start with the minimum guidelines for aerobic exercise and resistance training (links included) and then you should aim to increase your aerobic exercise to an upwards of 400-450 minutes/week (~1hr/day). This should help with expending some extra calories, reinforcing healthy behavior, improving sensitivity to satiety signals, and improving your body composition.

Tip #6: Accountability

Changing your behavior is hard and letting people in your life know what your goals are, letting them hold you accountable, and leaning on them for support can make it a little easier. That is one reason why people who seek help from a professional tend to be more successful with their weight loss goals than people who do it alone. This is why when people are trying to quit an addiction, they normally attend group sessions and have sponsors, and it why some weight loss professional’s advice their clients to post their goals on social media. Accountability. This is why I check in with my weight loss clients at least once a week, and more if needed, because offering that troubleshooting, support, listening ear, etc. is so important for success. Can you trudge through it alone and be successful, yes. Would I recommend that, no.