If you feel like you’ve been doing the right things regarding your nutrition but you’re not seeing any results, this is for you.
There’s a ton of misinformation out there, lots of contradictory advice. It’s frustrating.
Before we get to the mistakes, let’s go over a few general principles of fat loss.
Principle 1: Calorie Deficit.
If you want to shed body fat you have to be in a calorie deficit. You have to be taking in less food energy than you burn. Not for a day. Not for a few days. Not even for just a few weeks. You have to be in a calorie deficit for a sustained period of time. Just how long is going to depend on the individual and their goals.
Calorie deficit = calories in < calories out. Body weight decreases.
Calorie surplus = calories in > calories out. Body weight increases.
Calorie maintenance = calories in = calories out. Body weight remains the same.
Principle 2: Keep it Moderate.
It’s easy to reason, “the bigger the calorie deficit, the faster you’ll lose weight”. There are a couple holes in that thinking. For starters, a large calorie deficit is difficult. If you normally eat 2000 calories per day and decide to slash 700 calories so you can lose weight as fast as possible, you’re going to be hungry as hell. You may be able to grit your teeth for a few days, maybe a couple weeks. But then you’ll give in and overeat.
Does that sound familiar?
Instead of drastically cutting your calories hoping for rapid fat loss, use a moderate approach. Reduce your calories by around 20%. It’s significant enough to matter, but it won’t send you spiraling into overwhelming hunger.
The simplest way to do this is to use a free app on your smartphone to track everything you eat for about a week. Don’t change anything just yet. This is just to get a baseline. See how many calories you’re averaging over the week. Then multiply that number by 0.8 to establish what your daily calories would be in a 20% deficit.
For example: daily average = 2400 calories per day x 0.8 = 1920 calories per day in a 20% calorie deficit.
20% of 2400 = 480. 2400 - 480 = 1920.
Now, let’s make it easier by adding in some flexibility. Hitting an exact calorie number is more trouble than it’s worth. Instead, use a target range. Stick between 1850-1950 calories per day and you’re all set.
This is just an example. The numbers for you will likely be different, and that’s okay. Your personal targets are the ones that actually matter.
Principle 3: What You Do To Lose Fat Is Pretty Close To What You Do To Sustain.
The third principle is understanding that what you do to get the body fat off is what you’ll have to do to keep it off.
This is really important to understand.
Have you ever given up carbs for a while, seen fat loss, then added carbs back in and gained the weight back? It’s easy to conclude that eating carbs leads to fat gain but that’s not the case. In this instance when you cut them out, that was your way of achieving a calorie deficit.
It’s not the carbs, it’s the calories. When you added back the carbs, you added back the calories. Again, it’s not the carbs, it’s the calories.
The same is true if you were to cut out meat or dietary fats. It’s not cutting a food group that leads to dropping body fat, it’s cutting calories.
If you want long-term success, you have to have a sustainable approach. Ask if you can see yourself eating this way for the long haul. Think years, not weeks or even months.
If you want to get off the weight-gain/weight-loss roller coaster, pick an approach that you can do and enjoy for years.
You can, in fact, enjoy carbs in moderation and hit your fat loss goals. You can have meat and hit your fat loss goals. You can have dietary fat and hit your body fat loss goals.
Now with those principles in mind, let’s talk about some common mistakes that may be holding you back.
Distracted eating. Ever go to the movies and realize your big ol’ tub of popcorn is long gone before the movie’s even halfway over? Me too. When you’re paying attention to something else, it’s easy to keep scooping food into your maw. You don’t realize you’re doing it.
It’s similar if you normally eat in front of the tv.
Solution: Try to be more present when you’re having meals. That doesn’t mean you have to stare at your plate or anything. Just take your time and truly enjoy the meal. Take the time to savor the flavors and textures. Chew thoroughly. Pay attention to how you’re feeling. When your body is satisfied, your belly will signal your brain. It’s okay to stop when you’re satisfied, you don’t have to wait until you feel full. But if you’re hoovering food then it’s very easy to miss the signal.
Finishing other people’s food. Bites, nibbles, tastes, etc. I’ll be honest, I don’t have kids. But that doesn’t mean I’m unsympathetic to the struggles of parenting. When the little one won’t finish a meal, it’s tempting to just finish the remainder. I get it, you don’t want it to go to “waste” by no one eating it. The thing is, those fractions of meals - the nibbles and bites and tastes - still count, even if you don’t count them.
Solution: stick to your plan. Those nibbles and partial plates have calories that can erase your calorie deficit without you realizing it. You’ll end up frustrated because you’re spinning your wheels. Instead, understand that just because the adorable one doesn’t finish her/his meal, it doesn’t mean you have to finish it for her/him. Consuming calories you don’t want is wasteful, too, is it not?
Not having some sort of plan. Having a daily calorie target is great. But how will you hit the target? [Let’s take a brief moment to acknowledge that you don’t need to count calories in order to lose weight. It’s a very useful tool to help for most people though. There are certain people where it would be counterproductive.] Just trying to come up with meals on the fly that hit your targets is tricky.
Solution: Have at least a general plan for food preparation. There’s no rule that says you have to eat the same things day after day. But it is helpful if you have a few templates to follow most of the time. Raise your hand if you usually eat the same thing most days for breakfast. Perfect. That essentially takes care of a third of your meals for the week. Again, not saying you have to eat the same breakfast all the time. But if you can just plug it in and not think about it, that does make things easier.
Next, figure out a list of things you like that are going to fit within your plan. A short list of protein sources you like is a great example. Lean cuts of beef or chicken, turkey, fish, etc. are great sources of protein. If you’re not a meat-eater, you have options as well (e.g. beans, tempeh, tofu, etc.). Do the same for starchy carbs like rice and potatoes, then vegetables and fruits.
In short, come up with a grocery list. But don’t shop for things you think you should eat. To be useful the list has to be foods you will eat.
If you can, prepare meals in advance. Cook a pound of lean ground beef, several servings of rice, and put them into smaller containers. It takes some forethought and a little more time on the front end, but it makes it easier on the back end. You’ll have meals for several days at a time.
Demonizing a food or food group. If you live long enough, you’ll see every food group eventually labeled as “bad”, depending on the marketing of the day. You’ll hear dietary fats called unhealthy. Then it’s meat’s turn to be demonized. Then carbs. Follow that advice and pretty soon you won’t be able to eat anything at all, will you?
Solution: Understand that no food is inherently evil or good. It doesn’t have a moral bend. It’s not a binary decision. You can think of it kind of like a sliding scale. On one end you have more healthy, and on the other end is less healthy. You want to mostly eat foods towards the more healthy side. But that doesn’t mean you should never have food from the less healthy side. There is more to food than just health, and that’s okay. Birthday cake is a perfect example. Is it something you’d say is very healthy? Of course not. But its value isn’t based on that. It’s part of a celebration. You don’t want to have it every day, but on occasion it absolutely will not negate your progress.
That’s a very clear example, but the point is it’s not necessary to single out any food or food group and label them as “bad” or “off limits”. You can have anything you want, just in moderation. Put another way, you can have anything you want, just not everything you want.
Being overly strict. Having rigid rules for food may seem like a good idea to help you attain your fat-loss goals. It might even work for a period of time. But in the long run, are you going to eat that way forever? What happens when life intervenes? What about when you go out to eat? Or when you’re away on vacation? If you’re overly strict about how you eat these are very stressful situations.
Solution: You want to maintain some flexibility. Rather than have strict rules, you can follow some principles that allow you to stay on track while having some freedom. An example would be, rather than “I have chicken breast for dinner every day”, your principle is “I include a protein source with dinner every day.” It’s a subtle adjustment, but one that will let you adapt. It doesn’t have to be that particular principle. Figure out what works for you.
Unrealistic expectations. You want the path to fat loss to be straight and you want to get there ASAFP, right? That’s perfectly understandable. It doesn’t help that every single ad for fat loss talks about the outliers. They even say so in the fine print at the bottom of the screen (“results are not typical”). Yet when you’re losing say, 6 lbs. in a month, you think it should be 10-12 lbs.
Solution: Try to keep your expectations realistic. To lose 10-12 lbs. in a month equates to an average of 2.5-3 lbs. per week. That may not sound like rapid fat loss, but it actually is. A more realistic pace would be something like 1-2 lbs. per week. And keep in mind that’s an average, so there will be weeks where the scale won’t go down at all. That’s normal. Understand that and expect it. If you’re on an average pace of 1-2 lbs. per week, that’s an average of 4-8 lbs. per month. It doesn’t sound like a lot, but if you held that pace for a year, you’re talking 48-96 lbs.
You’re not failing if you’re “only” losing about a pound a week, even if emotionally it doesn’t feel like a big enough victory. Losing a pound per week is a big win. If you look at the big picture, that’s actually how you make big fat loss progress in the long run: little by little. It’s not as dramatic week by week, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s reality.
That’s how you win.
Bonus Tip: The number one tip I can give you to help you with your nutrition is to remind you something you already know. It’s not one good meal or one bad meal that decides if you make progress.
What drives your progress is your consistency. If you’re eating in a way that’s in line with your goals consistently over time, you will get there.
It’s simple but not easy. That’s why I stress being consistent, not perfect. You literally cannot be perfect. But you can be consistent. So what does that mean? If you hit your targets 80% of the time, that’s consistency. What does that look like in real life? Take a calendar and a marker. Put a big check mark each day that you hit your nutrition targets. On the days you miss any of the targets, you put an X. If you get 24 checks per month, you’re at 80%.
Not easy, but definitely doable.
That doesn’t mean your mission is to go totally off the rails the other days either. It’s just some leeway for when life happens and you can’t quite hit the target on a given day. It’s another example of the flexibility mentioned earlier.
Please remember, even if you do go way off the rails on a given day, it’s no big deal. Nobody ever got in great shape by eating great for just one day. And nobody ever put on a bunch of body fat by eating too much for just one day.
Just get back on track as soon as you can. You’re never more than one meal away from being back on track.
No need to over-correct or to try to “make up for it”. Just get back to your plan. That’s it.
These are just a few tips to help you. If you follow the principles, utilize the solutions consistently, and exercise some patience you will get there.
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