My first few years as a trainer I would follow along the head trainers with their new member appointments. Goal setting, assessing, building a connection, and getting the ball rolling. The same goals always kept popping up–> look better, feel better, lose weight, and fat loss.
After a few appointments I heard the trainer answer in a way that I had never heard before.
The woman said “I want to lose X amount of weight as fast as possible”
Without any hesitation he responded…”The fastest way to lose that much weight would be to cut off your leg”
I couldn’t help but laugh when he said It but, he made a good point. The goal can’t always be to do things as fast as possible. What about doing It the right way, or even doing It the longest lasting way?
The fast track is not always the best track. The question we would much rather hear would be; “What’s the best way to lose weight so I can keep It off forever?”
Now that’s a question I like!
Losing weight is not easy and It can take some time. How long It will take depends on many factors such as:
-Your commitment level
-Your habits
-Your experience
-Where you are starting from
-Your willingness to make lifestyle changes
To give you a real answer on how long It will take to lose the weight, aim for no more than 2 pounds of weight lost a month, on average. Now there are so many factors that play into weight loss but if you shoot for this 2 pound mark you will be losing 24 pounds a year. After 2 years you have already lost almost 50 pounds!
Some months may be a lot more, and some months may be less (or you could even gain). But remember, ON AVERAGE.
STARTING OUT
When you start on a weight loss journey, do not check your weight at least for the first 2-3 months. Use this time to get into a routine that will HELP you lose weight in the future.
These first 2-3 months are critical because it’s when most people will get discouraged, lose motivation, or just flat-out quit. We do not want that.
Use those first 60-90 days to learn, grow, and get into a routine that will set you up for success down the road.
What this may look like:
-Finding the right gym or trainer
-Getting your schedule locked in
-Fixing your BIG ROCKS (nutrition, hydration, exercise, sleep, stress)
-Getting strong!
-Feeling comfortable in your new schedule
-Increasing your metabolism
-Feeding yourself quality, nutritious foods
-Increasing your daily steps & activity
STEP TWO
After you get yourself in a place that will drive your health and wellness goals in the right direction it’s time to start targeting your true weight loss.
Those first 60-90 days are a learning process and you probably figured some things out about yourself. In most cases you may have figured out some things that you were doing in your everyday life that were not contributing to a healthy road toward weight loss.
BUT, now those things are fixed and you are on the way to your goals. If you successfully increased your strength and metabolism to a high point, it’s now time to keep working on those things and try to increase them both EVEN MORE.
Not cutting calories, not doing hours of cardio. You worked your butt off to get to a great spot these last few months and it’s not time to mess that up.
So now that you are at this point it’s time to start increasing your activity and weighing yourself. So if you are doing 8,000 steps a day, do 10,000. If you are doing 10,000 do 11K or 12K. More activity!
On top of that, start weighing yourself. Whether it’s weekly or daily, wake up, go to the bathroom, weigh in. That will be the most consistent weight you can measure.
Stay in step two as long as you possibly can. If you feel good, still seeing positive change in your body (even if the scale doesn’t show It) then stay in this phase as long as you can.
STEP THREE
Step three usually gets implemented WAY too early in these weight loss plans. Not for you! You have built up a rock solid base, you are strong, your metabolism is roaring, you are sleeping well, eating right, and now your daily activity is HIGH.
After all this hard work of building up a foundation it’s time to drop down your calories into a deficit.
Start slow, much smaller than you may think (400-600 calories per day). Keep everything else the same and track your weight. How are things going?
If things are moving in the right direction, there is no need to rush and cut more calories. Stay on track and keep moving forward. When you realize it’s not working as well as It had when you first started 2-4 weeks prior, STOP.
This step is very important.
Do NOT drop the calories even lower. This is the time where you will add calories back into your diet for 1-2 weeks. Add 100-200 per week for the next week or two. Keep everything else the same and keep tracking your weight.
The goal here is to stay at the relatively same weight as you are (1-2 pounds in either direction is perfectly fine). If you are doing well with that, add an extra week.
Now, drop back down to where you were the first time you dropped the calories back. Follow your weight. If It starts moving down, stay there.
The goal is not to drop down calories as low as possible because that is a losing battle. You can only go so low. We want to be able to eat as much food as possible and still be losing weight.
So look back at what we went over and the timeline. It took about 3 months to build up to a place we wanted to start from. Let’s say another 2 months in step two where maybe you lost a few pounds. Then moving into step three you were at your goal of 2 pounds each month.
8 months down the line you are down something around 6-10 pounds. But on top of that you are eating more, much stronger, moving more, and in a place where you can control your own weight loss. You dictate where you want to go in each step. Even better, I can almost guarantee your body fat levels have dropped quite a bit during this process, meaning that your body will look MUCH different than when you first started.
In less than a year you CAN reverse all the crap you’ve been told for years about diets and all the other crap (supplements and what not). Give yourself time, be patient, and keep an open mind to learn along the way.
In good health,
Jeff
