Weight loss is hard.
Starting is even harder.
And things will hopefully be a little less hard after going through this article. We will have real world help that you can take and utilize now to get yourself started if you are looking to lose some weight.
Let’s jump on in!
Energy balance is the relationship between the energy we are consuming (food/calories) and the energy we are burning (metabolism/activity).
The balance of energy determines weight gained vs. weight lost.
Consume > Burn = Weight Gain
Consume < Burn = Weight Loss
In the simplest form…
If you are consuming more energy than you are burning, your body will gain weight. Meaning if you are consuming 2,000 calories per day and you are burning 1,600 calories per day, your weight will increase.
On the other side…
If you are burning more energy than you are consuming, your body will lose weight. Meaning, if we flip the numbers above to burning 2,000 calories per day and consuming 1,600 calories per day, you will lose weight.
Setting up scenarios like this is easy. Pulling numbers out of the sky and making them work. When it comes to ourselves, things aren’t so easy. For starters, you will never have an accurate measure of exactly how much you are consuming and how much you are burning (I guess I shouldn’t say never). Ultimately we are estimating on both ends.
So in knowing that, how the hell do you set yourself up to lose weight?
Well, that is exactly what we are going to talk about today!
Step #1: Track Your Food
This step does not involve you having to change any other habit. You do not have to change the way you eat, your daily activity, your workout schedule, NOTHING.
All you have to do is download an app (FatSecret or MyFitnessPal) and track everything you eat/drink to the best of your ability. If you don’t have a food scale, now is the time to invest in one.
Remember what we said above, everything is an estimate. But we want that estimate to be as damn close to the true thing as we can make it!
Track your food as diligently as possible for 7 full days. Put those numbers in a spreadsheet (calories, protein, carbs, fats, fiber, weight).
Step #2: Finding Your Calorie Target
Finding exactly how many calories you need to lose weight is a bit of trial and error. When we work with people we are able to see their personal food logs, weigh ins, workouts, really everything — so we make a personal target based on all those things.
Since I can’t see you right now a simple calculation can be a great starting point.
Goal Weight x 12 = Calorie Target
This calculation is not perfect nor will it work for everyone, but it will give us a starting point to work off of. Let’s say you weigh 200 lbs right now and want to get to 180 lbs. You will take 180 x 12 to get 2,160 calories. We are going to have a 100 calorie range on either side of that number and that is going to be the target.
So your calorie target on a daily basis will be 2,060-2,260.
These numbers should not run your life. Things are always changing in our bodies so these numbers might work great or they might not. Check-in with yourself at step #7 to assess how things are going. Just make sure to give yourself enough time to actually see change before overhauling your entire plan.
Step #3: Find Your Protein Target
Once we have the calories in place we are going to turn our attention to protein.
Let’s use another calculation.
Goal Weight x 1 = Protein Target (in grams)
You are 200 lbs looking to get down to 180 lbs, you will aim for 180 grams of protein everyday.
NOW!!
Take a look at your food tracking from those first 7 days. What was your daily protein intake (take the average)? If you are more than 20% away from the above protein target after week 1, take your goal body weight and multiply it by 0.7 to get your starting protein target.
You are not going to have a fun time if you are only eating 90 grams of protein per day and trying to double that after a week. Start lower and work your way up over time!
Most of the people I work with have the hardest time right here, getting enough protein day in and day out. I get it, protein is not the easiest nutrient in the world to eat. If I could ditch protein and strictly focus on carbs all day, I would be a happy camper, but that’s just not the way it works.
Let’s try to make this process as easy as we can.
Here is a list of protein sources:
- Chicken (breast/thigh)
- Lean ground beef
- Ground turkey
- Steak
- Eggs
- Salmon
- Shrimp
- Tilapia
- Greek yogurt
- Cottage cheese
- Beef jerky
- Whey protein powder
- Vegan protein powder
There are more sources out there but this is a good place to start. Pick 3-5 things off that list to be your main sources of protein.
Look at:
- Your protein target
- How many meals you eat per day (including snacks)
- How much protein do you need per meal to hit your target?
With a protein target of 120 grams per day, eating 3 meals per day, each one of those meals has to contain 40 grams of protein. Simple right? If you are having trouble getting enough protein in on a daily basis, this is a simple way to break things down in a way to actually see what you need to do to get there.
- Pick your protein sources
- Break down protein target and meals per day
- Figure out how much protein you need at each meal to hit that target
Step #4: Movement
At the beginning of this article we brought up calories burned vs. calories consumed equaling weight gain or lost. Your daily movement plays a big role in that equation. It’s not the ONLY thing that matters, but It plays a part.
When we are talking about movement we are factoring in:
- Non-planned exercise (daily steps/movement)
- Planned exercise (walks, hikes, workouts, kayaking, etc..)
Those two things add up to make your expended calories. Other things also add to your overall calorie expenditure, metabolism to name a big one, but we are not going to focus too heavily on those things because they are not necessarily easy to track.
What we can track though is your weekly planned exercises and your daily movement. When it comes to health and longevity, the more steps you do, the better. For weight loss, this is not a bad outlook either. For most of us, aiming for somewhere between 7,500-10,000 steps per day is a GREAT target. But these numbers are not set and stone for everyone. If you are averaging 2,000 steps a day, 7,500 will be a big jump in your daily activity. Start small, aim for 3,000 a day, then 4,000 and work your way up until you get to that higher target.
Away from steps and movement, weight training will be another great addition to your weight loss journey. Now, you can lose weight by changing the way you eat and moving more, but weight training will allow you to maintain, or even build muscle in the process.
Among a host of other benefits such as cardiovascular health, bone density, decreasing overall stress, leveling off hormones, improving vitality, lowering mortality rate, plus other things, regular weight training will help keep the muscle you already have or even help build some more muscle along the way.
Daily movement + regular weight training = more effective weight loss journey
It sounds so simple right? All you have to do is walk a little more and get to the gym a few times a week, piece of cake!
Unfortunately, movement is not all sunshine and rainbows. This step takes a lot of work. You’re adding things into your schedule that were not there before, and trying to keep up with those things day in and day out for the long haul!
Step #5: Sleep
Get to bed, and sleep enough.
I could end this here. You’ve been told the benefits of sleep. You know what it can do for you. So just do it! Without sleep, this process becomes exponentially harder.
7-9 hours of restful deep sleep every single night. GET ON IT!
Step #6: Fiber
Along this process you will be eating less food. With that, you are getting less nutrients to your body. This is why we need to prioritize things such as fiber to make sure we are doing everything we can to get the right nutrients in our body!
Since you have been tracking your food, you should have your fiber intake laid out from each day.
What is it?
More than 5?
More than 10?
More than 15?
Your fiber intake should be aimed somewhere between 15-30 in grams per day. I cannot say many people I work with start off in that range. It takes some time and you have to be deliberate with your efforts. Just like you have to be deliberate with your protein, calories, sleep, steps, and workouts.
Here is a list of foods that contain higher fiber:
- Raspberries
- Chia seeds
- Blueberries
- Blackberries
- Carb balance wraps
- Bran buds
- Lentils
Find ways to get your fiber up!
Step #7: Assess + Reassess
During a weight loss process, the people I work with weigh themselves every single morning. Those weigh-ins are added to your spreadsheet along with every other piece of information you have been taking down these past few weeks.
Your weight does not need to move every day, every other day, or even every week for things to be on the right track. Your weight should move over longer periods of time. Compare your weigh-ins at the earliest, every two weeks. So, if you weighed in on Monday, don’t compare that weight until you weigh-in again in two Mondays.
Now, your goal is weight loss so your overall body weight does have a big dictation on your progress, but that does not mean we neglect all the other things.
- How are you feeling
- How are you moving
- Are you stronger
- Are you sleeping better
- Are you eating better
- Have you been hitting your fiber target
- Are you eating more protein
- Are you walking consistently
- Are you working out consistently
All these things can be a positive in your life, and they may not directly show weight loss on the scale, but that doesn’t mean they are worthless.
Let’s get on to what this step is really about, assessing and reassessing.
Give yourself a good 4 weeks from the day you started to assess your progress. You have every piece of information in a spreadsheet so the numbers are right out in front of you.
- How much weight did you lose?
- What was your average protein intake?
- What was your average calorie intake?
- How many workouts did you get done?
- What was your average step count?
- How was your sleep?
- What was your average fiber intake?
If you didn’t lose weight across those 4 weeks, there should be something on that spreadsheet that does not fit.
Maybe you weren’t getting enough daily movement.
Maybe you weren’t eating within your calorie range.
Maybe your sleep was sub-par.
This is where you look at everything you’ve done and assess what needs to be changed.
If your daily movement wasn’t great, work on that.
If your calorie range was off, try getting yourself to drill those numbers.
If your sleep sucked, see what happens when your sleep is great.
This entire process is one big game of trial and error. It won’t be perfect on round 1. But if you take what you learn as time goes on, you will learn exactly what you need to do to see the results you want.
Be patient with yourself. Be proud of yourself for even the smallest achievements. You will get there, as long as you don’t let the speed bumps derail all your progress!
In good health,
Jeff
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