- Disclaimer
- Understanding weight loss
- How to have healthy, achieveable goals
- How to meet your goals
- How to measure progress
I am not a doctor, and this is not medical advice. This just comes from personal experience and common knowledge in the online fitness community. See a doctor before starting any weight loss plan. If you aren't overweight, don't lose weight. Hit the gym and build muscle instead.
Okay, I'm just going to say stuff. You may know it, you may not, but I mean no offense.
Weight loss happens in the kitchen, and fitness happens in the gym.
Repeat after me: weight loss happens in the kitchen, and fitness happens in the gym.
There is only one way to lose a pound, and time is not a factor. If you burn 3500kcal (US: calories) more than you eat, you will lose a pound. No exceptions. If you do it over a year, you will weigh one pound less next July. If you do it over a day, You will weigh one pound less tomorrow.
Weight loss is easy; changing habits is hard. To lose weight, you have to be able to know when you have burned 3500kcal more than you ate. At a 500 calorie deficit, you lose 1lb in 7 days (7*500=3500.) At 1000, you lose two a week.
I've lost a lot of weight, and changed my habits. I waited until I was lighter to exercise so I didn't mess up my joints. I have now started lifting and doing body weight exercise.
Medication can help with this process, but it can't do the work for you, and only changing the habits long term will make it possible to keep the weight off.
In the end, it seems to me that having unrealistic expectations and being unforgiving are two big reasons people don't meet their fitness goals. Let's set ourselves up for success.
- Set goals in phases. I chose 3 phases, for the reasons described below.
- Make goals forgiving. I count 50% of target weight loss as success, measured at the end of the phase. 75% is better. 100% is a miracle. Just accept this now. Losing half the weight is way better than losing no weight. Your health is at stake.
- Let it get easier over time. Start with a deep cut to gain momentum, then slow down across phases. This is one reason for the phases. I target 2lbs/week, then 1.5lbs a week, then 1lb a week.
- You don't want a lot of loose skin, and fast weight loss makes this worse. So we don't just slow down the weight loss; we also make the phases short, long, longer. I started with 10 weeks at 2lbs/week for phase 1, 20 weeks at 1.5lb per week for phase 2, and 40 weeks at 1lb/week for phase 3. This is 20+30+40 = 90 lbs in 70 weeks.
- Give this plan a name that captures your vision for your future self. Operation Silver Fox, Project Butterfly, She-wolf, Bionic Man, Operation Fabio(la), whatever. This name is your mantra. Let it drive you. Put the dates on a calendar. You can create a Google calendar if you want it private.
- Eat whatever the hell you want. Seriously. The objective of this exercise is not just to lose weight. You also need to learn how to eat reasonable amounts of foods, and which foods are a better "deal" in terms of calories. I'll put some tricks below to help you get through the first couple of weeks.
- Track everything... almost. You will fail if you lie to yourself, but you don't have to be perfect. That's why the margins for success are so wide. I use MyFitnessPal, which is free and has a good database. You can even create meals and recipes to quickly track what you eat all the time. If you can't find the food, use the best match. Put your goals into the system, and it will tell you what your goal is for each day. Update your goals every 10-15lbs.
- If a food isn't preportioned or at a restaurant, use a food scale. Volume is a liar. The point is not to eat tiny amounts; it's to honestly know what you eat. It's easier to measure snacks out before you are hungry than to regret eating a third of your calories in a single snack.
- You will never cheat. You will always work to make it easier to keep going. Every Friday or Saturday, cut your daily deficit in half to help maintain your metabolism. You will learn to work miracles with 500 extra calories. It's a lot more than it seems like. You can't trust the calorimetry for exercise unless you have pro resources, so always enter it at 50% of the expenditure value. Wide margins!
- Don't fret. If you screw up, stay under your daily maintenance calories. So what if you come in one day late? But every morning, start again, trying to stay under your calorie goal.
- Protein and fat in the morning will make you crave carbs and junk less throughout the day. I eat a lot of eggs. They are cheap, versatile, and high protein. Eat them on avocado toast, in a taco, in ramen, or scrambled in the microwave.
- You have to eat all of your macros: protein, fat, and carbs. None of them is inherently bad, and the closer you come to a normal balance of these, the easier it will be. You'll have more energy and less hunger.
- Fresh, low-starch, water-rich fruit is your best friend. You can have 14g of gummy bears, or 100g of grapes. Choose the grapes, dummy! You'll be a lot more full and they taste just as good. Cantaloupe, watermelon, other berries and dried mango are some other good choices. If you like veggies, celery, carrots and broccoli are justified favorites.
- Nuts are a trap; they are really high calorie. If you must eat them, premeasure.
- You have to eat carbs, but be smart about it. Eat healthy bread with a lot of protein, and consider having one slice instead of two. You can have more meat or eggs instead. Carbs are calorically expensive and generally not worth the hunger you'll have later if you have to not eat to pay for them. Tortillas are an unfilling trap. Use a smaller tortilla. I'd rather have potatoes than bread.
- I don't even count vegetable-based, low fat condiments. Just slather that stuff in ketchup, salsa, or barbecue sauce, as long as it's naturally low cal at condiment quantities. Your margins are wide, and sticking to the plan is better than being a stickler for the plan. If it's more than about 30cal or you do it more than a couple of times a day, track it.
- Artificial sweetener is usually not great, but it can be a crutch when you are in a jam. If you get to the end of the day and only have 300 cal for dinner (you will do this sometimes until you figure it out), try one serving of quick oatmeal with half whole milk / half water, splenda, 7g butter, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. It's surprisingly filling.
- I encourage you to have soda once or twice, if only to see what a fucking scam it is calorically. There is no question; I drank myself fat. Track it honestly. Next time, you'll reach for the grapes instead. La Croix is a good sub if you can stomach it; I like the flavors that are beery like apricot or peach pear, and I really like Blackberry Cucumber. YMMV.
- Cottage cheese is gross to most people, but it's a great way to get max protein in little volume. I sneak it into my protein smoothies, with greek yogurt, juice, a frozen strawberries. You can't tell it's there and you'll feel pretty full.
- Drink water after you eat. Let all of that goodness in your stomach swell up and make you full.
I hope you grab what you want. I already feel 1000x better, and everything in my life is easier without the weight. I still eat cookies and drink milk tea, so idgaf about the effort of tracking. Works great.
Body weight fluctuates wildly with food intake and water retention. Some people say to weigh yourself once a week; I think a couple of times a week is better.
A graph of your weight will always be a zigzag line. Don't feel discouraged when you see that number go up; it's normal to eat (and still be digesting) more in a day than you are supposed to lose in a week.
For these reasons, I try to weigh myself naked, in the morning, after I've used the restroom but before I eat.
I use a digital scale that logs to myfitnesspal. Mine looks like this. See how it has those crazy peaks and troughs, but over a long time shows a downward trend? Embrace it. If you do the work, you'll get the result.
As long as you are honest and consistent about participating in the process, there is a 100% chance of losing the weight.