Weight Loss Made Easier

Turn on your TV or flip through any of your social media applications and you’ll be sure to see an advertisement for a weight loss tea, magical fat-loss pill, or abs in under 6 minutes. While I have no personal experience with using these products, I can assure you that there are OTHER WAYS to achieve your much desired weight loss goals. Believe it or not, weight loss can be made easier than what is typically perceived in the commercial marketplace. Firstly, notice the usage of my words “can” and “easier”; weight loss is by no means an easy process, if it were, everyone would be able to lose their unwanted weight/fat. This article will go into a no B.S. approach on how you can make your weight loss process easier for yourself.

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To start, there is no secret workout, food, pill, sleep pattern, etc… that you can do to instantly lose unwanted weight or fat. Instead, the process revolves around a synergistic approach of all the above (workouts/exercise, food, sleep, etc…) to achieve the desired end result. I would strongly encourage you to do your research whenever you are looking into anything that would aid in your weight loss journey. I’ll do my best to quickly bullet point (in no particular order) the main things you want to be mindful of when setting up your weight loss journey.

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What You Need to Know/Understand:

· Weight loss takes time

· Weight loss requires an attitude adjustment

· Weight loss requires an understanding of general nutritional guidelines.

· Weight loss is different from person to person.

Now let’s expand on each bullet point:

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Weight Loss Takes Time:

Simply put, the excess weight that you are trying to get rid of took time to become part of you. So you should expect that the time to lose said excess weight takes just as long, or even longer. Be prepared to be fully committed, and put in a ton of work to achieve your desired results. This now makes a perfect Segway into the next topic.

Weight Loss Requires An Attitude Adjustment:

As I started to mention above; a tremendous amount of commitment, time, and work needs to be placed into your weight loss goals, hence the attitude adjustment. With weight loss, as is any goal in life, you will need to have a long term plan and ‘mini” milestones that should be set (with realistic expectations) to allow for a change in your attitude/lifestyle. Let’s be honest, it’s likely that your attitude/current lifestyle got you where you are now, and that NEEDS to change. The first part of the attitude change, which I believe is the most important, is the “why”. Ask yourself the following: “why do I want to lose weight?”. In general, the answer to this question should be focused around yourself and your own needs/health. If the “why” behind your weight loss goal is centered around others opinions, and making others happy for you- then you will likely not sustain the healthier lifestyle that is required to lose weight.

Speaking more on your attitude and perception of things, you’ll need to understand that overall health is centered around a lifestyle change, and moderation. A lifestyle change because you have to completely revamp the way you think about physical activity and food. Moderation because you will quickly come to learn that no healthy lifestyle can be sustained without moderation. Excessive working out, super strict dieting, excess intake of the “good” foods, all lead to unsustainable lifestyles and can throw you off course in your journey to weight loss.

Another key to your attitude change is the ability to adapt to changing circumstances all with the end goal in mind. Life has a great way of changing things up on us and for those of you who are creatures of habit (myself included), it can be especially hard to adapt to a given circumstance. Be flexible and give yourself different options to succeed (i.e. unexpected time away from the gym due to personal issues doesn’t mean you should stop tracking your food intake, and/or striving to complete other physical activities; such as, walking, jogging, running, HIIT workouts at home, etc..). You heard the saying before “fail to plan and you plan to fail”, so be sure to have some sort of back up established for those tougher days that life throws at you.

Understanding of General Nutritional Guidelines is Key:

In order to succeed in your weight loss journey, there has to be a basic understanding of general nutrition. By no means am I suggesting that you need to be a registered dietician before you may be able to lose weight on your own. But I am saying that you need to have a clue! Instead of causing confusion by information overload, I will do my best to provide you with a list of things you need to understand in order to become successful.

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1.) Calories and the effect on your body:

Regardless of what type of diet you believe in/follow, one thing remains constant. In order to lose weight, you need to be in a caloric deficit. In other words, you need to eat less calories than what is being expended throughout the course of a day. To give you an idea of your targeted caloric intake on a daily basis use the following link: https://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/calorieswhich will allow you to insert your height, current weight, gender, and activity level so that you have an idea of how many calories is required for the maintenance of your current weight (usually considered to be your “Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)”). Now, understand that 1,000 calories equate to roughly one pound of weight. For example purposes only, let’s say your current RMR is set at 3,000 calories a day. Your goal is to lose 2 pounds in the next 10 days. You would have to eat roughly 2,000 calories less your daily caloric requirements (over the course of 10 days), or an average of 200 calories less each day (2,800 calories total) to reach your goal. Of course this example is an extreme simplification, but the general idea can be applied to any type of diet you like to follow. Also keep in mind that any recommendation to eat a daily calorie intake of less than 1300 calories should be prescribed and closely monitored by a registered dietician.

2.) Staple macronutrients (macros) and what their purpose is to the human body:

You may have heard the terms protein, carbohydrates, and fats thrown around from time to time and that’s because these are considered the main macronutrients required by the body (macro- derived from the required large amounts needed in the body). In the most simplistic discussion, here are the purposes of each macro: protein- builds and repairs muscles- 4 calories per gram of protein, carbohydrates- provide/store energy, and spare proteins and fats from being used as the energy source (are generally considered the first/main energy source used for exercise)- 4 calories per gram of carbs, fats- maintain proper body temperature and absorb vitamins- 9 calories per gram of fat.

3.) DO YOUR RESEARCH:

I’m not going to tell you which diet you should be following. With so many different diet trends like: IIFYM (If it Fits Your Macros), Keto, Paleo, Vegan, Low-Carb, Vertical Diet, Atkins, Vegetarian, and much more- I would be foolish to tell you one works better than another without having a complete understanding of each and every diet trend out there. What I will say however, is that you have to do your own research and make your own determination of what type of diet is sustainable for you and beneficial to your goals. I would highly recommend consultations with registered dieticians to obtain more knowledge on the latest scientific developments in food and overall health advice. What I have provided above gives you a great understanding of GENERAL NUTRITION and by no means is the “end-all-be-all” when it comes to weight loss. But if you do your due diligence, stick to a plan, and work hard, results will come!

4.) Download apps/ calculators to help:

We are in the year of 2018 and almost everything has an app for your smart phone, so why not use it? My personal favorite app to track my diet progress is the myfitnesspal app. This app comes in a free version (which I think is sufficient for any average person) and can even set up diet recommendations (typically using the IIFYM method) based off of your target goal, current weight, height, age, and gender. The app isn’t perfect, as I often have issues estimating/calculating my energy expenditure at the gym (a smart watch/Fitbit would probably be useful for this), but it does a great job of keeping you consistent!

Weight Loss is Different from Person to Person:

Need I say more than the sub header? You are different from the next person and that means what works for someone else, may not necessarily work for you. If you follow all the guidance and information from above, you will be able to achieve results.

Author:

Ivan Varela- NASM CPT