| Friend,
Okay, so now it's time to get down to the brass tacks of weight loss. What are the actual steps you should take to go from fat master to your fighting weight?
Today, I'll explain them, step-by-step.
Of course, this is just one approach to losing weight. You may decide to take a different approach, which is fine so long as it's something you can adhere to over the long haul.
Remember, if you want to be successful at staying in shape, then you need to make fitness and healthy eating your lifestyle. And that's the whole point of the following plan--it's a very sustainable way to adopt healthy habits and lose weight.
So, here goes...
The First Three Days: Track, Measure, Evaluate
That which gets measured, gets improved, right? So, your three days all you're going to do is figure out where you're starting from. That's it.
This is an important step, because it's typically where people have their "no turning back" moment. Mine was seeing that picture where I looked like Santa Claus (and, I was looking at some recent training footage last night--oh boy, am I glad I'm on a diet now).
So, for your first three days you're going to keep a food diary. You can write this down in a notebook, or track it in a fitness app like My Fitness Pal. Doesn't matter. Just write down EVERYTHING you eat for three days.
Second, weigh yourself. If you want to get one of those fancy scales that tracks body fat percentage and BMI, do that too. But mostly, you just need to get an accurate weight.
I prefer to weigh myself at the same time each week, which is usually Friday morning right after I finish my morning ablutions and before I eat. This helps with keeping your weigh-ins consistent, because your gut is more or less empty and your hydration levels are more or less the same every morning. But same day each week and same time is all that matters.
Third, you're going to calculate your daily caloric needs, which are a combination of your basal metabolic rate and your activity level. Many fitness apps will ask you a few simple questions about your height, weight, age, and activity level, and then they'll spit out your daily caloric needs based on the Harris Benedict formula. This is sufficient for our needs.
My advice is that you UNDERESTIMATE your activity level. Most people overestimate how active they are, and then they overeat because they miscalculated their daily caloric needs. So, if you think you're moderately active, enter "lightly active" instead.
Finally, I want you to compare how many calories you typically eat in a day with your daily caloric needs. How much are you overeating each day? I'm a big man, and I need about 3,000 calories a day to maintain my weight. However, if I allow myself to snack and drink beer and soda on top of the normally large meals I tend to eat, I can hit 4,000 calories a day, easy.
Seeing the numbers will serve as a wake-up call to you, because the numbers don't lie. Also, it's going to help you see how you can easily cut out enough calories to lose weight, without changing your lifestyle all that much (which makes it easier to start adopting healthy habits).
And that brings us to the next step...
Day 4: Goal Setting and Prepping for Success
Pick a target weight that you want to hit, and write it down. Now, the difference between your current weight and your target weight in pounds (my apologies to those who don't use the Imperial measurement system) equals the approximate number of weeks it will take you to SAFELY lose that weight.
Yep, we're aiming for one pound a week here. Losing one pound (or roughly half a kilogram) of fat each week is a very sustainable rate of weight loss. So, if you need to lose 30 pounds, then it's going to take you roughly 7.5 months to hit your target weight.
I know, I know... so-and-so did "X" diet and lost 30 pounds in two months. Good for them. Let's see how long they are able to maintain that fad diet. Odds are they'll have gained the weight back plus ten percent within a year's time. We want sustainable weight loss, so we're going to do it the right way.
So, find that target date on your calendar and write this down on that date:
"On this date I will have lost ____ pounds and will weigh ______."
The next step after you set your goal weight is to prep for success. We're going to start our weight loss program by going for the low-hanging fruit. Meaning, we're going to cut out 500 calories a day simply by eliminating easy calories.
Why 500 calories a day? Because one pound of fat is roughly equivalent to 3,500 stored calories. So, simple math says if we eat UNDER our daily caloric needs by 500 calories a day, we'll lose about a pound a week.
But we need to eliminate temptation so we don't slip up. That means going through your pantry and fridge and tossing all the sugary drinks, snacks, and junk foods. If they're new, take them to a food bank. If they're open, toss them.
HOWEVER, save your favorite snack or treat. Set it off to the side, because this is going to be your sanity food.
The Low-Hanging Fruit
Eliminating calories by going after the low-hanging fruit is simple. You're going to eliminate the following foods from your diet: - Any drinks that have calories in them, including sugary drinks like soda, fruit juices, and sweetened beverages. Yes, I said fruit juice. It may be natural, but it's pure sugar and more or less empty calories. Instead, drink water or unsweetened tea. It only takes a few days to get used to this, and it's often an easy way to cut out 300 calories or more a day.
- You're going to cut out all the white foods from your diet. White bread, white rice, white flour, white sugar, and white grease (lard and shortening). This means you're switching to whole grains, low-cal sweeteners (I like stevia and xylitol), and using olive oil spray for cooking.
- No fried foods, period. You can still eat your favorite foods though. If you like potato chips, get baked chips. If you like french fries, cut them yourself and bake them in the oven. This will cut out calories, and it will also reduce inflammation in your body, because fried foods contain a lot of inflammatory compounds.
Typically, when I go over a client's food diary I find they can easily cut out 500 calories or more a day just by taking those three steps above.
Grocery Shopping
Now, make a grocery list of healthy foods that you enjoy eating. It should consist of lean meats, veggies, fruit, raw nuts, salads and greens, and low-cal condiments and spices.
Pick foods that you like! Potatoes are okay, so long as you don't deep fry them or slather them in whole-fat sour cream, or butter. Brown rice is fine. So are beans. So is whole-grain bread, pasta, and flour. A little dairy is okay too, but you want to use it as a condiment and not as your main meal. So, opt for low-fat sour cream or Greek yogurt, low-fat cheeses, and so on, and only use a little to add flavor to salads and pastas.
The main idea here is to find a compromise between what you would like to eat, and what you should ideally be eating. So, if you're an Elvis fan and you're addicted to fried peanut butter and banana sandwiches on Wonder Bread, fine. You can still eat the peanut butter and banana sandwiches, but you're not going to fry them, you're going to toast them, and you're going to eat whole wheat bread instead of Wonder Bread.
Make sense? Now, plan out your meals the same way you normally would, but just eliminate any beverages that contain calories, all the white foods on the no-no list above, and fried foods. Everything else is pretty much fair game.
Week 2: Eating Healthier and Tracking
In week two you should already be eating healthier and tracking your daily caloric intake, aiming for a 500 calorie deficit each day.
If you exercise and you're tracking that, don't input it into your fitness app, because the app will subtract those calories and tell you to eat them as extra food. This is a no-no, so don't do it. If you do you'll negate any benefit you might get from working out, so don't "eat your workouts."
You should also weigh yourself at the end of the week, and track your weight and other measurements on your calendar. Note that you'll probably lose more weight this first week, because you'll be retaining less water. This is normal.
So, don't freak out if you lose five pounds your first week, and then "only" a pound or two the following week. Also, if your weight loss stalls for a week or two, don't freak out. Just keep at it.
Sanity Food
Remember how I told you to set your favorite food off to the side? That's your sanity food. You're allowed to have a small portion every day, so long as it fits into your daily caloric intake, and ONLY after you've worked out.
This serves two purposes: - It makes you feel like you're not depriving yourself.
- It will help reinforce the positive habit of working out.
Remember, only a SMALL portion. This means you're only going to eat around 100 calories of that food. If you find that you can't keep it to just 100 calories, then I suggest you don't have that food around, and instead only buy it once a week, throwing away any excess after you've had that treat.
Week Three: Increasing Your Activity Level
Most of us get fat by sitting around and overeating. So, we've solved the overeating part of the problem, now we need to tackle the under-moving part of the situation.
Here's what I want you to do: - Add three 30-minute sessions of cardio to your exercise regime. This can be done on the treadmill, with road or trail running, biking or on the exercise bike, on the rowing machine, or elliptical, depending on your injuries and tolerance for these activities. And, get a cheap heart rate monitor that will tell you when you're in your target heart rate zone--you want to stay in that zone during your cardio session. TAKE IT EASY AT FIRST, especially if you've been inactive. The last thing you want to do is go out and try to run three miles on hard pavement and hurt yourself your first week. Ease into these sessions, and go slow, aiming for the lower end of your target heart rate zone at first.
- Add two strength training session a week. Do these on alternate days from your cardio sessions. I personally prefer negative-accentuated training, because it's efficient and I can get a good strength training workout in under twenty minutes. But, do what you enjoy, whether that's kettlebells, a body-building upper body/lower body split, body weight training, or whatever. Again, take it easy your first few weeks; we're not looking to beat that 1 rep max you had when you were younger. Just ease into it.
- Take two full days off each weekend to rest. Your body will need it, especially if you're doing this on top of training martial arts a few times a week.
Weeks 4 Through Your Goal Week
Keep chugging along and evaluate your progress. If your weight loss stalls for more than a week, FIRST recalculate your daily caloric needs. The reason is you may have lost enough weight to require decreasing your caloric intake each day.
If that doesn't work, increase the intensity of your cardio and weight training sessions. Try to get more done in less time. Increase your pace while running or biking, add in some sprints once a week, or do intervals instead of steadily plodding along through your cardio session. And for strength training, either increase the weight you're working with, or increase your sets and reps.
Just keep that steady progress, and stay consistent. Your work is going to pay off, and sooner than you think.
What To Do If You Get Stuck
Sometimes, that last 10 to 20 pounds just does not want to come off. So, tomorrow I'm going to talk about what to do if that happens. Stay tuned.
Until next time,
Mike Massie MartialArtsBusinessDaily.com
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P.S. - I know this isn't a radical diet plan. And, I know it's not trendy, like following a keto diet, or eating paleo and doing Crossfit six days a week. But, this is the plan that worked for hundreds of my clients over a period of many years, and it works because it's sustainable.
Also, I'm assuming that you're starting over again from scratch, and going ballistic in the gym and balls out on a crazy nutrition plan is just going to make it that much harder for you to reach your goals. Slow and steady wins the race.
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