Introduction
So you want to lose weight. You've been following a bunch of trendy diets such as the grapefruit diet or hcg diet and ended up losing a bunch of weight (or not) and then regaining it all back. You're disheartened and discouraged about whether you can lose weight at all and you start blaming it on your genetics or that you're destined to being overweight forever.
Don't worry, I've been there. I tried a lot of dumb diets and made a lot of mistakes and was able to find what works for me based on research and following a lot of helpful Youtubers. Having a Bachelor's of Science in Kinesiology helps as well.
Disclaimer: Just like in life, nothing ever comes for free. You need to put in effort. You won't need to live like a competitive bodybuilder living purely on boiled chicken breast and tasteless broccoli but you will need to build some healthy positive habits.
If you have "diet" that promises fast results for little effort (often with a heft price tag like I've outlined in my previous post about the HCG Diet or you're eating [insert superfruit here that promises to burn fat], you're wasting your time and hard earned money.
A site that has helped me a lot with drilling with no nonsense information is Rippedbody.com which I'll be referencing a lot throughout this post.
About Me
I'm a regular dude with a 9-5 job working as a software developer so finding the time to have a decent balance of work, life and gym was crucial. I'm not a fitness competitor or work full-time as a personal trainer.
The following 5 things that I'm going to list is what helped me and I hope will help you too.
1. Realistic Goals and Timeframe
Goals are important. You need to know where you want before you can achieve it. Since this post is about weight loss, there will be a number in your head that is floating around like "Gotta lose 20 lbs in 30 days". That is a goal but is it realistic? Are you able to realistically lose that much weight in that amount of days?
1 pound of fat is ~3500 calories and a healthy weight loss rate for an average person is 1 pound/week. 3500 calories / 7 days a week is 500 calories you will reduce in your daily consumption in order to achieve that 1 pound/week rate.
To lose 20 lbs in a realistic amount of time would be 20 weeks (140 days).
For people are who have higher body fat percentages, they can afford to lose weight at a higher rate. Here is Andy Morgan's guidelines based on body fat percentages:
Source from RippedBody.com - The Complete Nutrition Setup Guide
2. Calculate Your Body's Caloric Need
Your body requires a number of calories in order to function and do it's metabolic functions. Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) is that amount.
From my last post I've posted the following formula, you can use:
(RMR) kcal/day:
(males) = 9.99 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 4.92 x age(years) + 5;
(RMR) kcal/day:
(females) = 9.99 x weight(kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) - 4.92 x age (years) - 161.
Source:
Mifflin, MD; St Jeor, ST; Hill, LA; Scott, BJ; Daugherty, SA; Koh, YO (1990). "A new predictive equation for resting energy expenditure in healthy individuals". The American journal of clinical nutrition 51 (2): 241-7.
For example, Joe is 25 year old who weights 80kg (176.37 lbs) and is 182.88 cm (6') tall. His RMR is 1824.2 calories per day. Keep in mind, this is a your RMR and doesn't include the calories needed to perform your daily activities (such as walking or going to work - that is your TDEE). The RMR can be thought of as the amount of energy you burn if your body is in a comatose state.
Once you've found your RMR, you will need to know your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) this is amount of calories you need in a day that includes your body's needs as well as your daily activities and working out.
You take your RMR and multiply it by what's called an Activity Factor based on your level of activeness. Here's a handy chart from superskinny.me:
Source from superskinny.me - Calculate Total Daily Expenditure
Taking the example of Joe from earlier with his RMR of 1824.2 calories a day. If he is lightly active, according to the chart, he will multiply is RMR by 1.375 which will give him a TDEE of 2508 calories. This is the amount of calories he needs to eat in order to maintain his weight.
Now that Joe knows his TDEE, he will know that he will have to subtract 500 calories from his daily intake of food so he'll need to eat 2008 calories a day (2508 - 500 calories) in order to lose 1 lb a week.
This is all super simple and there are more nuanced information out there but this is really the foundation. The amount of calories in must be less than the calories your burn in order for you to lose weight.
3. Calorie Tracking App & Food Scale (e.g., MyFitnessPal)
Another essential is having a calorie tracking app. Back in the old days, before smartphones where a thing, people had to use paper and pencil to log all their foods. Now that we have apps like MyFitnessPal, it is way easier to track what you eat. In addition to having a Calorie Tracking app, getting a food scale is highly recommended. You can find one for $10-15 dollars.
My typical day includes scanning the barcodes of the food I'm going to eat and either estimating the serving size or actually weighing it out. Being able to weigh out your serving size will give you more control of your caloric intake.
How about when you want to go eat out at a restaurant? Luckily, most restaurants (the big franchises) will have their nutritional values listed for a specific meal. You can easily search them up in MyFitnessPal and add them to your diary.
4. Weight Log App & Bathroom Scale (e.g., Libra or MyFitnessPal)
Another must is to track our bodyweight everyday at the same time. Your body's weight will fluctuate throughout the day due to water or foods that you eat. Weighing yourself at the same time will help reduce those factors. Inputting your weight into MyFitnessPal or Libra will give you an idea of how you're progressing with your diet.
Advice: Don't be discouraged if you're body weight goes up a day later, down and goes up again. This is normal! Here is a chart of my weight loss during my last weight loss phase:
As you can see, my weight would go up and down each day but if you're hitting your calorie goals and following your program, the average trend will be downwards. The spreadsheet you see in the bottom half is a very useful tool I found on reddit which I appended at the bottom of this post.
5. Choose Your Diet Style Based on your Lifestyle and Goals
One diet may work for one person but may not work for someone else. This is due to lifestyle differences. A person who is very active will have a much different need for a diet than someone who is not. Choosing diet that works for you and your lifestyle is important because you want one that you can do consistently and without hating yourself for it.
Here are some quick summaries of diets and a brief introduciton (I'll write a post in the future detailing my own personal experience with each one along with the pros and cons) :
- Ketogenic/Paleo: A diet where you remove all forms of carbohydrates (sugars) from your diet. Doing so will cause your body to not rely on carbohydrates as a form of energy but on ketones. You're allowed to eat a lot of meat and fat.
- Slow Carb Diet: A diet proposed by Tim Ferris of 4 Hour Body and 4 Hour Work Week fame where you replace all forms of carbs with slow digesting carbs such as beans. Be prepared to be very gassy.
- IIFYM (If It Fits Your Macros): The current lifestyle/diet approach that I'm on and have found a lot of success with. You calculate the amount of macros (macronutrients - carbohydrates, protein and fats) you need for yourself based on your goals and attempt to hit those macro targets each day. You really rely on using MyFitnessPal to track all the food you eat to make sure you are on track. IIFYM has been known for Poptarts and Oreos because you are able to enjoy these items as long as they fit.
- Intermittent Fasting: Not so much a diet, but more of a lifestyle approach on how to eat your meals. You decide how long of a "fasting window" you want where you don't eat anything at all and only drink allowed beverages (water, tea, black coffee, and diet sodas). Once your "fasting window" stops, you enter a "feeding window" where you have to eat your daily amount of calories until your next fast. There are a lot of health benefits found in studies supporting Intermittent Fasting but it also requires a lot of discipline during fasting times.
The reason why I chose IIFYM as my style of dieting is due to this flexibility. Weighing my food and scanning it into MyFitnessPal has become second nature to me and I'm able to decide whether I want to treat myself or not based on what I've eaten so far. If I want to treat myself to some McDonald's, I'll plan for it and fit it into my macros. The decision is up to you.
As I've said before, a good diet is one where you're consistent and flexible.
6. Workout Program
Having a good workout program will accelerate your weight loss potential. Building muscle mass will boost your metabolism thus increase the amount of calories your body will burn. There are many workout programs out there and it can be very daunting for the new beginner.
Here are some programs I've run that I've quite enjoyed because they incorporate learning the main lifts: Squat, Deadlift, Bench Press and Overhead Press. These are compound exercises which will work more muscles in your body than using isolation type exercises.
- Starting Strength - This is a program that is recommended a ton on fitness subreddits on Reddit. It's very basic in that it is a 3 day split of two alternating exercises: Workout A and Workout B.
Phase 1 from Starting Strength
As you can see there are 4 lifts that you will need to learn: Squat, Bench Press, Overhead Press (Press) and Deadlift. There are many video resources out there for you to learn. Not going to lie, learning how to do barbell lifts as a beginner can be very intimidating. Don't be afraid to ask for help. What I like about this program is that you start at a weight where you can do the exercise with good form for a prescribed amount repetitions before you up the weight by 2.5 to 5 lbs. What made the program fun for me is that you will be motivated to come back for the next session so that you can hit your next personal record in terms of weight lifted. You're not just lifting weight for the sake of lifting weight, you're lifting to get stronger.
StrongLifts - Pretty much the same workout program as Starting Strength except reps are 5x5 instead of 3x5.
PHUL (Power Hypertrophy Upper Lower) - This is more of a hybrid between a strength building program with bodybuilding elements. This is more intermediate based program. I really enjoyed doing this one because I can keep doing my strength type exercises at the beginning and bodybuilding type exercises afterwards. It's a 4 day split with each day focusing on either a Power/Hypertrophy and Upper/Lower body.
A Linear Progression Based PPL Program for Beginners - u/Metallicadpa - A PPL (Push, Pull, Legs) program that is very body builder type days but with the added benefit of strength components before each session. This was a fun program to do for me.
nSuns 5/3/1 or CAP Programs - A more intermediate based programs that I really enjoyed doing. More strength focused with the opportunity to add personal bodybuilding accessory exercises at the end of each session. I got really strong doing this program.
Here's a video of me Benching 250lbs at 174lbs bodyweight
Overhead Pressing 190lbs at 177lbs bodyweight
Just like choosing a diet, choosing a workout program is mainly finding one that you enjoy doing and will keep doing consistently. Any program will work as long as you put your time and effort in and track your exercises and progress.
7. Extra Helpful Resources
- TDEE Calculator by nSuns - This spreadsheet was a godsend in terms of determining your actual TDEE. You put it in your basic information and it will give you a TDEE that an average calculator would. Then you start inputting your daily weight and calories you've eaten into each cell. The spreadsheet will calculate your TDEE based on your averages and after a two weeks will give you very clear picture of how much calories you are really burning.
I really hope this helps someone who wants to get started on living a healthier lifestyle. Gym has become a very positive factor in my life in terms of building character and a great stress reliever. All of things above were things that have helped me and I hope will help you too on your journey as well. Cheers!
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