Weight loss basics?
06-02-2018, 01:24 AM
Weight loss is what happens when you eat less than what your body requires for maintenance. There are a number of different ways to achieve this, some more effective than others. Just pick one of the methods and go with it, I'm just giving you a list to choose from since I have no idea what your lifestyle looks like.
General weight loss tips that help but aren't going to do the job by themselves
Drink more water. Ice cold water burns calories.
Continue lifting weights. Expect some strength loss but don't be too alarmed, it'll come right back when you stop dieting.
Eat enough protein - 1 g per pound of bodyweight is the absolute minimum and I would go as high as 1.5 g per pound. If you're fat (30% bodyfat or more) you can get by with less until you hit about 20% or so. I understand that slamming 400 grams of protein a day would be a lot.
Get enough sleep - no brainer.
Be mindful in general of doing things that burn more calories - park farther away from places, take the stairs more, etc
Get a fat burner, or just drink a bit more caffeine.
Switch to diet sodas if you're into those.
Make a spreadsheet and track your weight loss efforts to stay motivated.
How to achieve a caloric deficit
Increase activity levels
Bigger guys burn more calories doing anything, be it walking or jumping rope (jumping rope burns a shit ton of calories). The downside to increasing activity levels is that it takes time and it usually leaves you in a state of hunger, whereby you simply eat more after doing the activity. Depending on the activity (like running, do not do running you will fuck up your knees) you can also get injured.
Certain activities like sprinting or weightlifting or high intensity anything that recruits a lot of muscle will increase your base metabolic rate, which will burn more calories all the time versus steady state cardio - like running or elliptical or whatever - which tends to only burn calories during the activity. Going for a hill sprint or even a recumbent bike "sprint" once or twice a week will be more effective than jogging. An all out balls out effort, maybe you could do 1 minute on and 1 minute rest with 5 total minutes of work, just get the work in.
As a guy who has worked many manual labor jobs (8-12 hour days of busting ass), I will tell you right now that increasing activity levels, by itself, will likely not lead to long term fat loss on its own.
Count calories
This is the most mechanical method. You simply take your bodyweight in pounds and multiply it by any of these numbers depending on your goals.
Weight gain : 16-20+
Maintenance : 15
Weight loss : 12-14
Then you make an account on some website like Myfitnesspal or use a phone app or whatever to add up all the food you eat in a day and try to hit whatever caloric goal. So say you weigh 275 and you want to lose weight, you take 14 x 275 = 3850. I find that this method is the biggest pain in the ass but over time, if you eat mostly similar foods, it gets to the point where you can eyeball it.
At this point, you take whatever you're eating now and you eat less of it. You can try to clean up your diet over time, but this one does work on its own, assuming you are honest and you have the willpower.
If you're not losing weight with this method, dial down the calories to a factor of 11 or 10.
Intermittent Fasting
I don't have to dig too much into the science here, as you can simply download the PDF Eat Stop Eat by Brad Pilon and he'll tell you, but the general gist of it is that you eat nothing for 24 hours once a week (twice for aggressive fat loss). Diet soda, coffee, chewing gum, and cigarettes are fine during the fast. Drink plenty of water. I would "start" the fast the night before by eating dinner, maybe 5 pm so you don't go to bed hungry and pissed off. Fasting burns fat while you're in the fast and it regulates all your hormones with respect to hunger so that once you do it a couple times, you'll be less hungry over all, assuming you eat a normal sized meal to break your fast the next day. The hormones that give you a false sense of hunger will be more regulated.
Binging at a buffet to break the fast defeats the purpose. You can expect something like a pound of fat loss a week at your size and it'll scale down to a half a pound a week or so over time. A lot of folks with busier lifestyles that eat out a lot get plenty of mileage from intermittent fasting, it saves time and money.
Your first 24 hour fast will be hell, but just keep your eye on the goal - and the scale. Every fast after the first one gets easier.
IF can mess with some medications so check with your doctor.
Ketogenic Dieting
Keto is basically where you just eat fat and protein. Your body then burns fat for energy. Your ceiling for carb intake is something like 30 grams a day.
This one is not complicated. Have a salad once a day (no dressing or any of that shit) and eat meat and butter/oils until you are full. Cheaper cuts of fatty meat are great. A crockpot will be your friend. If it has carbs in it, you do not eat it.
So if you like eating ribs and chicken wings with dry rub, taking shots of olive oil or eating cheese, this one might work for you. Upsides are that most people barely feel hunger on this diet (fat and protein are extremely satiating) and weight loss is very easy.
The downsides are that most people go through a keto adaptation period (the keto flu) and that attempting to comply with the diet requires some major lifestyle changes if you eat out a lot, or have an emotional attachment to carb laden foods like pasta, pizza, whatever.
Carbs are in literally everything if you go to restaurants. Again, I have no idea what your lifestyle looks like, so if you grill a lot or you cook all your own meals, this one might be the ticket. Keto can also mess with some medications so talk to your doctor about this one.
Eating "Clean"
Eating clean is just what it sounds like, spinach, chicken breasts, quinoa, hummus, whatever. Everybody knows about eating clean. The reason why it works is because it's really hard to get fat eating sweet potatoes and kale. The reason why it doesn't work for most people is because it's far too easy to fall off the wagon. I figured I'd just throw this one in here as an option.
You could say that Paleo Dieting is a derivative of this. If ancient man didn't have it, you don't eat it. So the diet looks a lot like steak and salads with nuts, fruits, and celery thrown in. The paleo diet works for the same reason that "eating clean" works, and it was all the rage about five years ago in the "manosphere".
Eating foods that are not calorically dense
In the past I've written about "The Potato diet" where you literally just eat potatoes (I add in lean meat because protein is essential). It's cheap and it works.
The reason why the potato diet works is simple - most people can only eat 4 lbs of food in a day. If those 4 pounds only have 1100 calories in them, you have no choice but to lose weight. This one sort of looks like the "Eating Clean" option except it's a lot cheaper. So I just googled "foods that are not calorically dense" and the list looks like this :
In addition to fruits and veggies, other great low- to medium-calorie-dense choices include nonfat dairy foods, potatoes, whole-wheat pastas, brown rice, sweet potatoes, corn, hot cereals, peas and beans (such as pinto, garbanzo, and black beans), seafood, lean poultry, and lean meat.
I like this method the most, since I like to eat, and all I have to do is buy somewhat different food at the grocery store.
Pick any one of these methods and just go with it.
“I have a very simple rule when it comes to management: hire the best people from your competitors, pay them more than they were earning, and give them bonuses and incentives based on their performance. That’s how you build a first-class operation.”
― Donald J. Trump
If you want some PDF's on bodyweight exercise with little to no equipment, send me a PM and I'll get back to you as soon as possible.