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Easily Lose Weight Without Counting Calories
In this very website, I have plenty of articles on both sides of the counting calorie conundrum.
(if you want to read those they are at the end of this Blog for your further reading pleasure).
Personally, I am not in favour of counting calories, nor am I against it.
The decision to choose to count calories or not simply comes down to the behaviour patterns and previous dieting history of the person who is trying to figure out whether or not is a good idea to count calories or not.
The list of people who shouldn't be counting calories is:
Anyone who has an eating disorder
Anyone who is a perfectionist
Anyone who suffers with food guilt
Anyone who refuses to eat because it will take them “above their calorie limit”
Anyone who has a history of yo-yo dieting and diet clubs.
If you are in one of those cohorts of people and you are still actively trying to lose weight, then you are in the right place.
If you are not in one of those cohorts of people, but still want to learn more about losing weight…then you are in the right place as well.
Basically…if you are trying to find out more about losing weight…
As always, thank you for being here, and I can’t wait to help you figure this crazy journey out.
Before we progress, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. This means consuming fewer calories than your metabolism is burning each day, and that can be achieved both through counting calories and without counting calories.
If you need more information on Calorie Deficits then head here.
Table of contents for Easily Lose Weight Without Counting Calories:
Is Calorie Counting the best way to lose weight?
How to be in a Calorie Deficit without counting calories
Signs that you are in a Calorie Deficit
Really Simple Solutions
Is Calorie Counting the Best way to lose weight?
Calorie counting does work.
This study (1) took a cohort of people and found that there was a correlation between consistent trackers and weight loss outcomes:
“Only consistent trackers had significant weight loss (-9.99 pounds), following a linear relationship with consistent loss throughout the year. In addition, the weight loss trend for the rare and inconsistent trackers followed a nonlinear path, with the holidays slowing weight loss and the onset of summer increasing weight loss. These results show the importance of frequent dietary tracking for consistent long-term weight loss success”
But as I mentioned in my introduction if you match any of the cohorts I spoke about, then these results will not be accessible to you.
The other thing I would say is this: calorie counting is the quickest way to know if you are in a calorie deficit. You simply get immediate feedback on what you are eating and provided you have done your calorie calculations correctly, you will know whether or not you are indeed taking the steps to lose weight each day.
If you want to do your calorie calculations then get my calorie calculator sent to your inbox right now.
If you aren’t able to, or just don’t want to count calories, then I will lay out for you exactly how to lose weight within that.
But you will have to meet me half way with regards to the process.
You will need patience.
The only way to know if you are losing weight, for sure, without counting calories, is through consistent work on the process I will outline below, and then comparing month to month at markers that will indicate weight loss - a topic we will get onto later in this blog post.
How to be in a Calorie Deficit without Counting Calories
Over my decade in the fitness industry, I have made many many mistakes. One of those mistakes was asking clients who were contra-indicated to count calories.
In fact, now I am older and wiser, I would argue the vast majority of the people I work with, mainly people just like you, who really want to lose weight, but might also have a very fragile relationship with food, with the scale, with their body image and are low on self-esteem, do not need to count calories.
I am now far less likely to ask a client to count calories when working on their weight loss - and the results I get are just as effective. If not more so, because my clients aren’t reliant on the control that calorie counting gives them, and don’t have to learn to regress.
We go slower to start with, building strong proper foundations, so that they are empowered to be able to stay at a weight that suits them for their whole lives.
In fact, I would also argue, that most people who count calories, lose weight, and then stop counting calories are far more likely to regain their weight, then have to go back to calorie counting to lose it again…and they repeat this process all of their lives.
Also please remember body weight will always fluctuate. It is not a static thing, and in each different phase and aspect of your life different body weights will emerge - and that is ok.
Losing weight without counting calories is possible, but it requires a combination of diet and lifestyle changes to help us make sure that we are getting you into a calorie deficit.
Here are a few tips to help you get started, backed by scientific research.
Let’s start with your dietary changes:
PORTION CONTROL
Portion control is your best friend when it comes to organising your diet into a calorie deficit.
Don't feel like you have to finish everything on your plate: It's okay to leave a little bit of food behind, and it can actually be a good thing to listen to your body's hunger and fullness cues. When your mum told you that you must finish your plate, little did she know that when you grow up, this could have a major impact on your relationship with food? It’s not your mum’s fault, but you must understand that you don’t have to finish your plate as an adult.
Focus on the quality of your food, not just the quantity: Rather than trying to eat less of everything, try to fill your plate with a variety of nutritious foods. Start with Protein, and build your plate around that. One of my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life is to Protein and Veggies at every meal. This will increase fibre and nutrients which will make you feel fuller for longer whilst losing weight.
Be mindful of your snacking: Snacking can add a lot of extra calories to your diet, so it's important to be mindful of what and how much you're eating between meals. The cliche is true, fruits and vegetables are your best friends when it comes to snacking. Try to limit your snacks to two a day between your meals.
Don't be afraid to ask for a to-go box: If you're eating out and the portions are larger than you're used to, don't be afraid to ask for a to-go box and take the rest home for another meal. This is a massive thing in Australia which I had to get used to. In England, you either finish your plate or leave food on there, you hardly ever get a “doggy bag”. But here its quite common practice - and it’s such a good thing to do. It saves on food wastage, it saves you from overeating, and it means you have leftovers for the next day so you are automatically meal prepped.
Don't deprive yourself: It's important to enjoy your food and not feel like you're constantly depriving yourself. If you really want that second serving or dessert, go for it, but try to be mindful of how much you're eating. Remember balance always.
Find what works for you: Everyone is different, so it's important to find what works best for you and your body. Don't be afraid to experiment with different portion sizes and see how you feel.
2. STRUCTURED EATING
The role of structured eating in your diet has astounding benefits from improving your relationship with food as well as helping you get into a calorie deficit.
However, for the purposes of this article, its use is to regulate and stimulate your hunger hormones (2).
By making sure you regulate these hormones (grehlin and leptin) you will be able to avoid the classic “hangry” feeling and therefore not end up eating everything in sight when you get the opportunity to.
By eating in a structured way, your body will no longer guess when it will and will not be fed, and therefore having a much more regular diet will decrease your overall calories not just during the day, but also over the weeks as well.
This study (3) also concluded:
“While no one eating occasion contributes more than any other to excess adiposity, eating more often than three times a day may play a role in overweight and obesity in both younger and older persons”
The structure you need to stick to is:
Breakfast.
Lunch.
Dinner.
Two snacks.
Each meal must fit on one plate.
You should also eat uninterrupted and participate as much as possible in the making and creating of the food.
The other thing to remember with structured eating is that it requires mindful eating as well. This will help you pay attention to your body's hunger and fullness cues, and eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are satisfied. Avoid distractions like TV or phone while eating, as these can cause you to eat more than you need (4). Mindful eating has been shown to be effective for weight loss and the prevention of weight gain (5).
3. WATER INTAKE
Another one of my five awesome rules for fat loss life is the promotion of trying to drink 3 litres of water a day. This can be a shock to the system, to begin with, but build up slowly and you will be on also remember it is a purposefully high target, because if you fall short you are still covered.
Drinking enough water can help you feel full and satisfied, thus helping your hunger cues be quelled, and helping to keep you in a calorie deficit. I always suggest to clients on the Strong and Confident Program to work towards trying to drink 3 litres a day.
A study of 50 adults found that those who drank 375ml or 500 ml of water before a meal lost significantly more weight than those who did not (6).
Now let’s look at some physical changes you might need to make:
SLEEP
The more I write about fitness, the more I am realising that sleep features in every aspect of your fitness journey. Not just for weight loss, but for performance as well.
You have to get enough sleep. However, I am not ignorant of the fact that if you have a young family that simply will not be possible. I appreciate that, and if that is you, then be aware of the impact of sleep, but don’t get stressed about the fact you can’t access enough sleep; just be aware that when things settle down, you should think about addressing this part of your life.
If you are reading this, and you don’t have a young family or a medical reason that you can’t get enough sleep, and you aren’t getting enough sleep then you need to get enough sleep.
Adequate sleep is essential for weight loss and overall health. In fact, it is that important, I would put it as high up on the list of helping you lose weight as being in a Calorie Deficit.
A review of 17 studies found that people who slept 7-9 hours per night had a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) compared to those who slept less (7).
One reason lack of sleep is associated with weight gain is that sleep deprivation can lead to an increase in appetite, particularly for high-calorie, sugary foods. This is because sleep deprivation can lead to an increase in the hunger hormone ghrelin and a decrease in the hormone leptin, which regulate hunger and fullness. As a result, people who don't get enough sleep may feel hungrier and eat more.
In addition to increasing appetite, sleep deprivation can also lead to an increase in the hormone cortisol, which can promote fat storage and weight gain. This is because cortisol is released in response to stress, and sleep deprivation can be a source of stress for the body.
Furthermore, insufficient sleep can lead to a decrease in physical activity and a decrease in the body's ability to burn calories effectively. This is because sleep deprivation can lead to fatigue and decreased energy levels, making it harder for people to be physically active. It is also not uncommon to see a drop in fidgeting and other calorie-burning activities throughout the day, because of tiredness.
Overall, it is important to get enough sleep in order to maintain a healthy weight. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night.
2. STRUCTURED MOVEMENT
As I mentioned above, we need to work on both sides of the energy balance equation to easily create a calorie deficit, especially if you aren’t counting calories.
The most important thing for you to remember when it comes to physical movement, in pursuit of losing weight, is to not view calorie-burning as the reason you are exercising.
Yes. Exercise does burn calories.
No. You don’t have to earn your calories in the gym.
Yes. Exercise is amazing for your overall health.
No. Exercising doesn’t burn as many calories as you would think.
Yes. Exercise is a great tool to help keep you on track dietarily and emotionally with a weight loss goal.
All exercise will help you create a calorie deficit. Notice the word “help”?
The most important aspect of exercise with regards to this is that you chose the exercise you enjoy the most because you will then be far more likely to continue doing it for long enough to see results.
I very recently got this message on Instagram in relation to a workout I give away for free:
The person who sent me this, was in a phase of not counting calories, although she is quite calorie aware, and she was wanting to begin the journey of feeling her best for her wedding which is in a few weeks (as I write this), and she is about 7 months post-partum.
The results are immense. But for me, the best result isn’t the weight loss she created, its the fact she felt more empowered as a result of exercising, and she is evidently more confident as a result of getting stronger. Its the dream scenario.
The workout she completed was this:
If you want the same strength workout I gave her then just put your email address in here and I will send it to you in a day or two:
Or if you would like a four-week beginner strength training routine for beginners with video tutorials then head here.
Aim for 2-3 workouts a week, which last for about 30-40mins and that make you feel two inches taller when you walk out of the Gym compared to when you walked in, and you will be right where you need to be when it comes to working out.
3. INCREASING YOUR NEAT
You could look up any advice about losing weight across the whole internet, and I promise you that every weight loss plan you find will feature something in relation to your NEAT.
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
This is the largest portion of your daily caloric burn. It is responsible for burning as many calories as structured movement and how many calories you burn through digestion combined.
Essentially the simplest way it can be measured is by your step count.
But there are other aspects of it as well. When I designed my five awesome rules for fat loss life, I made one of those rules: 10k Steps A Day.
Science has since shown that 10k steps a day are not necessarily needed for improving your health, the figure stands at around 7.5k steps a day if you are only focused on improving your health.
But as you aren’t counting calories, and I am telling you that you can lose weight easily, then we need to put in some targets here.
This is the simplest way to make sure that your step count is right:
Take your previous month’s daily average number.
Multiply it by two.
That is your new step count.
Then after about two weeks, you need to multiply it by two again.
And continue doing this all the way up to 10k steps a day and then keep it there as consistently as possible.
Now if you just don’t have time to fit in that amount of steps a day in, there is another solution. We need you to walk faster. If all you have is the maximum time in your day to do 5k steps a day, then a great way of making that 5k steps as effective as possible for you is that every time you walk, do it with as much purpose and direction as you possibly can.
Don’t dilly-dally. You aren’t strolling, you are walking with the intention to get to your destination as effectively as possible.
Other great ways to increase your NEAT are:
Incorporate more movement into your daily routine by using a standing or adjustable desk.
Take regular stretch breaks throughout the day to loosen up and move your body.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator whenever possible.
Walk or bike to the store or grocery shop instead of driving or taking public transportation.
Park further away from the grocery shop in the car park.
Every time there is an ad break on TV, climb your stairs three times.
Wear ankle weights when walking.
Take up a new hobby that involves movement such as rock climbing, ice skating or roller skating.
Do some gardening.
Every time there is an ad break on tv, use it as a Dance Break instead.
Never sit down when you are on the phone, always stand or walk.
Take the kids or grandkids to the park and play games or sports with them.
Carry your shopping as opposed to using a trolley.
Walking is your solution to most things. Emotional stress, physical stress, or maybe you just need to find some more energy to help get through the day. You might want to improve the quality of your sleep or even to help you easily lose weight without counting calories, I promise you, walking solves more issues than you will ever thought possible.
How Do You Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit
As I mentioned earlier, counting calories gives you instant feedback on whether or not you are in a calorie deficit.
So if we are taking counting calories away, it is useful to know what other signs you can look for, to get similar feedback on your progress.
Here are the kinds of things I always tell clients to keep aware of to measure their success when they aren’t counting calories:
SCALE WEIGHT
This one is always tricky as many people who aren’t counting calories, likely won’t be the most comfortable with getting on the scales either.
However, if we are directly answering the question of “easily losing weight”, then at some point you will likely check in with your body weight.
Now read this very carefully:
You should only compare your scale weight on a monthly basis, not weekly, to determine if you are in a calorie deficit or not.
You can track daily, or you can track weekly. But from only comparing Day 1 to Day 31 will you know if you are in a Calorie Deficit or not.
This is because scale weight is a fickle fiend and comparing weight loss on a shorter timescale will drive you insane due to all the fluctuations involved.
Please, if you want to look at your scale weight in relation to easily losing weight only compare monthly readings.
2. MEASUREMENTS
These are probably your better friend than scale weight to track your progress. Again, only compare on a monthly basis maybe even a 6-week basis. Another great sign of your measurements changing is feeling different in your clothes - if you feel like they are fitting you better, or you feel like you are wearing them better, then you are probably making an impact on your measurements.
The measurements I ask my clients for, if they are comfortable doing this, are the following:
Neck
Chest
L Bicep
R Bicep
Waist at the Belly Button
Waist 2in below the Belly Button
Waist 2in above the Belly Button
Hips
L Thigh
R Thigh
3. WORK IN PROCESS PICTURES
I don’t call them before or after photos. I don’t call them “progress pictures” either.
Simply because a photo solely looking at your physique, can often cause more issues than it solves. It automatically puts you into a mindset of “the way I look is all that is important”.
And it’s not.
The way you look is one aspect of you, and it is likely one of the last reasons anyone enjoys being with you.
Think of your friends. Are you only friends based on the size of their body? Of course not.
So I like to try to change the narrative of photos. Your work in process pictures are just that, designed to capture your process and the changes you are seeing along your journey.
This could be, photos of you working out, or on walks.
This could be family snaps where you remember not feeling awkward in the photo.
This could be a photo on a night out where you didn’t automatically feel anxious when someone asked for a picture, and you resisted the urge to want to look at it, in case you didn’t like it and wanted it deleted.
These are work in process pictures.
When you engage in a weight loss journey, sure weight loss is the goal, but in truth its the least interesting goal that actually occurs.
Use your photos to celebrate your journey, celebrate your building confidence, celebrate your consistency, celebrate your confidence changing as you progress.
These are all signs of progress too, aside from seeing your belly reduction on two photos that are six weeks apart.
Your physique can and will change. But a photo only focussed on your physique will never capture the internal changes that have occurred to you over time. Get photos that describe your internal monologue as well.
Document that progress.
It’s so much more rewarding.
4. CONSISTENCY
Another incredible sign that you are in a calorie deficit is recording your consistency. Tick off these things:
How regularly you are getting your workouts in
How regularly you are keeping your structure with food
How regularly you feel less guilty about the food you are eating
How regularly you are trying to move away from calling foods “good” and “bad”
How regularly you are getting your steps in
How much water you are drinking
How regularly you are getting 7-8 hours sleep a night
You can do this on a calendar, a tracking app or a journal.
Remember there is a key difference between consistency and perfection. In order to be consistent you need to be hitting your goals and habits 25 days out of 30 in a month.
5. HUNGER
Going to bed and feeling a little hungry is also a good sign that you are in a calorie deficit. At no point in your life do you want to be ravenous, and hunger should be managed relatively well throughout the day, especially if you have a structure with your food.
But going to bed and feeling a little hungry is a good sign that you are in a calorie deficit.
Really Simple Solutions
When I first became a Personal Trainer, one of the firs things my Coach gave me to work on was the concept of KISS.
Keep, It, Simple, Stupid.
And therefore over the years, I have always worked on trying to distil weight loss and fitness into the simplest and most effective messaging I can come up with.
And here is what seems to have stuck:
THE 3, 4, 5 SYSTEM
I remember where I was when I came up with this a few years ago. I was on the Gym Floor with one of my best Australian friends, Ben. I had been training him for nearly a year at this point, and he was aware his life was getting busier again, and it was about to cause havoc on his progress. I could never get Ben to track his food, so I asked him to stick to this.
3 litres of water a day.
4 movement sessions a week; Walking, Workouts and anything else you might enjoy.
5 moments with food every day: 3 meals, two snacks.
Its simplicity gave me so much joy. I then introduced it to one of my online clients in Colorado, doing my Strong & Confident Program and she sent me this as it was her lock screen to keep her on track.
What a beautiful idea.
DAILY AWESOME SALAD
The DAS.
Get your protein source. Add a huge bag of salad and some carby veggies.
Job done.
Do this for lunch each and every day. It’s easy to prep, its cost-effective, and it will do a good job.
BUILD MEALS AROUND PROTEIN
Start with protein.
Then add veggies to your plate.
Then if you look at your meal and still feel like you need something else, add a Carbohydrate source.
Try to aim for 100g of protein a day. This is the equivalent of:
My recommendation to clients is to always start with 100g of protein a day, or if you are vegetarian or vegan then aim for 80g of protein a day.
You can get more complex if you like, but if you don’t want to count calories, then there really isn’t much of a need to past those recommendations.
And always make sure it fits on one plate, as mentioned in the structured eating section of this article.
FIVE AWESOME RULES FOR FAT LOSS LIFE
I have written about these many times.
In a nutshell, they are:
Be in a Calorie Deficit
10k steps a day
7-8 hours sleep a night
Protein and Veggies at every meal
3 litres of water a day
If you want to find out more about how these rules work then head here:
5 Easy Ways To Do A Calorie Deficit Without Working Out
FOLLOW THE DADDY HUMPHREYS PLAN
Here is my Dad and I, out on the Golf Course back in Essex where we used to live together. I since moved to Australia. My Dad was recently diagnosed with Cancer at the age of 67.
He recently went from 80kgs to 75kgs in a matter of about 4 months.
He has never been overweight or really had any body weight concerns. But when he got Cancer, he was told that getting his BMI down a touch would be helpful, and would help him feel better in general.
His Cancer is quite serious, it is Stage 4, and he can only get onto Maintenance drugs to help him, never into full remission or be Cancer free.
But in terms of his treatment, it has all been relatively easy compared to what most people go through with chemotherapy. His side effects have been some hiccoughs, and interrupted sleep and that’s about it. My point is, he didn’t suffer weight loss as a result of his treatment.
He got his bodyweight down through behaviour, none of which was counting calories.
Here is what he did:
As you can see, it’s a pretty simple, and sensible solution.
The Daddy Humphreys Plan: I wonder if it will sell….
What’s Next…
Well, I am an Online Coach who has helped thousands of people work through the challenges in this article.
And it would be my pleasure to help you too.
My program is personal one-to-one online training called the Strong & Confident Program.
If you have ever wanted to achieve the following:
✅ Escape the constant dread of dieting?
✅ Release the guilt you attach to eating certain types of food?
✅ Learn to stop worrying about “the pesky last few pounds” and focus on all your body can do?
✅ Become truly happy with what your body is and what is capable of?
✅ Enjoy the feeling of being stronger and fitter as opposed to trying to reduce your size all the time?
✅ Achieve all of this and still lose body fat at the same time without huge restrictions and slavery to a fitness regime?
✅ Do it all on your own schedule, in your own way, with a program specifically designed for you?
Then please click on the button below and fill out an application form to start working with me.
If you feel like you need more help learning how to lose weight and release the need for counting calories then you can look through the following articles of mine as well:
Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with building a stronger relationship with food.
I cannot wait to see how you go!
Coach Adam
References:
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Klok, M.D., Jakobsdottir, S. and Drent, M.L. (2007), The role of leptin and ghrelin in the regulation of food intake and body weight in humans: a review. Obesity Reviews, 8: 21-34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2006.00270.x
Howarth NC, Huang TT, Roberts SB, McCrory MA, Lin BH. Eating patterns and dietary composition in relation to weight change over 7 y. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2001;73(2):209-218.
Van Walleghen EL, Hogg MM, Bell EA, Rolls BJ. Television viewing increases motivated responding for food and energy intake in adults. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2010;91(4):829-835.
Kristeller JL, Hallett CB. An exploratory study of a meditation-based intervention for binge eating disorder. Journal of Health Psychology. 1999;4(3):357-363.
Pre-meal water consumption for weight loss. (2013). Australian Family Physician, 42(7), 478. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.405716872190923
How Much Weight Do You Gain On Vacation?
A more succinct version of this article was originally published in Cove Magazine’s September/October Issue- which was a true honour of mine - to actually be published as a Fitness Writer.
Out of office is on. The suitcase is packed. The dog is with the neighbour. Your passport is by the front door. You’re off on your holiday and you cannot wait.
Perfection. You’re saying goodbye to the stress of your day-to-day life and you can taste the Tequila Sunrises by the pool. My goodness, I love a Tequila Sunrise.
Bliss.
Except for one thing…
That nagging thought in the back of your mind that this all-inclusive holiday will undo all your progress in the Gym or in terms of your weight loss journey.
The hotel has a gym – but you don’t want to be that person…
And you have earned the cocktails…like really earned them.
So how will you stay fit on holiday and manage to enjoy yourself?
The answer is really straightforward: You do not have to worry about it.
Just this morning I had a chat with a friend of mine who was adamant she put on 6kgs on her Honeymoon. She didn’t. I know she didn’t…but this highlights a crucial component of the question: How much weight will I gain on Vacation?
In this article, I will outline all the facts to help your anxiety about gaining weight whilst on vacation go away.
Your holiday is to be enjoyed - not be anxious about - so please read this, and enjoy the metaphorical weight of worry lifted from your shoulders.
Before we get into it, I want to thank you for being here and reading my work. I want to thank you so much - that I would love it if you sent me a friend request so we can stay in touch a little more - and I can offer much more help to you than just this Blog Post. I will send you a Calorie Calculator, my book, free workouts and much more (some of which will be appropriate - some of which might not).
So if you like the cut of my jib we can become friends by:
Table of Contents for: How Much Weight Will I Typically Gain On Vacation?
Why Do You Gain Weight On Vacation?
How Much Weight Will I Gain on Vacation?
Should I work out on Vacation?
How To Avoid Weight Gain On Vacation
How Long Does It Take To Lose Vacation Weight Gain?
Why Do You Gain Weight On Vacation?
I just want to clear something up right now - I have used the word “vacation” in the headings for this article, as it will hopefully mean Google will prioritise this web page when you search for it, but from this point forward I cannot, in good faith, keep using the term “Vacation” for what I know to be a “Holiday”.
I mean my American friends no disrespect. But I just can’t get used to calling a holiday; a vacation.
I hope you don’t mind…and that we can still be friends.
Back to holiday weight gain…
This might seem obvious to you, and you are probably thinking that clearly, the answer is because on your holiday you are simply planning to not move from your sun lounger, enjoy all the free Cocktails by the pool, and not do a workout once.
Which you are more than entitled to do.
Essentially, whilst you are on holiday, you are going to move a lot less and eat a lot more.
I want to book a holiday just thinking about it…
However, that is not really the reason you gain weight on holiday.
You are gaining weight on holiday mainly due to water retention - not body fat increases. Your diet is probably containing a few extra Carbs in the form of Ice Cream, Chips, and Sandwiches when you are out and about…
Carbohydrates are like a sponge. Have you ever wondered why your porridge oats soak up the water you put in there? Well the same thing happens when you eat and digest carbs as this study [1] concludes:
“Our findings agree with the long held notion that each gram of glycogen is stored in human muscle with at least 3 g of water. Higher ratios are possible likely due to water storage not bound to glycogen.”
For every gram of carbohydrates you ingest, your body will also absorb 3g of Water. This water obviously affects the scale, as well as might make you feel more bloated or a little heavier.
We commonly associate these feelings with body fat…but it honestly isn’t…and now I will show you why it isn’t body fat, and exactly why you have nothing to worry about from a one to two-week holiday.
How Much Weight Will You Gain on Vacation?
The easy answer is… nowhere as much as you would believe.
The scientific number is 400g.
This study [2] found that the net gain of 61% of participants out of 122 adults with an average age of 32 who gained weight on a holiday between one to three weeks was 300g and the average weight gain was 400g.
Like with all studies that sum up an average we must always still remain clear that there are some people on each end of that spectrum. In this study [2] some people did gain up to 3kgs and some others did lose weight. What we don’t know about these people is their baselines - what weight they were starting at, what their maintenance numbers are, or even the type of holiday they went on.
So let’s look into it some more.
Just because you are on holiday, doesn’t mean your body behaves any different in terms of Calories In and Calories Out. To gain weight you must take on more calories than you burn, and to lose weight you need to be in a Calorie Deficit.
So how many calories do actually add up to weight gain?
According to this study in order to gain one kilogram of body weight, you need to eat an extra 1000kcals a day over your maintenance level. That is 7000 extra calories a week.
That is the same as 12 Big Macs.
The same as 50 cans of Soda.
And then again as previously mentioned, half of that kg is body fat and half is water.
Therefore to gain one kilogram of body fat you need to eat double that amount.
2000 extra kcals a day. Which is a lot.
The study also suggests that if you keep the protein high, then the impact of fat gain is smaller – and the more you eat, you also move more – so that will help keep things in check as well.
I am almost certain you will be indulging on your Holiday - but to the degree of 2000kcals a day, over your maintenance. in order to actually gain 1kg of Body Fat - I think is highly unlikely.
Some other reasons that participants gained weight whilst on holiday are:
Increased Alcohol consumption leads to increased caloric consumption. Before the participants went on holiday they reported only having 8 drinks a week, then during their holiday, this doubled to 16.
Decreased physical activity on returning from holiday which is a sign of you not having the motivation to get back on track when you return.
I just want to pick up on that last point a little more, as the first one makes logical sense, but the second one is a much more psychological issue.
The reasons that many people don’t continue their exercise regimen when they get back from a holiday are probably twofold.
They only started their exercise because of the holiday, not to improve the overall quality of their life, and now that moment in time has been achieved they have no other reason to exercise.
They feel like they have gained a lot more weight than they have, and therefore believe that continuing with the process is even more futile, and then just give up on themselves even more.
If you are considering engaging in an exercise regimen solely because of an extrinsic goal: a holiday, a wedding, a sporting event, a reunion or a birthday party…then before you have even started you are putting a psychological time cap on your ability to continue with your fitness past that event.
Extrinsic goals often lead to a real struggle with motivation in people - so much so I have dedicated a whole other Blog Post to that very topic.
These goals are materialistic.
As Edward Deci says in his book “Why We Do What We Do”:
“…strong aspirations for any of the intrinsic goals — meaningful relationships, personal growth, and community contributions — were positively associated with well-being. People who strongly desired to contribute to their community, for example, had more vitality and higher self-esteem. When people organize their behaviour in terms of intrinsic strivings (relative to extrinsic strivings) they seem more content — they feel better about who they are and display more evidence of psychological health.”
Therefore if you want to not gain weight on holiday, well you don’t actually gain that much weight on holiday as we have established, but have the perception of gaining weight on holiday - don’t try and solely lose weight because of the holiday.
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Should I work out on Vacation?
I deeply and truly feel this GIF.
I suppose someone’s desire to work out on holiday comes from the worry or anxiety around “losing all of their progress”.
Well, I come bearing good news.
Your fear and worry about losing strength and muscle is not needed because you simply won’t lose strength and muscle.
Let’s look at the average length of a holiday: According to the State of the Nation report [4] by Roy Morgan in 2019 focusing on Tourism; the average Australian overseas holiday is 21.6 days. In the US it is 17.7 nights, and in the UK is 8.7 nights.
My goodness, the UK needs to step up their game.
However, across all nations, these time frames are not a long time to abstain from training.
The first thing you need to remember here is that just because you aren’t in the Gym…doesn’t mean you aren’t preserving or continuing to build muscle.
You can build muscle by doing all sorts of activities like walking, hiking, surfing, jet skiing, and horse riding - its not just about being in the Gym.
Remember that pool I mentioned before…?
When I have a new online client who is relatively new to exercise, any movement helps them to get stronger – not just their workouts in the Gym – and we make sure we focus on maximising other forms of movement.
Plus you just don’t lose muscle in 21 days when on holiday.
A study [5] by Manchester Metropolitan University found that if you totally immobilize someone they lose only 5-10% of muscle mass in 10-21 days.
“Totally immobilize” – now I am lazy on holiday, but I am not totally immobile.
Added to that this study [6] in the Journal of Sport Sciences found that over a 16-week period, beginners who completely ceased training only lost 5% muscle and 22% strength.
When you are on holiday, you will have moments of complete rest, but you will also still continue to move – maybe more than when you are pinned to the desk in the office – and that movement will not be detrimental to your physique at all for the time period you are on holiday for an average of 16 nights.
Also in terms of diet – keep the protein up to preserve your muscle mass - this will help witha number of things, but But don’t fret it too much.
Keeping your muscle mass up is important, and if you can get one workout in a week on holiday you will see no noticeable changes either negative or positive as long as you get back on track when you return. The key to sustaining those resutls
How To Avoid Weight Gain On Vacation?
I wanted to put this into this Blog Post, even though we have already established you really do not need to worry about possibly gaining 400g.
But if you are feeling a little anxious about it all the same…then it is always good to have a blueprint of things you can focus on to help balance your feelings and worries.
My top tips to help you avoid weight gain on holiday are:
Eat Big Breakfasts - a recent study [7] published in the Cell Metabolism Journal took 31 overweight subjects and analysed the difference in hunger and appetite control between one group who ate the majority of their daily calories at breakfast, to another group who ate the majority of their daily calories at dinner. Both groups consumed the same number of calories, and the same macronutrients and both groups lost weight - about 4kgs. However, the group that ate the bigger breakfast reported far more satiety throughout the day and far fewer cravings. Plus hotel breakfasts are the best - so why wouldn’t you fill up for the day?
Consider your Nourishment - there is nothing worse than when you are on holiday and it gets to about day 7 or 8 and you realise you have eaten out every day, you are devoid of vegetables and fruits and you just feel awful - internally and externally. Try to make sure you always order some vegetables with your dinner and some fruit with your breakfast. Not because it will save you calories, but it will certainly make you feel better about yourself in general, and that in turn will stop you from psychologically beating yourself up because you feel like crap.
Hydrate - I always tell my clients to drink 3 litres of water a day.
Get back on track when you get back home - a crucial
Keep your steps up - this is fundamental to any weight management plan. Your steps and base level movement are the biggest driver of your metabolism that you have control of. It’s amazing sitting by a pool drinking cocktail - but also going and exploring the world is life-changing. Below is an image of my fiancee climbing the Batu Caves Steps in Malaysia to get to a temple in the mountain…
When you go on foot, you really can experience some astounding things. These caves were truly amazing, however the monkeys on the stairs to the temple in the caves were not.
Monkeys are viscious!
A Final Word…
Your holiday is your time to do what is best for you.
If that means staying on plan with your workouts then do - please be my guest.
In the same way, if you want to continue your diet on holiday - you should.
But equally, if you don’t want to - then you shouldn’t.
Either way a successful path to fitness lies in the enjoyment of the overall process because that is what inspires consistency.
Enjoying the process for many of you will mean enjoying rest time - time away from the regime you have been following because we all need to recharge our batteries.
There is nothing wrong with taking a rest. There is nothing wrong with not worrying or being concerned about your fitness when on holiday because it is YOUR HOLIDAY.
And equally, if you book a hotel that has a Gym, because you enjoy working out that much, then do that too. It is your life, your body, your fitness journey and what you do and how you explore your own journey is entirely up to you.
“There is no right or wrong, just exploration”
Just promise me one thing…
If you are thinking about staying on track on your holiday you don’t need to do it out of fear of gaining weight or losing all of your progress.
Because neither of these things actually occur.
Give yourself that dose of self-love and empathy you deserve.
Stop controlling yourself through fear and worry.
You are worth more than that to yourself and your family at all times and especially when you are on holiday
That is my fiancee, my Mum and Dad, and myself on holiday in Devon the Christmas before I moved to Australia…getting our steps in and taking selfies!
Man, I miss my parents.
As always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.
To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below, and then you can email me your questions.
It would be my pleasure to answer them.
You will also get my book “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss” sent to you for free.
References:
Fernández-Elías VE, Ortega JF, Nelson RK, Mora-Rodriguez R. Relationship between muscle water and glycogen recovery after prolonged exercise in the heat in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2015 Sep;115(9):1919-26. doi: 10.1007/s00421-015-3175-z. Epub 2015 Apr 25. PMID: 25911631.
Jamie A. Cooper, Theresa Tokar. A prospective study on vacation weight gain in adults. Physiology & Behavior, 2016; 156: 43 DOI: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2015.12.028
Beate Ott, Thomas Skurk, llias Lagkouvardos, Sandra Fischer, Janine Büttner, Martina Lichtenegger, Thomas Clavel, Andreas Lechner, Michael Rychlik, Dirk Haller, Hans Hauner, Short-Term Overfeeding with Dairy Cream Does Not Modify Gut Permeability, the Fecal Microbiota, or Glucose Metabolism in Young Healthy Men, The Journal of Nutrition, Volume 148, Issue 1, January 2018, Pages 77–85, https://doi.org/10.1093/jn/nxx020
2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/02/160201220320.htm> [Accessed 14 September 2022].
de Boer MD, Selby A, Atherton P, Smith K, Seynnes OR, Maganaris CN, Maffulli N, Movin T, Narici MV, Rennie MJ. The temporal responses of protein synthesis, gene expression and cell signalling in human quadriceps muscle and patellar tendon to disuse. J Physiol. 2007 Nov 15;585(Pt 1):241-51. doi: 10.1113/jphysiol.2007.142828. Epub 2007 Sep 27. PMID: 17901116; PMCID: PMC2375459.
Brad Jon Schoenfeld, Jozo Grgic, James Krieger. (2019) How many times per week should a muscle be trained to maximize muscle hypertrophy? A systematic review and meta-analysis of studies examining the effects of resistance training frequency. Journal of Sports Sciences 37:11, pages 1286-1295.
Leonie C. Ruddick-Collins, Peter J. Morgan, Claire L. Fyfe, Joao A.N. Filipe, Graham W. Horgan, Klaas R. Westerterp, Jonathan D. Johnston, Alexandra M. Johnstone,
Timing of daily calorie loading affects appetite and hunger responses without changes in energy metabolism in healthy subjects with obesity,
Cell Metabolism,
2022,
5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss
This article will be a number of things:
Practical
Easy to implement
Realistic
Balanced
Nutrition is a very complex topic - and within that complexity, someone who is simply searching just to try and make a small change for their health by looking to improve their diet can easily be led off track and left feeling very very confused about all of the conflicting information out there and what it means to “eat healthily” especially when it comes to weight loss.
I will cut through that.
Today, I will tell you easy-to-implement things, to make your diet as simple as possible, and as healthy as possible to help you achieve your goals, leaving you with the knowledge and ability to improve your healthy eating habits.
I would also love to invite you to join my Free Facebook Group:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: 5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss
The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?
Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits?
- Structured Eating
- No Black or White Thinking
- Increase Protein & Vegetables
- Healthy Snacks
- Plenty of Water
The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?
Habits are the building blocks of change and if losing weight is your goal, then change is what is required.
Changing something so integral to your existence like your diet is also a really hard thing to do - and to make sure that change is long-lasting and effective enough to help you reach your goals comes down to your ability to implement habitual change.
The reason “healthy” eating habits are so important isn’t that you should eat “healthy” all the time - in fact, you really shouldn’t do that - its because if you have habitually created the “healthy” eating if it is an automated process in your life, then when you feel like you have “fallen off the wagon” or “skipped on your diet” then getting back on track is the easiest thing possible.
As you know exactly what to do and how to do it.
Another importance of creating and having “healthy” eating habits is that helps you to stop focussing on only the negative aspects of what you are doing. It is so easy to beat yourself up for eating in an “unhealthy” way when you feel like that is all you do.
This creates a negative spin within you that can constantly feel like you will never be able to turn around, and therefore the cycle goes on and on now not only is your physical health decreasing, but so is your mental health.
By having automation in your day, covering your bases if you will, it makes the more enjoyable foods feel less significant, in the bigger picture of your life, and therefore it reduces any guilt you may have from eating the more “unhealthy” foods.
I want to help make sure that you are doing the best you can, with what you have available to you.
I also want to make sure that you have the ability to keep your diet in a place that dones’t swing from one extreme to the other all of the time, because when that happens you actually make no progress at all - my goal is to help you iron out the creases so that progress is achievable for you - and the habits I lay out in this article are important to make sure that is exactly what happens to you.
And then you will make the progress you desire.
Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits
You may have noticed that in this article so far I have put parenthesis around the words healthy and unhealthy.
This is because I never like being dogmatic when it comes to your nutrition - and to simply say that this is healthy and that is unhealthy, with no further context, could be misleading for someone.
I think we can all agree that vegetables are healthy.
Personally, I happen to know that Fruit is also healthy.
But believe me, there are people out there who would happily tell you otherwise.
I would also put forth an argument that a Pizza, a Donut or a Birthday Cake can be healthy when you view it in the correct context.
For example, if you are at a Birthday Party, and they serve your favourite Red Velvet Cake, everyone around you is enjoying it, and you happen to have said “No” because you view cake as unhealthy food, that is going to have an impact on your enjoyment of the occasion.
Food is community.
Food is family.
Food is nourishment.
Food is emotional.
Food is simply not as simple as healthy or unhealthy.
Food is not one thing or the other.
What might be healthy for the soul, might not be healthy for the body and vice versa. I have known many people in my life who have created extremely unhealthy bodies by only eating healthy food.
There will always be debates and arguments around what is healthy to eat and what is unhealthy to eat - and to be quite frank - I just think these waste peoples time.
Arguing over the effect of Gluten, Fructose or how to control your Insulin is actually nutritionists and personal trainers just trying to show off how big their brain is.
Whenever someone I follow or am engaged in conversation with about nutrition starts talking about having an extreme stance on one aspect of their diet, cutting out sugar or carbohydrates, for example, my respect for them dies away immediately.
And yours should too.
Because these people aren’t trying to help you, they are trying to convert you.
They have never walked a day in your shoes, and to simply say that “sugar is killing you” is not going to actually help you resolve what you need to resolve in your diet, as it will just cause more guilt and frustration within you.
I will now share with you 5 things you can do to really improve your eating habits in a healthy way - they may not be what you was expecting to see, but believe me, if your goal is to improve your health and to lose weight, or if your goal is just one of those options…
Continue reading…
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Structured Eating
This is front and centre for a reason.
You probably weren’t expecting the first habit that you need to work on is in fact eating more regularly.
I know I too would be surprised if I Googled “What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits?” then I would not expect to see this as number one. I would expect it to be something simple like “eat less processed foods”.
However, without structure, everything else falls apart. You cannot build a house on sand, and you equally cannot build healthier eating habits on a poor structure.
Not only will a better structure improve your diet overall, but it will also improve your relationship with food as well.
There is a very common denominator with people I work with online and in person, who have a very keen desire to lose weight, and they very often have no structure in place with what and how they are eating.
They are simply winging it.
This has a couple of knock-on effects:
They have absolutely no idea how many calories they are eating - despite saying “I eat really healthy”
They react more emotionally to food.
They aren’t able to see that their overconsumption of food in isolated moments is related to the constant missing of meals.
They end up frustrated and walking down the path of looking for fat burners and other quick fix solutions.
Lets draw a line under it all.
And get you focussed on having a proper structure with your meals.
READ MORE ON IMPROVING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD RIGHT HERE:
The format for structured eating, it could also be described as intuitive eating, is as follows.
Three Meals a day that all fit onto one plate.
Two snacks a day - one of which should be fruit.
If you have an alcoholic beverage the night before - try and take away a snack the next day - but this isn’t essential.
If you can iron out your food intake to more regular moments with food, in a structured manner your body will respond well. It will enjoy the rhythm and pattern of knowing when it is being fed, and your hunger hormones, grehlin and leptin, will respond in a much better way because they will have a structure.
The other thing that is really important in having a better structure with your food, is spending time with it.
Try not to eat on the move, or watch television. Try not to work and eat.
Respect your food, and respect what it is designed to do for your body - without this food so much of your life would be turned upside down - don’t take it for granted.
There are so many people in the world who don’t get the privilege to eat the food that you and I are able to eat - and we should be grateful for that every time we get to sit down to eat.
I’m not saying go all ga-ga, but at least give the moments you have to eat the respect it deserves.
This structure with your diet and respect for your food will improve your relationship with food, and there aren’t many more healthy habits you can deliver to yourself than improving your relationship with food.
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - No Black or White Thinking
Call it what you want.
Diachotamus thinking.
Good food.
Bad food.
Black and white thinking.
Basically stop looking at your food in these terms.
Food doesn’t have a moral value. Calling your apple good, and a banana bad is the same as calling your sofa good, or your bed bad. It makes no logical sense.
When you label foods in this way you punch a hole in your ability to find balance and happiness in your diet, and therefore compromise your own happiness.
It also ceases your ability to actually lose weight.
As a study from the Journal of Health Psychology [1] points out:
“Results showed that eating-specific dichotomous thinking (dichotomous beliefs about food and eating) mediates the association between restraint eating and weight regain. We conclude that holding dichotomous beliefs about food and eating may be linked to a rigid dietary restraint, which in turn impedes people’s ability to maintain a healthy weight.”
When you assign morality to food, you are doing a number of things. Firslty you are putting those who eat in a way you view as “good” onto a Moral High Ground that you know you naturally can’t attian. Then when you eat foods you view as “bad” you are not only beneath others in society, you are also putting yourself down and dmagaing your self esteem.
You are also likely to be viewing foods as good and bad through the framing of “Diet Culture”, as in:
“If I eat good foods, I will lose weight”
But as the study above shows, that is actually counter itnuative, as it leads to an over restriction, then an over indulgence - perpetuating binge eating episodes and disorders.
Making the elusive weight loss even more elusive for you.
To help overcome this, there a few things you can do:
View your diet as a whole, don’t just focus on one or two aspects - keep a wide angle lens on and give equal respect and objectivity to everything you eat.
Listen to your hunger and fullness cues, try to tune into your body more, and question the feelings you have.
Ask yourself where your hunger or lack of satisfaction from eating has come from…are you really wanting more food or are you in need of human connection?
Look at all foods as nourishing. Nourishing your health and your body, nourishing your emotions, nourishing your mind. Every food can nourish you, and ask yourself what needs nourishing right now…and seek foods to that end.
Prioritise non weight loss based goals - like getting stronger and more confident (wink wink nudge nudge: The Strong & Confident Program).
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Increase Protein and Vegetables
This is one of my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life.
Well the actual rule is “Protein and Veggies at every meal”
But increasing them from where they are right now will more than likely do you no harm at all, and it will indeed increase your likelihood to lose weight.
This occurs for a number of reasons, the first being, that the extra fibre in your system from the Vegetables will indeed keep you fuller for longer. Secondly, you can eat a lot of Vegetables in terms of volume, and take on relatively few calories compared to other foods.
For example, 100g of Carrots has 41 calories in it, compared to 100g of Chicken Breast which contains 165kcal.
My point here is that you will feel more full, and take on fewer calories, allowing you to adhere to your calorie deficit in a much more sustainable way.
Protein is one of the most satiating macronutrients there is.
As a study published in the BioMed Central Journal [2] states:
“The hierarchy for macronutrient-induced satiating efficiency is similar to that observed for diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT): protein is the most satiating macronutrient followed by CHOs and fat, which is least satiating”
Again this will lead you to feel fuller for longer, and more satisfied after eating as well as helping you recover from your exercise sessions in a much more efficient way.
For my clients on the Strong & Confident Program, I work on them increasing Protein to 100g a day if they are a meat-eater, and 80g a day if they are vegetarian - like me!
One of the best ways to implement this piece of advice is by having a DAS.
A “Daily Awesome Salad”
Just get your protein source, add it to some salad bag of food - and the job is done!
If you do this every day you will soon start reaping the benefits in terms of losing weight and building a more healthy eating habit.
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT STAYING FULLER FOR LONGER BY READING MY BLOG POST THAT HAS
HELPED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WITH THIS EXACT ISSUE
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Healthy Snacks
If I had a pound or dollar for every time I get asked the following question:
“What healthy snacks can I have?”
And I look at the person who has asked me that question and simply say:
“You know the answer”
They look at me bewildered, and confused - because surely it’s not that simple is it?
And sadly, it is. It really is.
What is wrong with fruit being a snack?
In terms of a “snack” fruit literally ticks all of the boxes. It is convenient, it is cost-effective, it is filling and it is relatively low calorie compared to other kinds of snacks.
I also don’t know anyone who has food guilt over eating a banana. But eating a bag of crisps or a doughnut might trigger you. It doesn’t have to…but it might.
You can snack on vegetables too, however, they take more preparation and have a much higher barrier to entry to execute on.
I know it’s not exciting, I know it’s not sexy and I know when someone asks for a healthy snack they are wanting something like a Bounce Protein Ball or some kind of superior Kale Chip.
But again, they are very expensive and they won’t fill you up as much as an apple or banana.
There are plenty of exciting things you can do with fruit as well - if you have the time.
Other healthy snack ideas could be:
Trail Mix: grab a mix of any nuts, seeds, dried fruits savoury mix-ins like chickpeas, and just put it all together. The combinations here are endless.
Nuts: Be careful with nuts, as they are quite high in calories and may hinder your weight loss if over-consumed - and they are very easy to over-consume, but they do have many other benefits as well.
Seaweed Snacks - my fiancee eats seaweed all the time - and some of them are really tasty, but they don’t fill you up much.
The bottom line with “healthy snacks” is that if you want to avoid the obvious in terms of fruit, the preparation of these snacks can be quite a time-consuming exercise, and that negates the efficacy of the “snack”. Also, just because something is healthy doesn’t always make it the best option for weight loss, so always view these snacks in the realm of your calorie allowances.
Here are some of my favourite snacks from recipe books I send out to my clients:
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Plenty of Water
This again features in my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life.
It never ceases to amaze me how many people are under-hydrated when they are trying to lose weight.
And it never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t recognise the amazing benefits of water in their ability to eat in a more healthy way for their diet.
I always ask my clients on the Strong & Confident Program to drink around three litres of water a day, which is quite a lot, but there are very few drawbacks to drinking enough water.
And that compared to the drawbacks of being dehydrated makes it well worth focussing on.
Water helps with cognitive function, muscle function, digestive function, complexion, joint function and energy levels throughout the day.
Water also has zero calories in it, therefore in terms of weight loss, it is really useful.
When you are dehydrated you will feel low on energy, might have a headache and generally won’t feel your best, which will lead you to consume more calories.
Don’t go from zero water to three litres immediately, build up slowly, and you may begin to notice the benefits on less water than three litres a day.
5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss
And that’s it…
Remember, to lose weight, you must be in a Calorie Deficit and to improve your eating habits you need to move away from the thoughts of certain foods being good and others being bad.
Having a “healthy” diet is different to everyone, but balance is the key to all things, and that means something different to all people.
One of the best things you can do to make your eating habits more healthy will be to stop trying to live up to the expectation of healthy eating you see on Social Media, and making sure you work hard on allowing your diet to work in the best way for your life.
And as always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.
To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below, and then you can email me your questions.
It would be my pleasure to answer them.
You will also get my book “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss” sent to you for free.
I hope you found this article useful and that my tips help you improve your eating habits.
I cannot wait to see you again soon…
Coach Adam
References:
Palascha A, van Kleef E, van Trijp HC. How does thinking in Black and White terms relate to eating behavior and weight regain? J Health Psychol. 2015 May;20(5):638-48. doi: 10.1177/1359105315573440. PMID: 25903250.
Pesta DH, Samuel VT. A high-protein diet for reducing body fat: mechanisms and possible caveats. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2014 Nov 19;11(1):53. doi: 10.1186/1743-7075-11-53. PMID: 25489333; PMCID: PMC4258944.
Diet vs Exercise To Lose Weight: What Is More Important?
Sometimes I like to think I have a secret.
A secret that no one else in the world will ever know.
A secret so important for the well-being of mankind that I’m scared to share it because it will just blow the minds of everyone and create a new world order.
This secret might be bigger than Einstein’s Theory of Relativity.
It might change the world more than when Sir Isaac Newton discovered Gravity.
Heck, it might just change your life.
This is actually far more important to me than changing the world - which is the premise of this Blog Post. I can’t change the world at once - but I certainly can change the mind of one person at a time through words like these, and slowly over time that might help make a change in the world.
But if it doesn’t - at least we had this moment. You and I. And that means an awful lot to me - so much in fact that I would love to have a few more moments with you.
Without sounding too creepy - I just wanted to ask you to be my friend.
As your friend, I will send you some very important things, like educational material, inspirational material and maybe just some stories from my life which you can enjoy reading with a coffee, beer or glass of wine.
See - I told you we could be friends.
If you would like to send me a friend request then please just fill out the form below and I will be in touch once you have finished this article.
Table of Contents for:
What's more important Diet vs Exercise vs THIS to lose weight?
How does Diet help you lose weight?
How does exercise help you lose weight?
My secret: How does Imperfect Action help you lose weight?
Being Optimal is a privilege
To Conclude…
How does Diet help you lose weight?
I have failed to see a scientific study that doesn’t look at the topic of weight loss and explains that in order to create weight loss a Calorie Deficit must be achieved.
And I have read a lot of these studies:
“Health professionals recommend that individuals with overweight and obesity lose weight by reducing energy intake while maintaining a healthful diet” [1]
“Individuals interested in losing weight should continue to be advised to regularly self-monitor energy intake and expenditure as well as to create a consistent daily energy deficit” [2]
“Individuals can lose body weight and improve health status on a wide range of energy (calorie)-restricted dietary interventions” [3]
“With the increasing obesity epidemic comes the search for effective dietary approaches for calorie restriction and weight loss.” [4]
“Overall, for significant safe weight loss, an energy deficit was required, which was commonly achieved by reduced fat intake” [5]
“An energy deficit is the most important factor in weight loss” [6]
*She* sadly I don’t get to make sure GIFS are balanced…so please don’t get offended if you are a female reading this.
But I think you get my point when it relates to just how important a Calorie Deficit or Energy Deficit is for losing weight.
Being in Energy Balance you will maintain your weight.
Learn how to maintain your Calorie Maintenance Level in my blog post that has helped thousands of people so far
To create a Calorie Deficit you will need to do one of three things:
Adjust the energy in (what you consume through diet).
Adjust the energy out (what you burn).
A combination of both.
When I set a client up, who has a weight loss goal, I will always work on their dietary intake to create the calorie deficit first.
It is incredibly easy to overeat due to a number of factors.
Emotional Overeating:
It is not uncommon for us to use food to soothe our emotional state and thus compulsively overeat without realising it to meet unmet needs from our childhood [7].
Food is Addictive:
This sums me up pretty well, sat here, in a coffee shop, writing this post.
A study called "Food Addiction: Implications for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Overeating” concluded that:
“There is evidence to suggest that, for some individuals, food can induce addictive-type behaviours similar to those seen with other addictive substances” [8]
With this pretty awesome graphic attached:
This graphic also gives us great insight into other reasons we can easily overeat:
Stress
Social Difficulty
Cravings
Vulnerability
Impulsivity
Other emotional responses both positive and negative
You can see the complex web of why, when looking at weight loss as a goal for someone, we must always address Energy Intake.
There are also many studies that advocate for all different types of dietary control to aid weight loss.
Whether that is:
The Keto Diet (please do not do this and find out why here)
Intermittent Fasting
Low Fat, High Carb
Low Carb, High Fat
High Protein
Slimming World and Weight Watchers
Paleo Diet
Vegan Diet
Carnivore Diet
Vegetarian Diet
Celery Juicing
Essentially it doesn't matter what diet you do from a purely physiological point of view - if it gets you into a Calorie Deficit it will work.
This does not mean I am advocating for all of those dietary behaviours - I am simply informing you that they are all designed to create a calorie deficit. In fact, of that list, I would probably advocate for only one or two of them in general terms.
cough - I am a vegetarian - cough
But in terms of being able to adhere to it for long enough, to protect your relationship with food, or at the very least rebuild it, many of the diets I have listed will be absolutely damaging to you regardless if you achieve your goal or not.
And this is why diet is so very important in the discussion of weight loss.
You will eat every day, and relatively speaking it is easier for you to manage your food intake throughout the day to create an energy deficit than it would be to exercise.
Let us say you are working on a 500kcal deficit diet each day.
All else remaining equal, that is simply not having the Venti Iced Mocha with Whipped Cream at Starbucks each day which comes in at ~450kcals.
That’s an easier thing to adhere to than getting into the gym each day to try and burn 500kcals.
Its easier to learn an element of portion control and increasing lower calorie foods in your diet than it is to show up to the gym for 75 mins a day to burn calories.
It is better for your overall well-being to increase your vegetable and fruit intake to help create a calorie deficit each day than it is to panic about getting to the Spin Class at 5 am when you have a family at home - or a stressful job to go to.
How does exercise help you lose weight?
I’m not sitting here, denying science.
Exercise does burn calories.
But it doesn’t burn enough calories for you to get into a deficit each day irrespective of your food intake.
It is also incredibly hard to know how many calories you are burning in a workout. Believe it or not having a watch on, made by a computer company, isn’t that scientifically accurate, in fact, this study [9] found them to be up to 60% inaccurate.
The other issue I have with using the Gym to burn calories is that it creates a hamster wheel scenario.
When you get into the habit of burning calories in the gym, you also get into the habit of demonising food - and you end up on this perpetual path of trying to undo the calories you ate, which destroys your relationship with food and exercise.
In an average strength session, you will be lucky to burn 300kcals.
On a Cardio Machine you will burn more in the moment, but less over time - and the more you eat the more time you have to spend burning calories.
Which only damages how you feel both on the inside and the outside.
This is why it is incredibly important to separate the two.
Allow your diet to dictate your Caloric Deficit and make sure you exercise to get strong.
Not just in the body, but in your heart, in your mind, in your soul.
When working out, ask yourself:
Does this exercise make me feel stronger?
Do I feel accomplished for completing it?
Do I want to get that feeling again?
And if the answer is yes, regardless of calories burned, then you are exercising in a way that will make you feel good.
And that is what is most important in this scenario.
Exercise can help you lose weight in other ways too...but these take time.
Preservation of Muscle Mass
By lifting weights, you will preserve or potentially increase your muscle mass. Which over time will increase your metabolism because muscle is more efficient at burning calories than adipose tissue (fat).
When you only diet and eat fewer calories to lose weight, without exercise you will lower your metabolism by up to 20% [10].
As you lower your calories to lose weight, you need to work against this as a lower metabolism will not help you in the long run - and the best way to prevent this lowering from occurring is by lifting weights.
Regulation of Hunger Hormones
Our two friends: Leptin and Grehlin.
Grehlin is like a little gremlin that sits in your stomach and whinges at you telling you that you’re hungry - even when you aren’t.
Grehlin = Gremlin.
And in people with higher-weight bodies, their ability to control the production of grehlin is reduced - and their sensitivity to listening to it is increased.
This study called: “Acute Exercise and Appetite-Regulating Hormones in Overweight and Obese Individuals: A Meta-Analysis” [11] concluded:
“An evidence synthesis of the six studies on overweight/obese individuals indicated that a moderate reduction in acylated ghrelin occurs after acute exercise”
By exercising, the effects of grehlin are reduced and therefore over time will help you achieve a calorie deficit.
Now onto Leptin.
Leptin is the hormone that tells you you're full.
And its tricky. The more Adipose Tissue we have, the higher levels of Leptin in the body - but when levels are increased for so long, we develop a resistance to it.
Creating a “Leptin Resistance”.
This resistance is more prevalent in Obese Individuals and inherently runs through families [12].
And as you can expect…Exercise might be one of the best ways to combat Leptin Resistance as this study from the University of Oslo confirms [13]:
“Long-term changes in lifestyle consisting of decreased intake of dietary fat and increased physical activity reduced plasma leptin concentrations in humans beyond the reduction expected as a result of changes in fat mass.”
Which is a conclusion I love for two main reasons.
“Long Term Changes in lifestyle” is something I am on board with. There’s little point, to try and change things quickly for a short period of time hoping those changes will last a lifetime.
Engaging in long-term physical activity and reducing your dietary fat in the long term has better results for your Leptin Resistance, and probably your overall health (a fair inference) than just losing weight.
How I Like To View Exercise For Weight Loss
Use it as your guiding light, as a signal for you to stay on track with your diet.
I used to play badminton with my best friend - and after every session, he would want to go for a beer - which made no sense to me.
Yes. I enjoy Beer like the best of them.
But, I used to think to myself what was the point of slogging it out on a court for 90 minutes to then harm all of your recovery efforts with a couple of Beers.
I used the movement as a way of improving my willpower and my desire to keep my diet in better place.
And if you can do that over time - you will then see the effects and benefits of weight loss as a result of your movement.
Because it will lead to better dietary choices.
It will reduce stress which will lead to better dietary choices.
It will help your Mental Health which will lead to better dietary choices.
But either way, you are looking to use exercise to improve your dietary choices and create a better balance in your life in favour of your goals.
My secret: How does Imperfect Action help you lose weight?
This secret is the greatest superpower you will need in this whole “weight loss thing”
It is understanding the concept of imperfect action.
I think, it is fair to conclude that to lose weight you need to combine both Diet and Exercise to help you.
But knowing this doesn’t necessarily help.
Because as you can see, the complex hormonal balance in your body just from Leptin and Grehlin is a hard thing to control, combined with the fact that not everyone finds the ability to, or the enjoyment out of exercising in a manner that might be “optimal”.
I was on a call with one of my online Clients on the Strong & Confident Program the other day and I was explaining this concept to him.
He is a very high Politician in the UK - and as you can imagine he, therefore, has a very crazy life. He also sits on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee - and at the time of writing this - Europe is at War.
Nonetheless, he has big goals and wonderful aspirations and it is my pleasure to help him.
And at the moment, helping him the most is putting the brakes on him.
Telling him not to work out, rather than do more.
He wants to try and aim for four workouts a week - and I am having to tell him not to. I am a fan of four workouts a week, truly I am, but not when it means that you will only be able to do it for a few weeks, and missing workouts will have a bigger negative effect on your feelings of accomplishment and strength than only doing three workouts a week.
But no one needs perfection. You need consistency and setting up a system that
will inspire consistency over perfection is imperfect action at work.
I know one thing to be true for him, if he gives up, nothing will change - and therefore making sure that he is set up in a way that will not make him feel like he can’t stay on top of everything will lower the likelihood of him giving up.
There is a point of diminishing returns in all things we do.
When doing more, is actually counterproductive.
MRV stand for Maximal Recoverable Volume.
You want to get the best bang for your buck - especially if you struggle with adherence over time. Therefore staying where the curve is steepest is best.
Doing more isn’t worth it - and what determines what is recoverable is dominated by one thing: Stress. The more stressed you are, the lower the amount of maximal recoverable volume you will be able to take on.
And how much exercise do we know to be too much?
That’s determined by time - not necessarily the amount of workouts.
Previously I stated that I like clients to do 4 workouts a week - Upper, Lower, Upper, Lower.
However when I program this, I don’t program four hours of workouts.
I try to keep my workouts to 30mins of working to intensity for my clients. This would be the time outside of a warm-up and a cool-down, but from the load, they will really need to recover.
You need to keep between two and three hours a week.
That’s all you need to do.
Examples of Imperfect Action
Can’t get to the gym for an hour? Go for 30 minutes.
Can’t get to the gym for 30 minutes? Go for 20 minutes.
Want to have pizza for dinner? Order a massive salad with it too.
Have a night out? Maybe substitute Pints for halves. Mixers for Soda Water. Large Glasses of wine for Smaller ones.
When I was at Drama School we had to write our own film - and they bought in two professional writers to help us learn how to do it.
The very first thing, and most useful thing that these two writers told us was:
“Don’t get it right, get it written”
And that is the best way I can sum up Imperfect Action.
Nothing needs to be perfect or exact. Nothing needs to be optimal.
It just needs to be done.
If getting it done means it might not be perfect….then get it done anyway.
Do you know how many of these blogs I have written with spelling errors in them?
A fair few.
Because if I fretted over getting everything right all the time, I just wouldn’t get as much work done as I need to and I comprehend that the quality of what I write and how I help people is more important than the odd spelling error.
Over time, all of these imperfect actions add up. They compound within you, inspiring more action, more results and more motivation.
You see, no one gains weight from missing one workout, no one gains weight from eating one McDonald’s.
It is the build-up of these behaviours over very long periods of time that creates weight gain.
And therefore the reverse is true.
It is the opposite of the all-or-nothing mindset you need to approach this with, because all-or-nothing mindsets always lead to nothing - if that wasn’t true - you wouldn’t be sitting here reading this.
Tick off and sweat the small stuff more.
Being Optimal Is A Privilege
Privilege is a word that is banded around a lot these days. I do feel that sometimes it’s on the verge of being overused.
However, this concept is very important to understand when it comes to imperfect action.
In fact, privilege is important to understand full stop. I remember when I first grappled with this idea during the Black Lives Matter protests and it took a lot of interesting and eye-opening conversations to understand the concepts set behind my privilege.
I also remember my birthday in 2021 was almost ruined by being attacked online for “not understanding my privilege” when I commented on a post about how progressive overload works.
I was described as an “SIS White Man, who has a genetic advantage over the rest of the world and has never had to worry about his health and therefore has no right to comment or to help those who have had struggles I would never understand”.
I have a 7-inch scar down my chest, which I have had my entire life because I have to worry about my health each and every day. In fact, I was born with a condition that means I will have had to have gone through open-heart surgery twice in my lifetime - and at the moment, I am just waiting for the day I am told “let’s go in again”.
Never judge a book by its cover.
When you are on the Socials seeing people “succeed” you have no idea what privilege is afforded to them that isn’t afforded to you:
Genetic
Societal
Family
Occupational
Health - Mental and Physical
Financial
I used to struggle with this.
I honestly used to believe that if Chris Pratt could change his body the way he did, then I should be able to too.
But what that doesn’t take into account is the fact that I have a very different life to him.
He has chefs who manage his food each and every day.
He has Personal Trainers paid for by Hollywood Studios in order to make sure he changes the way he needs to.
He also has the allure of being able to put in the work because at the end of it is a $3m bonus, on top of actually being contractually paid to workout and change his body.
I do not.
He has a significantly greater privilege than me to help him manage his change.
And that’s not his fault, that’s not my fault.
Its just fact.
You may not have the ability to execute what is optimal - and understanding the concept of Imperfect Action is a release from the pressure of making sure you are “doing everything right”.
You need to do what you enjoy.
And setting yourself up for an optimal diet, an optimal workout plan and an optimal weight loss journey is more than likely setting you up for failure.
Because you simply do not have the privilege that is required for an optimal environment.
To Conclude…
To lose weight your diet is the driving force.
To help make that process easier. and more maintainable exercise is the driving force.
To make the journey as easy as possible with self-compassion and taking pressure off of your shoulders…
To allow you to coach yourself through the journey and to talk to yourself with self-love…
To keep your mindset in the place that will help you most…
Imperfect Action is the driving force for long-term sustainable habits that will build up over time and make it easier as you go.
The National Weight Loss Registry [14] is a database of over 10,000 members that have lost over 30 pounds and maintained that for one year or more.
They conclude:
98% of Registry participants report that they modified their food intake in some way to lose weight.
94% increased their physical activity, with the most frequently reported form of activity being walking.
There is variety in how NWCR members keep the weight off. Most report continuing to maintain a low-calorie, low-fat diet and doing high levels of activity.
78% eat breakfast every day.
75% weigh themselves at least once a week.
62% watch less than 10 hours of TV per week.
90% exercise, on average, about 1 hour per day.
If you want to lose weight, I urge you to not look at the picture of one vs the other.
Diet vs Exercises.
This isn’t a competition.
It’s a blend of behaviours that create a bigger picture over time.
Balance everything always.
What’s Next?
I hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about your struggles at the moment.
If you would like to join my free Facebook group: Straightforward Fat Loss then click below:
Added to all of that, if you would like a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator then just put your email here:
References:
Tatiana Andreyeva, Michael W. Long, Kathryn E. Henderson, Gabrielle M. Grode, Trying to Lose Weight: Diet Strategies among Americans with Overweight or Obesity in 1996 and 2003, Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Volume 110, Issue 4, 2010, Pages 535-542, ISSN 0002-8223,
Robert A. Carels, Kathleen M. Young, Carissa Coit, Anna Marie Clayton, Alexis Spencer, Marissa Hobbs, Can following the caloric restriction recommendations from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans help individuals lose weight?, Eating Behaviors, Volume 9, Issue 3, 2008, Pages 328-335, ISSN 1471-0153, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eatbeh.2007.12.003.
Thom G, Lean M. Is There an Optimal Diet for Weight Management and Metabolic Health? Gastroenterology. 2017 May;152(7):1739-1751. doi: 10.1053/j.gastro.2017.01.056. Epub 2017 Feb 15. PMID: 28214525.
Johnstone A. Fasting for weight loss: an effective strategy or latest dieting trend? Int J Obes (Lond). 2015 May;39(5):727-33. doi: 10.1038/ijo.2014.214. Epub 2014 Dec 26. PMID: 25540982.
Ramage S, Farmer A, Eccles KA, McCargar L. Healthy strategies for successful weight loss and weight maintenance: a systematic review. Appl Physiol Nutr Metab. 2014 Jan;39(1):1-20. doi: 10.1139/apnm-2013-0026. Epub 2013 Nov 4. PMID: 24383502.
Kim JY. Optimal Diet Strategies for Weight Loss and Weight Loss Maintenance. J Obes Metab Syndr. 2021 Mar 30;30(1):20-31. doi: 10.7570/jomes20065. PMID: 33107442; PMCID: PMC8017325.
Miller KD. Compulsive overeating. Nurs Clin North Am. 1991 Sep;26(3):699-705. PMID: 1891402.
Adams RC, Sedgmond J, Maizey L, Chambers CD, Lawrence NS. Food Addiction: Implications for the Diagnosis and Treatment of Overeating. Nutrients. 2019 Sep 4;11(9):2086. doi: 10.3390/nu11092086. PMID: 31487791; PMCID: PMC6770567.
News.iastate.edu. 2020. Activity Trackers Not As Accurate For Some Activities, ISU Study Finds • News Service • Iowa State University. [online] Available at: <https://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2015/08/19/activitytrackers> [Accessed 22 June 2020].
Fat facts. (n.d.). Retrieved March 18, 2022, from http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/fatfacts.html
Douglas JA, Deighton K, Atkinson JM, Sari-Sarraf V, Stensel DJ, Atkinson G. Acute Exercise and Appetite-Regulating Hormones in Overweight and Obese Individuals: A Meta-Analysis. J Obes. 2016;2016:2643625. doi: 10.1155/2016/2643625. Epub 2016 Dec 27. PMID: 28116150; PMCID: PMC5223036.
Lee, J., Reed, D. & Price, R. Leptin resistance is associated with extreme obesity and aggregates in families. Int J Obes 25, 1471–1473 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/sj.ijo.0801736
Reseland JE, Anderssen SA, Solvoll K, Hjermann I, Urdal P, Holme I, Drevon CA. Effect of long-term changes in diet and exercise on plasma leptin concentrations. Am J Clin Nutr. 2001 Feb;73(2):240-5. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/73.2.240. PMID: 11157319.
“National Weight Control Registry.” Nwcr.ws, nwcr.ws/default.html
How To Get Past and Fix A Weight Loss Plateau
I absolutely love this image.
Because in one fell swoop it has summed up this horrible term that the Fitness Industry has perpetuated over and over and over again as a negative happening.
The Weight Loss Plateau.
Just the word plateau is horrible to say - “plateauuuuuuuuu….”. And the connotations of what it means are even worse:
If you are in a Plateau - you probably think:
You are failing
You are never going to reach “your goal”
You need to try something new
You chose the wrong path
You can’t seem to “crack” it
That everyone else knows something you don’t.
And not one single one of those feelings is true.
I can promise you that.
In this article, I am going to take you through How To Get Past and Fix A Weight Loss Plateau - and I almost guarantee it isn’t going to be what you were expecting.
Which is exciting - but not as exciting as what I am about to offer you.
I want to be your friend.
As your friend - I will obviously stay in touch, send you things, some educational, some thoughtful, and probably some that are a bit near the mark - but hey ho - I think that is the hallmark of a beautiful friendship: balance.
If you would like to be my friend also then please send me a friend request right here:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR HOW TO GET PAST AND FIX A WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU:
What is a weight loss plateau?
Why do weight loss plateaus occur?
How does scale weight actually work?
How to actually get past your weight loss plateau
What Is A Weight Loss Plateau?
If you’re in one…replace the word “fetch” with scale weight - and this GIF sums it up pretty well.
A weight-loss plateau (urgh) is when your body weight seems to have stopped going down on the scale - even though you have changed very little in your behaviour compared to when it was coming down.
It is normally regarded as a temporary stalling of scale weight.
There was a study done in 2021 called: Management Of Weight Loss Plateau [1].
In this study they define weight loss and a weight loss plateau thus:
“Studies comparing different diets have shown that a similar degree of weight loss can be achieved in an 8 to 12-week period, as long as a caloric deficit is achieved.[1] However, when looking at individuals in the longer-term, 24-weeks and beyond, only about 10 to 20% of those individuals successfully maintain their weight loss”
This doesn't mean they successfully maintain the weight they got to - this means the actual stats of the scale falling.
It also goes on to say:
“A misconception to beginners attempting to lose weight is that the process is linear. Therefore, one can expect that weight loss will occur more rapidly in the early stages. Still, then in the coming weeks, the weight may stay steady or even slightly increased despite maintaining the established calorie deficit”
This sets us up nicely for the rest of this article.
Why Do Weight Loss Plateaus Occur?
This is a very loaded question because as I always say “everybody is different” and every body is different.
And the solution to a weight loss plateau is likely not one sole thing for each person.
However, the most important point to this question is not a physical thing.
It’s not “your calories need to come down” or “you need to do more exercise”
It’s a psychological point that needs to be made - and it is so very important that I am putting it front and centre of this article.
Why do weight loss plateaus occur?
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You Have Been Conditioned To View Them Negatively
Let me be very clear here.
Maintaining your body weight is a true success.
Sadly, we live in a world where allowing you to actually be proud of what you have achieved thus far, and promoting the fact that the scale may not be going down - but by golly - it isn’t going up…that is a true success.
This is what you and the fitness industry has allowed you to view as a:
“Plateauuuuuuu”
As a negative happening in your life. When actually it is a true success.
I am sure you have heard the phrase: “80% of all diets fail”. The definition of successful weight loss maintenance is:
“Successful long-term weight loss maintenance is intentionally losing at least 10% of initial body weight and keeping it off for at least 1 year.” [3]
Therefore if you are currently in an active deficit, and you have lost 10% or more of your body weight and your weight loss has “plateaued” you are actually on the path of being in the top 20% of the world’s population when it comes to dieting.
“Research has shown that approximately 20% of overweight individuals are successful at long-term weight loss when defined as losing at least 10% of initial body weight and maintaining the loss for at least 1 year” [2]
Therefore you aren’t stalling, failing or just not good enough.
You are actually in an elitist group of people. A rare cohort of incredible success - and you have been told to see it as a failure.
That’s a damn fucking shame.
I am sorry that we have done this to you. I am truly sorry that you have been led to believe that it is possible to keep dieting down and down and down and if that process ever stops then you are simply not good enough.
This has led to many people getting frustrated, angry and feeling shame at their inability to see scale weight continuing to tumble and it has to stop. Right now. Right here. With this post.
How Does Scale Weight Actually Work?
Scale Weight is a very fickle thing. You may or may not be aware that scale weight when you are in an active calorie deficit and trying to lose weight, will fluctuate.
Wildly.
Up and down. It will be stubborn at times. One day you can weigh on things, and the very next 24 hours later you can weigh 5-7lbs more.
This is normal.
In fact let me show you some of my weight readings, when I was in a caloric deficit and weighed myself each and every day.
This is July into August of 2021 - I started at 85.4kg and then deficit down to 81.9kg.
It looks like the best rollercoaster you have ever been on.
But as you can see I was constantly trading peaks and troughs. This is actually a very normal graph of scale weight. If you ever see a graph that is more linear than this - that is indeed not giving you the full picture of someone’s body weight.
I have Coached many people through weight loss and every single one of them have had this experience.
These fluctuations mainly occur due to:
Hormones and Menstrual Cycle
Medications
Sleep
Types of food you consume
Digestion
Exercise
One of the most common reasons scale weight will fluctuate is because carbohydrates retain water. When you eat any Carbohydrate your body will absorb 3g-4g of Water to help store the glycogen from the food.
This is not body fat and is perfectly normal - and is a big reason you see a big reduction in scale weight when someone goes “low-carb”
There is just one other thing to say here and that is that when you are tracking scale weight as a marker of success or not when trying to lose weight, you must gather more data than weekly scale readngs.
This is another common reason that plateaus occur - you just aren’t getting enough data.
Looking at the same graph from my weight as before I have circled every seventh reading - to repllicate one a week weigh ins.
As you can see every other week my weight was up from the week before.
Looking at the last circle, which is seven days from the one previous if I was weighing in weekly, and weighed in on the 6th day I would have had a reading that was lower than the last reading 7 days previous as opposed to one that was higher.
This is when data can become your best friend - and the more you gather the more insightful you can be when it comes to analysing what is going on.
If you have Scale Anxiety then please read my article that has helped hundreds of people overcome gravitophobia:
How To Actually Get Past Your Weight Loss Plateau
I guarantee I could find someone on the internet telling you very opposing things in relation to this question. You will be told to:
Reduce Calories
Increase Calories
More Exercise
Less Exercise
More Water
Less Water
And each person is just confusing you more and more and more - adding to your frustration and not knowing where to turn.
In truth, each solution could be correct.
Reducing your calories may lead to a calorie deficit as you will be consuming less in the short term.
Increasing your calories may lead to a calorie deficit in the long term as you might be less likely to binge and more adherent to your calorie moderate calorie deficit as opposed to always reducing and cutting and restricting.
More exercise might lead to a calorie deficit in the shorter term by way of burning calories (but this is a very silly way to go about losing weight) but it might lead to more hunger.
Less exercise might lead to a calorie deficit due to less hunger from exercise - especially with things like HIIT.
And water might help reduce hunger, but it does have a weight to it, and that will show up on the scale.
But I understand none of this is overly helpful right now.
Therefore I propose these solutions to your weight loss plateau problem.
Reframe it as a Success
What is the opposite of weight loss not going down? It going up…
And if weight loss is your ultimate goal, but it is in a “plateau” then you are indeed doing a fantastic job as your weight is stable and you are learning to manage your new body and its new weight.
I do feel like I want to caveat the above statement.
A lot of people, women especially, but men too, do feel great shame when their weight increases. This is because they get so much praise when their weight is coming down. Praise from friends, family, coaches, and society at large. This leads them to feel like failures when their weight may increase again, even if it is only slightly. As I mentioned before learning to maintain weight loss is incredibly difficult, and there is no shame or failure attached to regaining weight - because what the scale doesn't show is how much you have learnt, how much more skill you have developed in the gym, how consistent you have been with your actions, how much better your mental health is as a result of working hard and trying, how much more energy you have and how much better you are sleeping.
Even if you learn to manage your new body at its new weight and it is slightly up from the lowest scale reading you have - you are still succeeding at so much more than you are giving yourself credit for.
Remember, 80% of people cant maintain their weight.
A plateau really isn’t a bad thing.
Trust Yourself
Look at it this way…you got to the point of which a plateau can actually occur. You must have done something right thus far.
So now you just need to trust yourself. Trust you know what you are doing, trust that your actions will lead to the result you are after. One of the hardest things for people who are trying to lose weight is this element of trust.
Usually, because they have been sent on a path of yoyo dieting and then been made to feel like they themselves are the thing that is broken - not the diet itself. And relearning to trust yourself is very hard
To get to the issues of a weight loss plateau, you have a process that has worked, you have a process that is sustainable for you and you have a process that you know you can trust - you’re at this point already - and now it’s just a case of making sure that you trust that process, and trust yourself.
Remain Consistent, Remain Patient
The more weight you lose the slower it will occur. This is because many people who want to lose weight probably want to because they view the body fat they now have as excess.
They are above their body’s settling point that they are used to for themselves.
This can happen for many reasons, mainly lifestyle factors like becoming parents or changing from an active job to a sedentary one.
At the beginning with a tiny bit of focus, and dialling up a few things in terms of their diet, increasing some steps, in fact living by my 5 Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life (please excuse how cringy the video below is), they then manage to lose that “extra” body fat relatively quickly.
But the closer you get to the point upon which you’re near when you want to be - think the classic last 5lbs of stubborn fat - then it will take an awful lot longer to get there.
The curve will always level off.
There is more at play in terms of this as well - which I go into further down.
But generally - you will lose weight quickest in the beginning - and this is also why many people do 6-week challenges that are all about losing lots of weight in that time frame - it’s a safe and easy way for personal trainers to get all the glory without having to actually do the hard work for people - get them through the moments when it feels hardest for them.
It’s a huge reason I don’t do them. I’m a Coach and there is no glory in not supporting people properly.
I digress.
As the curve levels off (something you have been told to view as a plateau), the most important thing to do here is to be consistent. Is to not change anything drastic, and just keep ticking off the days and the process.
Begin to enjoy the process more, begin to appreciate that you are doing so much more good for yourself than necessarily losing weight.
And the more you focus on the process provided it has been set up correctly (preferably with the aid of a Coach - I know a good one wink, wink, nudge, nudge: head here) then the results will eventually take care of themselves.
Patience is a virtue - and I’m sorry but if your weight hasn’t decreased in two weeks you are not in a plateau. In fact, if your weight hasn't decreased in a month, you are not in a plateau. If you are executing the behaviours that constitute a calorie deficit and your weight hasn’t moved from month one to month six, and you have investigated the areas of your life that you think might be getting in the way, then we can look into the possibility that you are indeed in a plateau.
Without a doubt, one of the main ways to get past a weight loss plateau is be more patient with yourself and the process.
Realise there is so much more to celebrate
SO MUCH MORE!
I used to call my coaching program this - because the list of things you can celebrate and crucially should celebrate away from weight loss is so much more empowering than celebrating the reduction of your body.
Getting Stronger
Being Consistent with your own health
Better Sleep
Eating in a more balanced way
Having more energy
Improving your relationship with you
Improving your relationship with others
Being in nature more
Learning new skills and applying them
Improving your relationship with food
Improving your relationship with exercise - more on this here: How To Love Exercise Again
Building your confidence through keeping promises with yourself
Building your self-esteem
Improving your mental health
Burning more energy
Increasing your Metabolism
I’m sure there’s more - but I’m a little hungover today so let’s leave it there.
But look at that list.
It’s a bloody good one isn’t it?
Why would you want to give up all of those benefits simply because you aren’t losing weight? Or you have lost weight and it appears to have stalled.
If you are engaging in a health and fitness journey and you are not working on all of those things that I have listed - and only working on losing weight - you are setting yourself up for complete failure - because naturally, your weight loss will stop - and when that happens you will feel like you are failing.
I always say:
“Focus on production, not reduction”
I appreciate that list might look overwhelming, but many of it is the by-product of just engaging in physical movement and an active lifestyle appropriately - and only focussing on weight loss - that is not an appropriate way to engage with not just movement, but yourself too.
I understand and appreciate that weight loss might be a great tool for which people begin, get started and can discover all of this - but once you have got over that initial moment of engaging because of your body weight - you need to transfer your thoughts onto that list I have laid out.
Be proud of what you managed to lift and how you managed to lift it. Be proud of the fact that you are eating in a more structured way and that is having huge benefits on your relationship with food.
And if you aren’t doing those things and if you aren’t focussing on that list …it could be an indicator as to why your weight loss has plateaued.
Bodyweight Settling Points
Set Point theory is the premise that you have a predisposition to a certain body weight. This is due to a number of factors, but genetics and lifestyle are the two main ones.
It is only a theory, but it is backed by quite a lot of evidential studies. [3, 4, 5].
This doesn’t mean that you are predetermined to always be overweight if that is where your set point is. It means that changing it might be a lot harder than you ever thought possible. Having worked with thousands of people on weight loss over my career I have found this to be true as well. Very few people lose the 3 stone of weight that they were aiming to, and then also manage to stay there for the rest of their lives. Most people I have worked with, we are always trading around 5lbs here and 5lbs there - and those who do lose more, have to overhaul a lot in their lives both mentally and physically to manage it, and it takes a lot longer than you would ever believe.
Setpoint theory is also why we define successful weight loss as losing 10% of your body weight and keeping it off for at least a year. You may lose 17% initially - but that might be an amount too great for your body and therefore 10% is the marker of successful weight loss.
Because weight will come up and down.
You can change your set point - which is why I refer to it as a “settling point”. At different phases in our lives, we will probably have different bodyweights. Think of it like this - if I took you out of your environment right now and placed you on an island somewhere to live - it is likely that your bodyweight will change - as you have different access to different foods.
This happened to me - when I moved to Australia - trying to learn the nuances in the different foods here took a while - and it meant I stuck to things I knew a little more - which were obviously brands that generally pack their food with calories.
Added to that my activity levels were very different whilst I was trying to find a job, get used to being out of the sun for certain hours of the day and not having the money to be able to pay for a Gym whilst I was setting everything up.
Then once I got used to my environment, my body weight started to decline again back to where it nearly always sits at around 80kgs.
Therefore your body settles depending on its environment - and the more comfortable you are in an environment the more likely you are to hit a plateau.
Added to all of this, we also have mechanisms in our body that when it realises calories are being reduced, it changes your hormones to increase hunger to protect you. These hormones are affected by Adipose Tissue (Fat Cells) and the more of them you have the more the hormones will affect you making things just that little bit harder for you.
And as you can imagine, the closer to that point you get - the more your body will fight back - the more likely you are to be in a plateau.
This is exactly why you should focus a lot more on the list above than just the scale readings you are collecting.
Metabolic Apdation (check in with your numbers)
Metabolic Adaption [6] is the very simple fact of life that a smaller organism needs fewer calories to survive. As you lose weight, you will require fewer calories to maintain that weight.
Therefore if you have been losing weight, and that seems to have slowed down for a long enough period to quantify an actual plateau (at least a couple of months) depending on the amount of weight you have lost in that time, it could mean you need to check your calorie deficit numbers again.
The caloric maintenance of your body has literally changed - and it is quite common for someone to still be eating the same amount of calories that were designed for when they started their fitness journey as opposed to where they are now - as they have noticed a big slow down in weight loss.
So always check in with your maintenance numbers, which will then allow you to adjust your calorie numbers.
For more on Bodyweight Maintenance head here: How To Find Your Calorie Maintenance Level
And if you want a free Calorie Calculator then please head here: Free Fitness Goodies
Build More Muscle and Be More Active???
It would be remiss of me to write this whole article without touching on these points.
And I have put a question mark next to the points for very good reason. For this article, I have written it with the perspective that you probably already are being very active - and probably don’t have the privilege. to increase that part of your life too much.
If you are stuck, and you aren’t doing 2-3x strength sessions a week, you aren’t regularly hitting 8k steps a day at least, then yes - please do that.
By doing that I almost guarantee your weight will change again.
I also want to discuss the art of building muscle here.
Everyone is different - but building muscle takes time. It takes more time if you are female and it takes more time the more experienced you are at doing it.
For a woman, you are looking at about 1lb a month in the first year, then 0.5lb a month in the second year of training.
For a man, you are looking at about 2lbs a month in the first year, and then 1lb a month in the second year of training.
1lb of Muscle at rest burns 5kcal a day.
Therefore after your first year of training as a woman, you will have only added an extra 60kcals a day to your metabolism, and if you are a man, you can double that.
Yes, building muscle will help your metabolism because you will also burn calories as you exercise, and after you exercise. But in order to improve your metabolism enough to see it on the scale and to help break through a plateau you are going to have to be very dedicated to the cause of building muscle for a period of time a lot longer than you probably believed before you read this article.
Of course, I am an advocate of strength training for all people - I just wanted to bring to your attention that when people tell you to build muscle to improve your metabolism, it is true, but not in the manner you may interpret it, or the manner in which they believe it would help you also.
Just be aware, that building muscle probably isn’t the quick fix you are hoping for to break through a plateau - but it’s a blinking good thing to do for your health.
What’s Next?
I really hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about your struggles at the moment. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work, it really does mean a lot to me to have you here.
If you would like a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator then just put your email in here:
References:
Sarwan G, Rehman A. Management Of Weight Loss Plateau. [Updated 2021 Oct 29]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576400/
Wing RR, Phelan S. Long-term weight loss maintenance. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Jul;82(1 Suppl):222S-225S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/82.1.222S. PMID: 16002825.
GEMA FRÜHBECK,, JAVIER GÓMEZ‐AMBROSI, Rationale for the existence of additional adipostatic hormones, The FASEB Journal, 10.1096/fj.00-0829hyp, 15, 11, (1996-2006), (2001).
Hoeger, W., Hoeger, S., Fawson, A., & Hoeger, C. (2019). Principles and labs for fitness and wellness. Cengage.
Liao, T., Zhang, S.-L., Yuan, X., Mo, W. Q., Wei, F., Zhao, S.N., Yang, W., Liu, H., & Rong, X. (2020). Liraglutide lowers body weight set point in DIO rats and its relationship with hypothalamic microglia activation. Obesity: A Research Journal, 28(1), 122-131. doi: 10.1002/oby.22666
Trexler, E.T., Smith-Ryan, A.E. & Norton, L.E. Metabolic adaptation to weight loss: implications for the athlete. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 11, 7 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-11-7
7 Practical Tips To Make Counting Calories Easier
One of the most frequent complaints I get from clients on the Strong & Confident Program is that they just don’t have the time to track their food.
Once they have cooked the dinner, eaten the dinner and then washed up after - its either their bedtime or their children’s bedtime…and the act of meticulously going through what they ate that day, and most importantly trying to remember everything they ate that day, is obviously going to be the last thing on their mind - whether they want to achieve their goals or not.
And I get it.
80% of my clients, throughout my career have been busy parents, and realistically you have to look at their lives and question whether tracking their calories is really going to add stress or take the stress away from their life.
And much of the time it will add stress - which will have far more negative repercussions on their fitness than whether they choose to track calories.
About a month ago, I did a Seminar here on the Gold Coast, Australia, all about Tracking your calories, and I wanted to share with you what we all went through on that day.
Table of contents for: 7 Practical Tips To Make Counting Calories Easier
Does Calorie Counting work?
Why should you track your food?
Informed Consent on tracking your calories
7 Tips to make Counting Calories Easier
How To Be In A Calorie Deficit Without Logging Your Food
There is a quick summary of my 7 Practical Tips on YouTube. But to understand the principles and the whys and wherefores behind counting calories - keep reading!
Does Calorie Counting work?
This is a very hotly debated topic.
There are people out there…on the internet…who will tell you that tracking your calories simply doesn’t work…simply because the calorie amounts on packages aren’t accurate.
This study [1] called ‘Food Label Accuracy of Common Snack Foods’ found that:
“Measured energy values exceeded label statements by 8% on average in pre-packaged convenience meals (12), which is slightly higher but consistent with the label disparity of 4.3% in packaged snack foods. Also consistent with this study, most products in our sample fell within the allowable limit of 20% over the label calories per Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations”
This is a shocking revelation, but it’s still only 8% out.
The last time I checked, 8% was a pretty small amount. Let me put it to you thus, if I gave you 92% success in your Goals…would you take it?
Exactly.
So let me ask again; Does Calorie Counting Work?
And it’s a resounding yes provided you have never had an Eating Disorder.
If you have ever had an Eating Disorder then please don’t engage in Calorie Counting. And if you need help with that please contact the Charity BEAT here [2].
There are issues relating to Calorie Counting, and I go into those later in the article. But the main answer to this question is the following:
Yes. Calorie Counting does work.
This study [3] took participants over one year, and depending on their consistency with dietary tracking, split them into three Groups.
Rare Trackers equalling <33% days tracked (114 days out of 343)
Inconsistent Trackers 33-66% days tracked
Consistent Trackers >66% days tracked (228 days out opf 343)
Please note that consistent trackers qualify at just two-thirds of the time available to them - not 100% of the time available to them.
All participants were asked to:
Maintain daily food journals and physical activity records;
Reduce portion sizes;
Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar;
Increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products;
and
Weigh themselves frequently and at least weekly (more on this here)
They each worked with a Health Coach, and attended interactive sessions designed to educate them on nutrition and exercise adherence.
The results were:
“Only consistent trackers had significant weight loss (-9.99 pounds), following a linear relationship with consistent loss throughout the year. In addition, the weight loss trend for the rare and inconsistent trackers followed a nonlinear path, with the holidays slowing weight loss and the onset of summer increasing weight loss. These results show the importance of frequent dietary tracking for consistent long-term weight loss success”
It also concluded the following:
“Early in the program weight change of consistent trackers did not differ from rare or inconsistent dietary trackers. However, rare or inconsistent trackers gained weight during the holidays but the consistent trackers' rate of weight loss did not change as they sustained their rate of weight loss from the first quarter. Hence, successful behavioural interventions should emphasize the benefits of consistent dietary tracking for participants, motivating individuals to track for at least 5 days of each week for sustained and clinically significant weight loss"
This study teaches us a lot about weight loss.
The first lesson is that consistency is what matters, and consistency doesn’t mean as much as you think it does. It is simply just two-thirds of your time.
The second lesson is that tracking is a behaviour that supports other behaviours like having a Coach, reducing portion sizes, and eating more fruits and vegetables.
The third lesson is that scientifically 10lbs is a significant amount of weight to lose in a year.
As a coach, my point here is you need to stop comparing yourself to people on Social Media. What you see on there, compared to what real world results truly look like vary greatly.
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Why Should You Track Your Food?
One of the most common occurrences in people who are trying to lose weight and getting frustrated with the outcomes in terms of weight loss is that they often overestimate the calories they are burning and underestimate the calories they are consuming.
As this study concludes:
“The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.”
This basically means that it comes down to your Calorie Deficit, rather than there being an issue in the way your body metabolises food.
The hypothesis has been tested in two other ways as well. This study pipped Dieticians against Non-Dieticians and found that even dieticians under-report their energy intake somewhere between 223 and 116 kcal/day, compared with the non-dieticians who underreported between 429 and 142kcal/day.
This just goes to show…that even those who are really well educated on food and nutrition still underestimate the calories they are consuming.
This doesn’t mean that learning about nutrition and your food isn’t worthwhile. The dieticians were still better with an average over-reporting of 169.5kcal/day compared to the non-dieticians which averaged 285.5kcal/day.
And finally,
This study actually paid people to be accurate. They were giving out $50 bonuses to be accurate with their diet recall on four occasions. One group had to be accurate the first two times, the second group accurate the second two times, and one group received no bonus at all.
And guess what happened:
“Energy intake did not differ within or between groups at any time, and the number of under reporters was not associated with group at any time. Overall, the incentive was ineffective.”
So by tracking your food, you reduce the risk of being inaccurate. In fact, tracking your food is the most accurate way to tell if you are or are not in a calorie deficit for that day. We have no other way of knowing this information, and if you want instant feedback about your weight loss day on day - then tracking your food is the best way to go about it.
In terms of overestimating the number of calories, you are burning this comes down to many things. The main one is that we trust our smartwatches to be accurate with this information when this study [5] demonstrates.
It found that Smartwatches at their most accurate, in terms of judging energy expenditure are off by between 27% and 93%.
The study also found that they are better at reading heart rates.
Personally, as a Coach, I don’t like clients on my Strong & Confident Program to focus on Calories burned from exercise - because that can destroy your relationship with exercise and create very extreme behaviour that will only lead to failure.
You should focus on eating to your deficit - and exercising to get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods.
Informed Consent when tracking your food
As I mentioned above, you should not track your food if you are recovering from any form of Eating Disorder.
But I also take my responsibility for your Mental Health very seriously so I want to let you know about the drawbacks of tracking your food, before I give you the 7 Practical Tips To Make Counting Calories Easier.
Then you can decide whether or not it is a behaviour you are safe to engage with.
This study [6] analysed 5.5k posts on Community Forums, like MyFitness Pal, and discovered what the practical difficulties are with tracking food.
Success is attributed to a “goal weight achievement”
Of 94 people, only 22 thought they were empowered enough to no longer need to track their food
Can be a tedious practice
Not knowing how much of a food to enter
Not being able to find foods in the database
How do you track restaurants and eating at a friends house?
When asked to rate difficulty by meal type, respondents rated packaged food (average: 6.5) and fast food (6.3) as significantly easier to journal than home-cooked meals (4.6), buffet meals (3.7), ethnic food (3.7), restaurant meals (3.6), foods served by friends (3.2), and foods consumed at parties (2.9)
I’d just like to highlight a few points here:
“Success is attributed to a “goal weight achievement” - this is always going to be an issue on an App like MyFitness Pal - because it keeps reminding you how much you will weigh in x amount of days, if you keep up the behaviour you set that day. Although some will find this motivating I am here to tell you that your success is not defined by hitting a weight on the scale. Your success is determined by engaging in behaviours over a consistent period of time. If you set these behaviours and execute you will gain confidence and strength - as a consequence of that you might lose weight.
I think I summed this up best when I said on Instagram:
“How do you track restaurants and eating at a friends house?” - there are two schools of thought here:
If you don’t eat out too often - mainly if it’s just a special occasion - then you shouldn’t be tracking in the first place, you should be enjoying the moment.
If you eat out more and are worried about the calories, do your best at figuring out what you had when you get home…then add 30% to account for factors of food that are out of your control - like the amount of oil used by the Chef.
The same study [6] then also analysed Mental Health outcomes relating to tracking food and it found:
Food journalers report feelings of shame, judgement, or obsession associated with current designs. P6 reported journaling “made me feel guilty sometimes”, while P27 noted a lack of positive feedback: “I always felt guilty when I ate too much, and there wasn't that much pride when I was under my goal.”
“Sometimes I feel like not logging things because I know it’s really unhealthy.
“It made me too focused and obsessive about what I was eating”
“It was more of an on the way to an eating disorder thing than anything else (tried to keep calories extremely low)”
“I think I was hesitant to do the logging if not alone”
“I had more of a problem with eating out at a friend’s house because I didn’t want to ask for ingredients or mention that I was logging calories”
You should never feel shame around a behaviour you are engaging in and if you are feeling that way then please do not operate in that behaviour.
If what you are doing is not making you feel strong and empowered - then why o why are you doing it?
You shouldn’t have to suffer - and I don’t want you to suffer at all.
In terms of going over your calories sometimes - and that leading to a feeling of failure - please remember that no matter what you do - you can’t fuck this up - because when you engage in a fitness journey - it shouldn’t be defined by an endpoint, it should be a move to building an active lifestyle and pulling yourself into balance.
Therefore, all you have to do is get back on track the very next day.
The human body doesn’t gain weight that quickly, so there really isn’t a need to panic when you go over.
1. Don’t try to be perfect in an imperfect system
The whole system around calories is flawed.
When we establish someone’s Basal Metabolic Rate which is the point upon which we begin to figure out their deficit calories we are making it our “best guess”. This guess is based on years and years of study across millions of people, but it is still a guess.
And the food industry does the same. In 1991 the Australian Food Standards Code used to state:
“That the value shown in a Nutrition Information Panel was deemed to comply if these values (of energy, carbohydrate, starch or fibre) did not vary by more than 20% from those values actually present and 10% variation was permitted for other nutrients”
And although these figures are no longer part of Law they are still regarded as acceptable folklore in the Food Industry.
The current Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code does not permit or mandate any limits on accuracy of the levels of nutrients expressed in Nutrition Information Panels but only requires that these values be ‘average’ values. Maximum and minimum quantities are required in regard to claims for polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acid contents of food.
And in the US a study called “Food Label Accuracy of Common Snack Foods” [7] we have already seen that calories in published are not that reliable.
Being consistent with tracking your food, to get a best guess is good enough, and by doing that you still get results as you will be holding yourself accountable and over time will improve your choices to help you get to your goals.
2. It’s Not A Life Sentence; its a Period of Education
When you approach anything in life with the view of “What can I learn about this?” as opposed to “Can I pass or fail this?” you will automatically improve your relationship with that behaviour.
Tracking your food is no different. You should do it to learn about the energy in food, to learn about how your choices over a day impact your energy and ability to control your stress. Its a way of finding out if your weekends are destroying your progress and what eating in balance really looks like.
You get to decide when that period of education is over and when you feel empowered enough to move away from tracking your calories - because that is the goal here. The goal isn’t to be tied to MyFitness Pal for the rest of your life.
You should want to be educated enough about nutrition so that you never have to open an app ever again.
3. There is no right or wrong, just exploration
One of these days I’m going to get this printed on a t-shirt. It’s true of exercise, and it’s true of nutrition.
If you go over your calories, the only person judging you is you.
If you don’t hit your protein target, the only person judging you is you.
Every time something sub-optimal occurs the good news is that you have the opportunity to learn from it, grow from it, and ultimately succeed from those lessons.
You are only every investigating, course correcting and developing - you are not passing or failing.
4. If it’s in a packet: Track it!
This is so simple it hurts. MyFitness Pal and any other tracking app you might use will have what’s called a Barcode Scanner. It will literally take you a matter of seconds to get all of the nutritional information you need about that food by scanning the barcode.
Therefore if you eat something with a barcode. on the packet - which will be a fair 75% of the food you eat - just track it.
5 . Set Up generic value amounts for Fruits and Veggies
Let’s be very clear - no one ever gained weight from eating too many fruits and veggies. Even if you are a Vegetarian, I promise you fruits and vegetables in your diet are not the problem here.
And when it comes to tracking them, they can be really annoying to put into an app accurately.
Therefore you should just set up a generic value for Fruits and Vegetables, save that into your App and just use those every time you have your Veggies at dinner.
Personally I just scan a bag of frozen vegetables set it to 100g and use that every time I have dinner - irrespective of what the Vegetables actually are.
6. Eating Out? Add 30% to your meal
I alluded to this earlier in the article - but it’s a strategy that makes everything. more accurate for you when you are trying to track your food.
The best way to track your food when eating out would be the following:
1. See online if the restaurant publishes their calories
2. In the restaurant take a photo.
3. When at home, best guess the amounts.
4. Add 30% to every amount even if the restaurant does publish their calories
That way you have the bases covered.
And remember if you are out celebrating - celebrate. Don’t worry about the calories on special occasions - just worry about getting back on track the next day.
7. Cook Meals that are already Calorie Tracked
This is the one that perplexes me the most when it comes to people who are trying to lose weight and using calorie tracking as a solution to that.
It also perplexes me with clients on my Strong and Confident Program - who are tracking - as they have access to over 250 recipes all with calorie tracked barcodes including vegetarian and vegan options - yet they still say that tracking is too hard for them.
All the hard work has been done for you.
In fact, if you Google “MyFitness Pal Dinner Recipes” you get 688,000 results and the top one is all with the Macros and Calories already figured out for you.
So use that resource.
I guarantee you will be able to find a version of your favourite meal that is now Barcode Scannable or has all of the nutritional information figured out for you. Then you just have to copy and paste.
The brass tax is if you can’t be bothered to copy and paste some information or spend ten minutes finding the information on the internet to be able to track your calories - then engaging in a fitness journey will always be a slog for you.
How To Be In A Calorie Deficit Without Logging Your Food
There are other things you can do to keep your calories in check without necessarily logging your food.
But bear in mind, the only way to truly know if you are in a deficit each day - is to log your foods.
I have two strategies for this.
The first is a three meals, two snacks which I outline here:
This is very simple.
Each day you are allowed three meals.
Each meal must fit on one plate.
Between breakfast and lunch and lunch and dinner you can have a snack.
I have found applying this structure is incredibly effective.
The second strategy is called The Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life.
This is a list of 5 things you need in order to lose weight:
Be in a Calorie Deficit
Three Litres of Water A Day
Protein and Veggies at every meal
8-10k Steps A Day
7-8 hours of sleep a night
And if you want help figuring this out then watch this:
Did You Find This Useful?
Across this website, I have other Articles all about Tracking your Calories and managing your Calorie Deficit:
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As my friend, I will send you some amazing help, like a book called 27 Ways to Faster Fat Loss, workout plans for both the Gym and home workouts, and much more. Just put your email in below:
References:
Jumpertz R, Venti CA, Le DS, et al. Food label accuracy of common snack foods. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013;21(1):164-169. doi:10.1002/oby.20185
Beat. 2021. The UK's Eating Disorder Charity - Beat. [online] Available at: <https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/> [Accessed 15 September 2021].
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Lichtman SW, Pisarska K, Berman ER, Pestone M, Dowling H, Offenbacher E, Weisel H, Heshka S, Matthews DE, Heymsfield SB. Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. N Engl J Med. 1992 Dec 31;327(27):1893-8. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199212313272701. PMID: 1454084.
Shcherbina, A.; Mattsson, C.M.; Waggott, D.; Salisbury, H.; Christle, J.W.; Hastie, T.; Wheeler, M.T.; Ashley, E.A. Accuracy in Wrist-Worn, Sensor-Based Measurements of Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in a Diverse Cohort. J. Pers. Med. 2017, 7, 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm7020003
Cordeiro F, Epstein DA, Thomaz E, Bales E, Jagannathan AK, Abowd GD, Fogarty J. Barriers and Negative Nudges: Exploring Challenges in Food Journaling. Proc SIGCHI Conf Hum Factor Comput Syst. 2015 Apr;2015:1159-1162. doi: 10.1145/2702123.2702155. PMID: 26894233; PMCID: PMC4755274.
Jumpertz R, Venti CA, Le DS, Michaels J, Parrington S, Krakoff J, Votruba S. Food label accuracy of common snack foods. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013 Jan;21(1):164-9. doi: 10.1002/oby.20185. PMID: 23505182; PMCID: PMC3605747.
Why Can't I Lose Weight No Matter What I Do?
Choose a Lego Head above.
Any Lego Head.
And I imagine its pretty close to how you are feeling about your weight loss efforts…and how you happened to end up here…reading this Article.
And if you have been trying to lose weight for a while now…and you have ended up here, reading this, then I am sure you probably feel more like this:
To find the images of the Lego Heads I used two words:
“Angry” and “Frustrated”
This gives me one sole goal for this article - as your Coach - to remove your frustration and your anger about your inability to lose weight no matter what you do - and be able to set you up on a path to success.
Just like my friend Jenny who lost over 7kgs working with me online on the Strong and Confident Program.
She came to me at her whits end - having spent hours on the Gym floor, following every single piece of advice they gave her on diet and exercise. Sometimes she would exercise twice a day just to try and achieve a change on the scale, in her clothes or how she felt about herself.
And still couldn’t crack the “secret code” to weight loss.
Then we spoke on a video chat, she was very emotional and I held out my hand, told her to stop worrying, and together….we’ve got this.
She achieved this by just doing 10mins a day every day for 3 months.
Because she had a process that she could trust.
And that is what I am going to share with you today in order to make you feel empowered, strong and confident to finally Google the term:
“How to get strong enough to wrestle a bear in the woods”
Please remember this article is not from a Medical Perspective - it is a Coach’s perspective on why you aren’t losing weight no matter what you do.
I am presuming you have been to the Doctor, and got the all-clear from any severe Metabolic conditions, I am also going out on a limb and saying that if you have Hypothyroidism, PCOS, or are currently struggling with the symptoms of Menopause what I am going to share with you is still relevant, and will still work - it just is that much harder.
If you need help with PCOS and Weight Loss then read this:
The structure of this article is a little different from my “normal” ones. For each header, I am going to pose you a question for you to answer - from there I will hope to establish some holes in your approach to losing weight - and I will tell you the science-backed solution to fixing that hole in your approach.
By the end of this article, you will be able to reset, reapproach and feel reinvigorated to help make the changes you need.
All I ask from you, as you read this, is that you are honest with yourself in how you respond to these questions.
If you are able, to be honest, then I will be able to help you…and we can make you feel more like a Super Hero in your weight loss journey. We can literally get you eating ice cream and losing weight….
Which in truth is the ultimate goal anyway isn’t it?
Table of Contents for “I Can’t Lose Weight No Matter What I Do”
Are you in a Calorie Deficit?
Are you sleeping enough?
Are you blaming your Metabolism?
Are you making the most of your Metabolism?
Are you restricting your diet too much?
Are you being consistent?
Are you expecting your movement to do the job for you?
Are you on a plan that is making you unhappy?
Are you too stressed?
Are your expectations too great?
Are you comparing yourself to others?
Question 1: Are you in a Calorie Deficit?
If you have read any of my work before then you will know that a Calorie Deficit is the only way you can lose weight.
As in you need to burn more calories from your body than you are putting into it - and this is what a Calorie Deficit is.
Very simple to understand - but not easy to implement.
If you have found this article, and you have never heard the term Calorie Deficit before then this is the reason you are not losing weight no matter what you do.
You should probably watch this for further context on what a Calorie Deficit truly is and how to set yourself up in a Deficit:
If you have heard the term before, and believe it is what you have tried to implement - then keep reading because every single point I am going to explore in this article is literally going to be the best Coaching advice I have for you to investigate WHY you aren’t in a Calorie Deficit DESPITE your best efforts.
So lets get into it…
Question 2: Are you Sleeping enough?
I have laid out the correlation between sleep and weight loss in one of my more recent Blog Posts: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?
In writing that Blog, I came to the realization that Sleep is probably more important to a human in order to lose weight than a Calorie Deficit.
Because…
Without enough sleep, you simply will not be able to get into a Calorie Deficit.
In a nutshell…sleep helps you process your emotions like stress and anxiety. When we are deprived of sleep, there is greater activity in the part of the brain known as the Amygdala [1].
The Amygdala is responsible for your emotional responses to what is happening to you during the day.
In subjects who are more sleep deprived, the Amygdala is buzzing with activity, and therefore the sleep-deprived person is responding more emotionally than if they had their 8 hours a night.
And if your emotions are high and negative, your Caloric intake increases.
As the study ‘Modeling the Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on the Ability to Resist Eating in Obese and Non-obese Individuals’ [2] states:
“We also demonstrated strong associations between food craving and these eating behaviours, particularly after following a negative mood induction in obese individuals”
WOULD YOU LIKE A MONTH OF FREE COACHING WITH ME?
Question 3: Are you blaming your Metabolism?
Throughout life, you may have heard lots of different theories on your Metabolism. The two main ones are:
Your Metabolism slows down as you age
Your Metabolism is broken or Starvation Mode
Let’s deal with your slowing Metabolism first.
A new study called: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course [3] has found that your Metabolism is stable throughout your adult life from the age of 20 all the way up to the age of 60.
This is despite going through Menopause and Pregnancy.
This is good news. As it now clearly shows us that assigning blame when it comes to weight to something that is “out of your control”, ie; your Metabolism, is not a useful strategy.
You can now look past this, and start investigating other reasons you may be unable to lose weight - more than likely one of the other points in this blog.
And as for your Metabolism being broken from a history of eating too little…that is also not relevant.
You can’t break your Metabolism.
The thoughts on this stem down into something known as Starvation Mode; the idea that if you eat too little over your life then your body goes into a “survival mode” or a “starvation mode”.
This does not exist.
Your body metabolically adapts but does not stop as the study Metabolic slowing with massive weight loss despite preservation of fat-free mass [3] concluded:
“RMR declined out of proportion to the decrease in body mass, demonstrating a substantial metabolic adaptation” .
in 1944 the University of Minnesota wanted to find out what extreme Famine does to a population and crucially how to rehabilitate people out of extreme famine in the wake of World War 2.
The study [4] started with, starving people. For real. In study conditions.
36 participants were recruited and were put into Prisoner of War conditions. Made to do manual labour, walk 22 miles a week and were fed 50% of their caloric needs.
Oh, it gets worse…
They did this for 6 months.
One participant cut off his fingers just to get out of the study early…
And as you can imagine it got pretty rough for them. On average each participant lost 25% of their body weight. Here is a photo from the experiment:
But crucially what happened to their Metabolism?
Their metabolisms were performing about 20% lower than predicted after losing weight - their metabolisms adapted.
But this was a two-fold experiment. Participants were put into a “recovery diet” to help them regain the weight they had lost, and after 12 weeks their metabolisms were re-assessed. In 12 weeks their metabolisms were only underperforming by 10%. And in some cases - there was no Metabolic damage at all.
So after being put into Prisoner of War Camp-like conditions, given just 5o% of their caloric needs each day and being forced to do what can only be described as a fuck tonne of exercise, their Metabolisms were not “broken”.
And if you look at this study it would suggest that if you followed the recovery of the subjects in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment for longer than 12 weeks - their Metabolism made a full recovery.
And…
Each participant continued to lose weight throughout the whole experiment.
Question 4: Are you making the most of your Metabolism?
Your metabolism (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is made up of four components.
As you can see in the chart above, your Basal Metabolic Rate which is 70% of your Metabolism is the largest portion of your Metabolism. But it is also largely out of your control. This 70% is determined by your Sex, Height, and Weight. It's how your body just keeps your body functioning to get the most out of your Metabolism, as in, to burn the most amount of Calories each and every day, you should focus on your NEAT.
This makes up 15% of your Daily Caloric burn.
It outranks your time in the Gym by 10% and outranks the food you eat by 5%.
So how do you increase your Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis?
Aim for 8-10k steps a day
Stand up when on the phone
Stand up when at work
Have walking meetings/social events
Park further away from the shops
Fidget more
Stand up on Public Transport
Use the upstairs toilet, not the downstairs toilet
Stand when you brush your teeth
Many people when they want to begin to lose weight will prioritize in this order:
Exercise in the Gym
Nutrition
Daily Movement
Even to the point that 2 and 3 sometimes don’t even get thought of.
But in truth it should look like this:
Nutrition
Daily Movement
Exercise in the Gym
Question 5: Are you restricting your Diet too much?
Restriction of calories can lead to weight loss.
That’s basically what a Calorie Deficit is.
But there is a dark side to this as well - and this dark side is probably the number one reason people yo-yo diet AND just can’t seem to lose weight no matter what they do.
This is what occurs:
You decide to lose weight
You jump onto a Calorie Calculator and get an arbitrary number of calories to lose say 1kg a week
That number is a very low amount of calories
You manage to stick to this very low number for a brief period
The hunger and the restriction gets too much
You stop restricting but you don’t go into a balance
You go into a Binge
This binge lasts two months because now you feel like you failed
You gain weight again
You repeat the cycle
And what happens is you spend more time out of a deficit than in one which will lead to short and sharp results with the weight loss - but ultimately you will feel like you are constantly failing and unable to ever lose weight because it’s just too damn difficult to do.
This is what I describe as a classic Binge and Restrict Cycle.
You blame yourself for not being able to stick to it.
When in truth you were always set up to fail from the start.
When you over restrict - you have to compensate for that at some point down the line and this creates a swing of too much restriction and too much indulgence.
Then over a year, you have spent more time out of a deficit than in one - which is why you seem to never be able to lose weight.
It always comes down to sustainability and giving yourself a much longer-term view of your goals rather than trying to achieve what you want in a couple of months.
You need what I call…a wide angle lens….
When really you just need to be more level with everything to begin with. Drop your expectations of losing weight on a set schedule, because scale weight doesn’t work on a schedule, and give yourself a smaller deficit - which is wholly more sustainable.
To figure that out you can download my Free Fitness Goodies which includes a personalized calorie calculator which makes sure you set yourself up for success with sustainable methods.
Question 6: Are you being consistent?
It’s an infamous word, isn’t it? Consistency. I feel we all know what it means - and we all believe we are executing on it.
But much like the binge and restrict cycle outlined previously, when it comes to consistency what occurs is perfection and abstention - and often the perfection part of the pendulum is confused for consistency.
Many many many people tell me they are being consistent:
By going to the gym every day
By avoiding processed foods every day
By cutting out sugar all the time
By tracking their food every day
Whenever you use the words “every day” or “all the time” you are not being consistent.
You are striving for perfection. And perfection is impossible.
And then when you can’t keep up the perfect routine you are excusing for consistency the feelings of failure begin again…and you eventually give up.
You don’t need to do it every day. You don’t need to work out every day. You don’t need to track your calories every day. You don’t need to eat salads every day to have success.
You do need to do it consistently - a good guide for this is the 80/20 rule which would dictate that in a month you need to be hitting your goals around 25 days of the month.
As the study “The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time” [6] states:
“Successful behavioural interventions should emphasize the benefits of consistent dietary tracking for participants, motivating individuals to track for at least 5 days of each week for sustained and clinically significant weight loss"
Not 7 days, not even 6. At least 5 days.
That sounds like an 80/20 rule to me.
To find out more about how to implement consistency in your fitness journey head here: How To Stay Consistent With Your Fitness
Question 7: Are you expecting your movement to do the job for you?
Now I am sure you have heard the old saying:
"You can’t out-train a bad diet”
And this is pretty much true - although I detest over simplifications and cliches like this.
On an average strength training workout, you are burning maybe 300 calories.
At a real push.
You could try and get a bigger calorie burn in by doing some cardio or HIIT but these exercises increase your appetite - so any gains you might make in the Calorie burning department are going to be negated by your hunger increasing.
And for women, that increase in hunger can occur 3-5 days after you have actually worked out meaning it can become really unclear on what the root cause of that increased diet is.
You may well be reading this section and thinking:
“When I work out my watch tells me that I burn 600kcal a workout”
Well, again, your watch is lying to you. There are many studies like this one [7] that shows a wristwatch can be up to 25% inaccurate when looking at calories burned from exercise.
This isn’t to say that being in the Gym isn’t useful for your health and wellbeing - especially when you are wanting to lose weight - it is vitally important to help you get a sense of wellbeing, of strength and achievement.
But you need to get into the mindset of going to the Gym to “get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods” and you need to get into the mindset of your controlling your calories to try and help you lose weight.
The gym isn’t for burning calories, its for getting strong and proving to yourself that you can do hard things and repeat behaviours over time that will lead to your long term success elsewhere in your life.
Question 8: Are you on a plan that is making you unhappy?
This again is a very common behaviour and it doesn’t matter how great the plan is in terms of results, you will never be able to do it for long enough to actually see these results if you aren’t enjoying what you are doing.
I can think of many examples of Exercise regimens and Diets that do not prioritise balance and enjoyment - and sadly they are the ones that have a lot of marketing behind them and promise “fast results”.
When it comes to diet and exercise - enjoyment is the sole driver of success.
If you don’t enjoy what it is you are doing, but do see results, that’s great. But it just will not last. The results will be temporary and the inevitable weight regain will occur on the back end.
Now sure, we would all enjoy eating doughnuts all day long…
But that too would soon become unenjoyable, just like it did with Homer.
The key to successful weight loss is getting into a process.
The last thing you want is to reach a goal and realise it was all about the process in the beginning.
By focussing on the process, you also focus on the behaviours that will change your life - and get you to your goals.
If those behaviours don’t inspire you, don’t excite you and don’t drive you to take action each and every day then you will never be able to sustain what you are doing.
If you can learn to focus on the process of looking after yourself in this manner, then my friend, you have already won.
Question 9: Are you too stressed?
Stress is very underrated in terms of how it affects your ability to lose weight.
A point beautifully demonstrated by Homer. Again.
Stress will create two behaviors in your life that make a Calorie Deficit very hard to stick to.
The first is that it will disrupt sleep - now I covered that in Question 2, however, you cannot be reminded enough that you need a better sleep regimen to be able to stay in a Calorie Deficit.
The other role stress plays is its link to emotional eating.
Now firstly we all emotionally eat - please do not think that you are “broken” because you respond to emotions with food. We all do it. The biggest difference here might be the quantity or frequency upon which we do it.
Personally, my emotional eating reveals itself in chugging a beer or two.
For others, it can be hours of eating Haribos or hours upon hours of drinking alcohol - my emotional eating binges last for the duration of the food I am consuming - whereas, for other people, it can last whole evenings, possibly three to four times a week.
Often when it comes to emotional eating, we try to fix the emotions with food - however in truth, the only thing that will fix the emotional eating is learning to process the emotions correctly - and dealing with that head-on.
Stress is proven to cause an increase in caloric intake in someone’s life.
As the study: “Stress-induced obesity and the emotional nervous system [8] concludes:
“Stress also induces secretion of glucocorticoids, which increases motivation for food, and insulin, which promotes food intake and obesity. Pleasurable feeding then reduces activity in the stress–response network, reinforcing the feeding habit. These effects of stressors emphasize the importance of teaching mental reappraisal techniques to restore responses from habitual to thoughtful, thus battling stress-induced obesity”
As you can see there is a need to help reduce your stress in the best way possible.
These are my top recommendations to help you reduce stress:
Get enough sleep regularly. If you need help with that listen to my Sleep Stories here: Three Medatitive Sleep Stories by Adam Berry
Exercise regularly. Exercise has been proven to reduce stress and help you sleep, as well as process your emotions.
Eat more nutritiously - make choices that align with your goals and you will feel like you are achieving as opposed to constantly failing.
Meditate. I don’t mean sit on the floor humming, I mean take time to connect to your breath and actively relax - that’s all meditation is. To get some free meditations from me head here: Centering The Breath: A YouTube Playlist
Question 10: Are your expectations too great?
I’ll let you in on a little secret:
Expectations are the number one reason people fail in fitness.
Forget everything else.
The issue is without a doubt expectation.
Many people start with an expectation that is wholly unrealistic - and usually based on an arbitrary human they have seen on Social Media as opposed to what is realistic for them, in their given circumstances.
And then when these expectations are seldom met, you start to feel like a failure….which inevitably results in giving up.
Let’s say you set up a goal to lose 5kgs. You aim for 0.5kgs a week and expect this to take 10 weeks.
Seems reasonable enough.
But over a 10-week period…you will inevitably have a few nights out….maybe a weekend away with your partner and let’s face it, a few missed Gym sessions.
You decide to weigh yourself weekly (more on why this is not a good idea here) and let’s say you only lose 200g one week….you have fallen behind your expectations, and go into “catch up mode”
The more this happens, the more drastic the behaviours come for you to get back on track.
The more drastic the behaviour the more unsustainable the whole thing becomes.
The only expectation you should have when it comes to your Fitness Journey is to simply try your best, do your damnedest, and get your strongest.
These are goals within your control, and they will result in your success becoming inevitable.
Question 11: Are you comparing yourself to others?
Ever heard the phrase “comparison is the thief of joy”?
Well, it’s true. By trying to live up to what someone else has achieved will only result in you not enjoying what it is you are doing.
You aren’t them. You don’t live their life. You don’t have the same abilities, genetics, finances, health, and support they have.
You are simply yourself.
You are simply only ever in competition with yourself. When you can try to just be better than you were yesterday you will build momentum, and momentum can be very very powerful.
But if you compare yourself to others, your momentum will stop immediately because you will only ever compare yourself to someone who is doing better than you - because that is all you will see.
The brain finds what we focus on. If you only want to focus on people who are thinner than you, lighter than you or more confident than you….then that is all you will ever see.
Nay.
That is all you will ever compare yourself to. When in actuality you have done better today than you did yesterday.
This is the last question in this Article. But I want to truly leave you with one thought.
One thought that will be the biggest game-changer you can imagine - an attitude that if you can adopt will allow you to stay focussed on what you are trying to accomplish and will allow the results you crave so much to come.
And it is this:
Adopt this singular thought - and your confidence will soar.
If we all just realized that nothing compares to ourselves…we will all become superheroes.
And being a superhero for yourself is what you should want to become.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
As I mentioned earlier in the article, I would love to work with you if you need help with any of the above.
If you would like to apply to work with me then just click here:
Thank you so much for being here.
Speak to you again soon.
Coach Adam
References:
Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 731–748.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
Udo T, Grilo CM, Brownell KD, Weinberger AH, Dileone RJ, McKee SA. Modeling the effects of positive and negative mood on the ability to resist eating in obese and non-obese individuals. Eat Behav. 2013;14(1):40-46. doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2012.10.010
Johannsen DL, Knuth ND, Huizenga R, Rood JC, Ravussin E, Hall KD. Metabolic slowing with massive weight loss despite preservation of fat-free mass. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Jul;97(7):2489-96. doi: 10.1210/jc.2012-1444. Epub 2012 Apr 24. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2016 May;101(5):2266. PMID: 22535969; PMCID: PMC3387402.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment
Zinchenko, Anastasia & Henselmans, Menno. (2016). Metabolic Damage: do Negative Metabolic Adaptations During Underfeeding Persist After Refeeding in Non-Obese Populations?. Medical Research Archives. 4. 10.18103/mra.v4i8.908.
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Shcherbina A, Mattsson CM, Waggott D, Salisbury H, Christle JW, Hastie T, Wheeler MT, Ashley EA. Accuracy in Wrist-Worn, Sensor-Based Measurements of Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in a Diverse Cohort. Journal of Personalized Medicine. 2017; 7(2):3. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm7020003
Mary F. Dallman, Stress-induced obesity and the emotional nervous system, Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 21, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 159-165, ISSN 1043-2760, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2009.10.004
6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings
We have all been there.
it’s dark outside, it’s been a stressful day, and you’re lying in bed listening to one thing.
The rumble in your tum tum.
And as you pay more attention to it, the louder it gets. You then get up and head towards the light.
Like a person possessed. Your brain is screaming: “NO”. But your legs are just walking slowly but surely down the stairs, and towards the light.
You almost try to convince yourself that you will choose something “good” as with each step you justify your legs moving you towards the light.
You get there.
Your arm is on auto-pilot.
The hum is almost soothing, and the light is not too bright….and not too dark. It’s as mesmerising as a flame to a moth.
And before you made a single conscious decision you have already eaten the Milkybar Yoghurt that was just calling your name less than 20 seconds ago.
And as your scrape your tongue on the bottom of the plastic tub, making sure that you do not want to waste a single drop of that Milklybar goodness…the guilt, fear, and worry start to set in:
“Oh my god I’ve totally screwed up”
“Why am I a total failure?”
“I have no self-control”
“I’m never going to conquer this”
“Why am I such a slob?”
“What is wrong with me?”
And the blame game with the self sets in, and then the whole process is repeated.
So here are my top 6 Strategies to help you stop late-night eating and food cravings!
Briefly, before I begin I want to address the issue of “Does Late Night Snacking Lead To Weight Gain?”.
No. It doesn’t from a purely scientific and objective point of view.
The Calories in a Banana do not change between 18:58 and 19:02 on a Wednesday night.
Calories are Calories are Calories.
As this Instagram Post on my Page, points out:
But from a Human Perspective…ask yourself what kind of foods are you eating late at night? I’m pretty sure it’s not Apples and Oranges.
As this Instagram Post explains:
When Calories are controlled, timings of food make no difference to your overall success or not in Weight Loss.
There are arguments to be made for how eating later at night might affect your circadian rhythm, stress resistance and Gut Health. But this doesn’t change the caloric make up of the food and how your body processes the energy from food at night as opposed to during the day, it just influences your ability to stick to a Calorie Deficit over time.
However, late at night, staring into the fridge, you are less likely to be making decisions that are congruent to your Calorie Window and therefore congruent to your goals.
So bear that in mind. Please.
Table of Contents for: “6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings”
Eat More Calories
Eat more protein
Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
Get More Sleep
Lower Stress and Anxiety and Boredom
Stop restricting yourself to lose weight
Eat More Calories
Yup. I said it. You need to eat more.
That might be a little too much….but the image will stick in your head for sure!
According to a paper called The Biology of Binge Eating, 2010, Food Deprivation is a key indicator of Binge Eating Disorder.
The 2010 paper wanted “to examine the literature on binge eating to gain a better understanding of its biological foundations and their role in the eating disorders” [1]
And in the section relating to Food Deprivation it concluded:
“Rats maintained on a restricted feeding schedule, during which they receive 66% of the amount of food that free eating rats consume, increase their caloric intake by 42% compared with sated rats when allowed ad lib access to food. Increased consumption is evident within 2 hours of the return of the food and persists for up to 4 hours (Hagan et al., 2003). This increased consumption over a discrete period of time mirrors behaviors seen in humans who binge eat.” [1]
Ergo, just a 44% reduction in your calories, can lead to a 42% increase in caloric intake.
Don’t worry, I’m not about to renege on my stance of a Calorie Deficit being required to lose weight, but I am going to hammer home the point, your Calorie Deficit must be built on certain foundations to make sure that you can adhere to it in the long term, and not feel overly restricted, leading to a Binge Episode further down the track.
These principles are outlined by my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life:
And many of these will re-occur in this article. But the most important one is to make sure your Deficit is not too aggressive.
It is far far better to have slow sustainable progress that gives you flexibility and doesn’t lead you on a path to undercutting your psychological progress by falling into a trap of Binge Eating at night than to get aggressive results that you know are not sustainable.
Your Calorie Deficit should at a minimum be set to your Basal Metabolic Rate, and at a maximum at your Goal Bodyweight in LBS multiplied by 12.
To make sure you get that in place - download my Free Calorie Calculator right here.
Yes, by eating more, your weight loss will happen at a reduced rate. But this reduced rate will also allow for:
The flexibility you need as a human being who has emotions.
You to build muscle and improve your Basal Metabolic Rate whilst still in deficit
Greater adherence to actually being in a Calorie Deficit
Late-night snacking so very often comes from a place of restriction throughout the day - and this wouldn’t be so bad if, at night you ate foods congruent to your goals. However quite often late at night…you aren’t snacking on Apples and Broccolli. Due to the restriction throughout the day, you get cravings for foods that are a lot more palatable - and often a lot higher in calories.
This is due to a number of factors, but one obvious one is, come to the end of the day, you are out of energy - and therefore convenience becomes king. Convenient foods are far higher in calories - and far tastier.
Which then puts you into a cycle of craving said foods more the following day…and so it continues.
This study found when they took 20 weight-stable adults and split them into two groups. One group was given an ultra-processed diet and the other an unprocessed diet for 2 weeks. Subjects were told to consume as much or as little as desired. Rather unsurprisingly, the Group that was given the Ultra Processed DIet consumed on average 508kcal/day more with increased consumption of carbohydrates and fat, but not Protein. [2]
This brings me nicely to my next Strategy for you:
2. Eat more Protein
In terms of quelling hunger and regulating appetite, Protein has two main roles.
It makes you feel fuller for longer
It lowers your desire to eat late at night
In this study from 2011, the researchers took 27 overweight or obese men, split them into two groups. Group One was given a Higher Protein (HP) Diet at 25% of energy as Protein, and Group 2 was given a Normal Protein (NP) Diet at 14% of energy as Protein.
The study concluded the following:
“When compared to NP, the HP group experienced lower late-night desire to eat and preoccupation with thoughts of food”
and,
“Collectively, this data supports the consumption of HP intake, but not greater eating frequency, for improved appetite control and satiety in overweight/obese men during energy restriction-induced weight loss” [3]
I often feel that when we discuss eating more protein, you think it has to be the dominant component of your diet. This isn’t true. As you can see from the study above Protein consumption was still only a quarter of dietary intake and garnered great results for halting late-night snacking.
To figure out your Protein Intake I would recommend you download my Calorie and Macro Calculator here: Free Macro Calculator
However, if you want to know the numbers without doing that they are as follows:
Eat 0.8g-1.1g of Protein each day per LB of Lean Body Mass.
However those numbers can be quite hard to achieve, and thus if you start by aiming for just 100g a day if you eat meat, and 80g a day if you don’t then you should be in a pretty good place.
If you would like some more help with your diet and your training then get my Ultimate Guide to your Diet when Working Out:
3. Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
If you have read a number of my Blogs you will know that I discuss this a lot.
And the prevalence of it is extremely important. Not just if you are wanting to lose weight, but to also curb those late-night snacks.
In terms of Fibre, you want to be keeping this as a key feature of your diet - think of it as the “other Macro-Nutrient”.
Research in Fibre is ever-evolving, and I have it on good authority that what we thought we knew about Fibre may well develop deeper very soon.
Fibre has the ability to do two things that will help curb your hunger:
High Fibre intake stretches the stomach and slows its emptying rate - therefore making you feel fuller for longer
Fibre also ferments in the Bowel, which is thought to increase feelings of fullness as it releases short-chain fatty acids.
Then if we look at this in the context of your goal to lose weight, being fuller for longer throughout the day is an awesome win for you…and if it is going to help you stop eating high-calorie snacks late at night then that too will help you keep your calories down over time.
Added to everything else…
You will be increasing your Vegetable intake - and no bad can come from that can it?
Now onto Water…
Water is filling, and can very much reduce appetite, especially when consumed before you eat.
This study titled: “Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review”
It found:
“Of 4963 retrieved records, 11 original studies and 2 systematic reviews were included. In participants dieting for weight loss or maintenance, a randomized controlled trial, a nonrandomized controlled trial, and an observational longitudinal study showed that increased water consumption, in addition to a program for weight loss or maintenance, reduced body weight after 3-12 mo compared with such a program alone” [4]
Hunger and thirst are interlinked also. When I am working with a friend who I coach online, and their calorie consumption is where it needs to be, but they are still feeling hungry, I will point them towards their water bottle, and remind them of my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life or the blog post below.
GET A FREE MONTH OF COACHING WITH ME; JUST CLICK BELOW TO FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY
Back to water…
I will always ask them to aim for 3 liters a day.
And they react like this:
This is a lofty goal.
But I found that setting this goal higher, as it is a behaviour that can be very easily done, means that my clients would be more than likely to hit an amount appropriate for them and their goals.
Thus, lowering their hunger, and therefore their caloric intake.
So, if it’s late at night, and you know that going to the fridge for that snack is an option that isn’t going to make you feel your best, then you should probably think about reaching for the water bottle first.
Establish if you are hungry or thirsty.
And I reckon about 80% of the time, the water will do the trick.
If you have some water, wait 15mins, and still think you are hungry…then consider having some food….but my best advice in this situation would be:
4. Get More Sleep
The Blog Post I published before this one is all about “How Sleep Affects Your Weight”.
But in terms of more sleep leading to less late-night snacking, I think the point is rather obvious. If you are in bed asleep, you’re not in the kitchen eating food.
Then the benefit of being in bed earlier will help reduce your calorie intake the following day. Added to that, improved sleep, helps you regulate your emotional responses the next day, and if emotional eating is a reason for your late-night snacking then a great strategy against that will be getting those extra hours of zzzz’s.
For optimal sleep, you want to plan for about 8 hours of sleep a night. One thing that always perplexes me about the way you manage sleep is this:
You rely on your wake-up time being the marker of your total time sleep.
But your wake-up time is out of your control pretty much. You could be woken up early, which frequently happens, by some traffic, a bird, a child, needing a wee.
Suddenly you have had a bad night’s sleep because you went to bed at 11:00 pm hoping you would get your 7 hours in and suddenly woke up at 5 am.
Plan better.
If you went to bed at 10:00 pm suddenly 5 am isn’t such a bad wake-up time.
Sleep is the foundation that your appetite control is built on. This study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.
Grehlin is a hormone that is responsible for how hungry you get. Leptin is the hormone responsible for how full you feel.
So yeah. Poor sleep leads to these two hormones very much working against your ability to curb that late-night eating.
Other strategies to improve your sleep are:
Exercise Regularly
Sleep with your Circadian Rhythm
Listen to Sleep Stories (link to my YouTube Sleep Stories)
Listen to Sleep Meditations (link to my YouTube Sleep Meditations)
Stop Drinking Caffeine from 11:00 am
Reduce Alcohol Intake
And Brush Your Teeth…
This is anecdotal evidence, as is in there is ZERO Science to actually back this up, but brushing your teeth has been reported to stop people snacking.
And it makes sense right?
Have you ever had Orange Juice straight after you brushed your teeth?
The combination of tastes, the effort of going to all that trouble to have to brush your teeth again, or if there is some psychological thing about the act of brushing your teeth priming your mind for sleep as opposed to food…but…whatever works.
Maybe try it next time your legs are walking to the fridge and the brain is saying “NOOOOOOOO”. See if it helps.
5. Lower Your Stress, Anxiety and Boredom
I know that this is easier said than done. But if you can at least practice some behaviors that will help you lower these two things, then you are going to put yourself into a better position when it comes to these food cravings, especially late at night.
Of these 7 strategies, there are 2 that most people will ignore.
Get More Sleep and Lower Stress, Anxiety and Boredom (especially Stress and Boredom)
Personally, I believe them to be the most important two on the list, for the exact same reason - they are mostly overlooked.
We seem to be happy to live in the two states of being Stressed and being Bored quite a lot in this day and age. It's almost a Social Norm for us, to just accept that we will be stressed and that boredom is one of those things.
However, when you accept living this way, as opposed to learning to control it, you pay the consequences for it as well.
And the consequences of chronic stress, and Emotional Eating manifesting itself as Boredom Eating are indeed not fun things to be faced with.
So let me show you the link between these emotions and how that is impacting your Fitness Goals.
Does Stress Lead To Increased Food Intake?
This study [6] called “Stress and Eating Behaviours”
“Repeated bouts of minor daily stressors that keep the stress system in a chronically activated state may alter brain reward/motivation pathways involved in wanting and seeking hyper-palatable foods and induce metabolic changes that promote weight and body fat mass”
The part of this that I find correlates majorly to late-night eating is the term “hyper-palatable foods”. When you are stressed you aren’t eating apples and oranges. You’re eating Apple Pies and Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
Does Anxiety Lead To Increased Food Intake?
This study [7] from 2017 is called “Effects of anxiety on caloric intake and satiety-related brain activation in women and men”.
It took twenty-nine twin pairs (58 individuals) and asked them to fill out a questionnaire about their tendency to be anxious. Participants had to answer questions like:
“I worry too much over something that really doesn’t matter”
“I am content; I am a steady person”
and questions like:
“I am tense; I am worried” and “I feel calm; I feel secure”.
All items are rated on a 4-point scale (e.g., from “Almost Never” to “Almost Always”)
Participants were then given an all-you-can-eat buffet, as a thank you for filling out the questionnaire, and were not told their intake was being recorded.
And those that scored a higher rating of anxious feelings on the questionnaire also ate more food at the buffet (Fig A)
As you can see from the graphs. The Twin that scored higher on the Trait Anxiety Scale also ate more food at the Buffet, independent of BMI (Fig B)
The study concluded the following:
“In conclusion, the current findings suggest that anxiety promotes caloric consumption and consumption of high-fat foods in women. We also provide evidence that anxiety alters brain responses to satiety such that the normal reduction in activation by high-calorie food cues induced by a meal does not occur in highly anxious women, suggesting a disruption in neural circuitry that could promote overeating. Anxiety may be a risk factor for obesity, but we show this risk is likely limited to people with a genetic susceptibility to weight gain”
So this gets more complex than just…you’re anxious so you increase your calories.
It also means that if you are anxious, you might show signs of Leptin Resistance which therefore means you won’t know if you are full or not.
Does Boredom Lead To Increased Food Intake?
I think we all know this to be true colloquially.
However, this study from 2012 [8] by the University of Limerick, proves it to be true.
Researchers wanted to establish whether or not Boredom eating is a distinct construct away from other negative emotions by revising the Emotional Eating Scale.
Results found were: “On the open-ended items, participants more often reported eating in response to boredom than the other emotions”
They also stated: “boredom leads to unhealthy eating, as it helps to distract from the unpleasant boredom experience.”
Added to that, a study in 2016 by the University of Central Lancashire ran a couple of tests to measure this also.
The first test asked 52 people to fill out a questionnaire about their food preferences, then complete a task of copying the same group of letters over and over again. They then filled out the questionnaire again.
The second test was 45 participants and they got to watch either a funny video or a boring video. As they watched bowls of snacks were left out for the participants for them to eat ad libitum.
They found that:
“From the first study showed people were more likely to express a preference for unhealthy foods like crisps, sweets and fast food after completing the boring task.
The results from the second study showed that the participants who had watched the boring video ate significantly more unhealthy food.” [9]
How To Lower Stress, Anxiety, and Boredom
You will start to see a pattern emerging in all of these Strategies and the positive behaviors that will help you stop those late-night food cravings.
Some of these will help all three categories, some of them will only help one emotion, however, all of them will go some way to helping you stop those late-night cravings for food:
Exercise Regularly (again)
Improve Your Sleep (again) by not staying up late mindlessly watching tv and playing video games - get to bed earlier and turn off the electronics
Eat more nutritious food
Meditate
Reduce Caffeine intake
Journal Daily
Communicate your feelings
Manage your to-do list to avoid procrastination
Get focused on what you want from life
Pick Up A Hobby
Pick a few from the list, the ones that excite you the most and have the lowest barrier of entry for you, and see if that helps you with those late-night munchies.
6. Stop Restricting Food
I would say that food avoidance is one of the biggest reasons that people crave food.
Pink Elephant syndrome.
You know, if I’m telling you not think of that big, round, funny-looking Pink Elephant…
You’re going to think of it.
Put into the mix that we have a sensual relationship with food, and if I tell you not to eat something….you are going to crave it more and more.
And the cravings ALWAYS WIN.
Because they rear their head, at night, when you are stressed, anxious, and bored.
Are you starting to see a theme here?
This is also a key construct in why Diets Fail - because many Diets require you to give up foods you enjoy. But the cravings will always win because your willpower is finite - and then the feelings of guilt and failure set in, perpetuating the cycle that has led you to look for a solution in the first place.
This study [10] from 2005, is called “The Effect of Deprivation on Food Cravings” and for one week they took 103 Female Undergraduates and deprived them of Chocolate, Vanilla or not deprivation at all.
The result was:
“Chocolate-deprived restrained eaters consumed more chocolate food than did any other group. Restrained eaters experienced more food cravings than did unrestrained eaters and were more likely to eat the craved food”
But for me the most interesting conclusion was this:
“Moreover, restrained eaters deprived of chocolate spent the least time doing an anagram task before a "taste-rating task" in which they expected that chocolate foods might be available”
So if you are deprived, not only will you actually end up eating more, but you will also rush through life at times where you think the food that you are deprived from is on the other side of the task - and as we know from other studies when you are in a state of stress, you will indeed consume more food.
The final conclusion from this study was the following:
“Converging measures of craving indicate that deprivation causes craving and overeating, but primarily in restrained eaters.”
Which draws a direct correlation between deprivation - and overeating especially in those who are abstaining from certain foods.
Ergo, to conquer those cravings, give yourself permission to eat the foods you enjoy the most.
Remember, if it is within your Calorie Window it won’t halt your progress. Added to that…even if it is outside your Calorie Window, having it might still do less damage to your overall goals than not having it at all.
Remember…CRAVINGS ALWAYS WIN because WILLPOWER IS FINITE.
And by giving yourself permission to eat these foods you will eradicate many negative feelings you attach to “indulging”.
Bottom Line
These strategies are here to help you understand why you might be behaving in a certain way. All 6 might work a treat for you, you might only need one or two of them to find success.
As I have been writing this article, someone has reached out to me on Instagram discussing her past trauma and how that effects her eating, especially late at night. Emotional Eating is a whole other topic, and although some of what I have shared in this article might be helpful to you, if you are dealing with something a lot deeper then I urge you to get the proper help needed for that.
In our conversations, this person explained to me that as part of dealing with the trauma it leads her to eat foods that she is craving, foods that she also knows work against her fitness goals.
But in this instance, working on the trauma and resolving what happened is much more important. If eating choclate after a therpay session helps you cope with the therapy and is a part of the process of your healing, then you have to understand that is going to be better for your long term success as a person, as opposed to your short term success for your fitness goals.
To be hungry is normal.
To have cravings is normal.
To have an appetite is normal.
To have reduced willpower in the evenings is normal.
I don’t want you to have read this article and then thought that because you can’t seem to avoid late-night snacking, even when you implement some of the things in this article you are in some way “broken”.
We all need to stop trying to find ways of erasing our human self, in the pursuit of fitness.
You don’t need appetite suppressants, you don’t need bio hacks and you don’t need to just “have more willpower”.
You more than likely need to have more self-empathy and understanding for your own human condition.
And you probably need to:
Exercise some more to reduce your stress
Get to Bed earlier to help reduce your stress
Stop restricting yourself away from foods you love….to reduce your stress.
Your cravings come from too much stress and drained willpower at the end of the day.
Luckily, that’s far easier worked upon than trying to “fix” what isn’t broken in the first place.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
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Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can.
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References:
Mathes, W. F., Brownley, K. A., Mo, X., & Bulik, C. M. (2009). The biology of binge eating. Appetite, 52(3), 545–553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2009.03.005
Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, Cai H, Cassimatis T, Chen KY, Chung ST, Costa E, Courville A, Darcey V, Fletcher LA, Forde CG, Gharib AM, Guo J, Howard R, Joseph PV, McGehee S, Ouwerkerk R, Raisinger K, Rozga I, Stagliano M, Walter M, Walter PJ, Yang S, Zhou M. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):67-77.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008. Epub 2019 May 16. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):226. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2020 Oct 6;32(4):690. PMID: 31105044; PMCID: PMC7946062.
Leidy HJ, Tang M, Armstrong CL, Martin CB, Campbell WW. The effects of consuming frequent, higher protein meals on appetite and satiety during weight loss in overweight/obese men. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr;19(4):818-24. doi: 10.1038/oby.2010.203. Epub 2010 Sep 16. PMID: 20847729; PMCID: PMC4564867.
Muckelbauer R, Sarganas G, Grüneis A, Müller-Nordhorn J. Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Aug;98(2):282-99. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.112.055061. Epub 2013 Jun 26. PMID: 23803882.
Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Yau, Y. H., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva endocrinologica, 38(3), 255–267.
Mestre, Z. L., Melhorn, S. J., Askren, M. K., Tyagi, V., Gatenby, C., Young, L., Mehta, S., Webb, M. F., Grabowski, T. J., & Schur, E. A. (2016). Effects of Anxiety on Caloric Intake and Satiety-Related Brain Activation in Women and Men. Psychosomatic medicine, 78(4), 454–464. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000299
Koball AM, Meers MR, Storfer-Isser A, Domoff SE, Musher-Eizenman DR. Eating when bored: revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom. Health Psychol. 2012 Jul;31(4):521-4. doi: 10.1037/a0025893. Epub 2011 Oct 17. PMID: 22004466.
British Psychological Society (BPS). "Bored people reach for the chips." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 April 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160427081756.htm>.
Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?
We live in an age where sleep is an aspect of our lives we compromise on more and more.
Sometimes through our own behaviors, we have ALL said “just one more episode” when watching Schitts Creek, despite knowing it would take our sleep from seven hours…to six and a half.
Or…many people struggle with their sleep due to more intricate issues like anxiety and stress. In fact in the UK during the first Lockdown in 2020, Britons suffering from sleep loss due to worrying increased from one in six to one in four, with Key Workers, Mothers, and people from Minority Backgrounds being the worst affected [1].
We know that Mental Health issues are on the rise, outside of the Global Pandemic. In fact, this is the World Health Organizations summary of the state of the Worlds Mental Health as of 2017:
“Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide. Mainly because of demographic changes, there has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the last decade (to 2017). Mental health conditions now cause 1 in 5 years lived with disability. Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Approximately one in five people in post-conflict settings have a mental health condition.
Mental health conditions can have a substantial effect on all areas of life, such as school or work performance, relationships with family and friends and ability to participate in the community. Two of the most common mental health conditions, depression and anxiety, cost the global economy US$ 1 trillion each year.
Despite these figures, the global median of government health expenditure that goes to mental health is less than 2%.” [2]
From this information, it is fair to conclude that as our Mental Health deteriorates, so too does our sleep.
And this links to increased body weight.
As the study “Sleep and Obesity” from 2011 states:
“According to recent estimates, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has doubled since 1980. This obesity epidemic has been paralleled in modern society by a trend of reduced sleep duration. Poor sleep quality, which is often associated with overall sleep loss, has also become a frequent complaint.”[3].
Please don’t misunderstand me.
Sleep is certainly a major aspect of every human’s life, but it doesn’t dictate whether or not you gain weight - eating too many calories does.
But Sleep, or lack thereof, is oftentimes the reason that you might be consuming more calories.
And that is what we are going to unpick in this article.
I’m going to show you some of the risk factors associated with lack of sleep, how that will then impact your sleep - and crucially a plan of action to help you improve your sleep.
Table of Contents for: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?
The Link between Sleep, Depression and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Stress and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain
How To Improve Your Sleep
Over the years that I have been working as a Personal Trainer, one thing that very few people seem to have a handle is a good, solid, sleep routine.
And the second I bring it up with them, they get very defensive.
I have heard things like:
“I may go to bed at 2 am but I sleep really well”
“Lack of sleep just doesn’t affect me”
“But I must have “me” time”
And from Matthew Walkers brilliant book “Why We Sleep” he states this:
“People have said to me I’ll sleep when I’m dead. And that is exactly right…because lack of sleep in one’s life means that you will indeed die sooner”
The benefits of sleep sit directly opposite to many of the causes of weight gain and obesity.
We know that factors like depression, stress, poorer health, lack of confidence, lack of creativity, and lack of movement, are all things that can lead to increased body weight in an individual.
And they are all aspects of your life that sleep can improve.
The Link Between Sleep and Mental Health and Weight Gain:
According to the Sleep Foundation:
“It is becoming clear that there is a bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health [4] in which sleeping problems may be both a cause and consequence of mental health problems.”
Cause and consequence.
The later stage of sleep, known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, a stage that you will visit up to 4-6 times as an adult has profound effects on your emotions and health.
The amygdala is part of the brain, that is responsible for your emotional memories. It is responsible for giving emotions meaning and memory. It is also responsible for your responses to your emotions.
All of your emotions.
In a study by Matthew Walker, [5] they took a group of people and split them in two. Both Groups were shown emotional Stimuli, and then one group was allowed to sleep, the other was sleep deprived.
As you can see in the Figure below the sleep deprivation group showed much higher activity in the amygdala:
Concluding that: “Without sleep, however, amygdala-mPFC connectivity was decreased, potentially negating top-down control and resulting in an overactive amygdala.”
But why does Depression or even an Overactive Amygdyla due to lack of sleep equal weight gain?
Have you ever heard the term “emotional eating”?
I think we all know what emotional eating is, although there isn’t an actual medical definition. I would describe it as:
The behaviour of consuming any food, as a direct result of an emotional experience you have had happened to you at any time in your past, or anticipate might happen to you in the future and seeking short-term comfort in this behavior.
In fact, I bet you have used it…I think we all have at one time or another.
Depression in and of itself doesn’t mean you will gain weight but there is a correlation.
About 43% of Adults with Depression are Obese according to the CDC, and those who are diagnosed with depression are more than likely to be overweight.
So you have to ask yourself. What is coming first? Depression, Emotional Eating or Lack of Sleep?
Well, I can’t sit here and tell you to just stop being depressed.
I can’t sit here and tell you to just stop eating emotionally.
But I can ask you to build a better structure around your bedtime, protect your sleep in a much better way…and can then see if that has a positive impact on the other factors at play.
The Link Between Sleep and STRESS and Weight Gain:
Stress impacts hunger in a number of ways. In fact, stress is an emotional term we give to a hormonal response pulsing around our body. This hormone is called Cortisol.
Cortisol can cause havoc in our systems.
When we experience stress, our adrenal glands on top of our Kidneys release insulin into our bloodstream, which means that there is more Glucose in our system.
This is fine when you are running from a bear - or a whirlwhind.
But repetitive exposure in the body to Cortisol can and will lead to weight gain - because that glucose needs to be used, or it gets stored in the body…and typically that occurs around the midsection.
A 2015 study [6] found that when people are stressed your metabolism is slower.
In the modern-day, a threat can be a bad news article, an unwanted text, bills to pay, just a scroll on Social Media. We don’t run from bears anymore.
What we do instead is sit at our desk fuming at the situation we are in, or we turn to our fridges in order to cope with the emotional feeling we are experiencing.
How does Sleep reduce Stress?
Having already established that REM sleep helps you reduce the activity in your amygdala each night and in turn helps you with your mental health, it stands to reason that it would also help you with the emotion of stress.
In fact, here is an image from the American Psychological Association [7] that demonstrates the negative effect of stress on people if they get less than 8 hours of sleep a night:
Looking at that list of symptoms of stress, outside the norms of being an emotional eater, many of them link directly to other factors that lead to weight gain.
Lacking interest, motivation, or energy - we know that boredom equals the consumption of food in many people, combined with the lack of motivation and energy leading to a lower metabolism each day.
Skipping Exercise - this will result in fewer calories burned, less muscle on the body and therefore opens up the potential to unwanted weight gain
The Link Between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain
Your appetite is controlled by two very receptive hormones.
Leptin and Grehlin.
Leptin is the hormone that is responsible for your stomach telling your brain that you are full.
Grehlin is the hormone that is responsible for your stomach telling your brain (hypothalamus) that you are hungry,
In the ideal world we want our brains to be very recpetive to Leptin, and have low levels of Grehlin, leading to lower hunger and increased satiety once we eat.
Think of Grehlin as this:
A little gremlin that is easily influenced and affected by nearly everything that goes on in your body.
Factors that increase Grehlin in your body are:
Weight Extremes, both anorexia and obesity alter Grehlin
Low Muscle Mass
Lack of Protein in your Diet
Yo-Yo Dieting
Eating too few calories for too long a time
and, yup you’ve guessed it:
Lack of Sleep
Added to that there are many factors that cause Leptin levels to decrease, or more, can lead our brains to just not recognize it.
And therefore you may never feel full after eating…even though you technically are, which will result in more calories consumed.
When this is the case you are “Leptin Resistant” and to try and reverse this you should:
Exercise more
Eat less highly processed foods
Increase your Soluble fiber intake (fruits, vegetables, whole grains)
Increase your protein intake
and, yup you’ve guessed it:
Improve your sleep
How are Grehlin and Leptin affected by Sleep?
In 2004, Taheri et al, took 1,024 participants from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study [8] and tested their blood each morning for Grehlin and Leptin levels.
The study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.
As shown here:
The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain
The Sleep Foundation states: “Losing sleep can result in having less energy for exercise and physical activity” [9]
If I refer you back to the image I shared with you earlier, from the American Psychological Association, there were two symptoms of stress that I bought to your attention in terms of how stress affects your ability to affect your weight.
Lacking interest, motivation, or energy and Skipping Exercise
This all points towards “prescribed movement” and it stands to reason that you are going to be less likely to head to the gym if you are sleep deprived.
No one wants to see this:
But there are other forms of movement that help significantly with your weight loss efforts.
The Daily Step Count.
And let’s face it, those who are tired are less likely to walk, less likely to fidget, and therefore are less likely to burn enough calories in the day to help them with their weight loss efforts. Therefore lack of sleep reduces your metabolism.
How does reduced sleep mean fewer calories burned each day?
When we look at your Metabolism - the name given to the body’s ability to burn calories - we can see it is broken down into four main sections:
The two I want to draw your attention to today are:
NEAT - Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and EAT - Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.
These two categories are basically the calories you burn through movement. NEAT is your daily movement outside of prescribed activity, and EAT is your prescribed activity.
Therefore, if you aren’t moving, if you aren’t getting to the gym, then you are burning fewer calories each day. NEAT is 15% of your Metabolism and is the reason we Personal Trainers ask you so very often to increase your step count. More steps equal more calories burned which equals an impact on your weight.
Aside from all the other amazing benefits walking can bring you.
Added to this, the more tired you are, the less intensity you will be able to put into your training.
There have been a variety of studies on this.
This study [9] took 10 male athletes, deprived them of sleep for 30 hours, and tested their Sprinting ability - which was indeed reduced significantly.
This study [10] took Runners and Volleyball players and tested their time to exhaustion after being deprived of sleep for one night. It concluded: “We suggest that one-night sleep deprivation may reduce exercise performance by decreasing exercise minute ventilation and time to exhaustion. We also indicate that sleep loss may decrease more the performance of volleyball players than that of runners.”
It would is my belief that Volleyball players tire quicker because the sport would require much more cognitive work combined with physical work. It is a less repetitive movement pattern and therefore you are having to make more decisions relating to the execution of skill as well as your physical fitness.
Looking at these studies, it is fair to conclude that lack of sleep will result in less time being active, less intensity when being active and therefore not helping your overall goal of being able to sustain a healthy weight in the long term.
How To Improve Your Sleep
Now that we have looked into the effects that not having enough sleep can have on you, its probably a good idea to look at how to actually help you to get to sleep so that you can start implementing some better behaviors for your bedtime.
Plan to Get 8 Hours Sleep A Night
All of the studies I have looked into for this article state that the optimal time for sleep is indeed 8 hours. This is because our bodies go through sleep cycles - about 4-6 a night.
NREM sleep or Light Sleep is broken into three stages, and in one cycle to get through all three stages it can take about 45mins.
REM sleep or Deep Sleep can last between 10-60mins. Giving you a total, across 6 cycles, of about 8 hours worth of sleep.
The whole pattern of your sleep is known as your “sleep architecture” and as you can imagine, we all have a different architecture - but bearing these guidelines in mind will certainly help you.
Sleep with the Sun
Have you ever heard of a circadian rhythm? This is your body’s natural timer, that correlates with the sun.
As the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences states:
“Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These natural processes respond primarily to light and dark and affect most living things, including animals, plants, and microbes. Chronobiology is the study of circadian rhythms. One example of a light-related circadian rhythm is sleeping at night and being awake during the day.” [11]
Many people put great value on living in harmony with their circadian rhythm and making sure they get up when the sun comes up and go to sleep when the sun comes down - and it makes sense that it is what the human race has done since time began.
So if you are lucky enough to be able to do this…then I strongly recommend it. If you are a Shift Worker or a New Mum, then of course this will be more difficult for you to implement…but at times in your life when you can…make this a priority in the best way possible.
Exercise Regularly
Exercise makes you tired, which makes you sleep in a more restful state. By sleeping in a more restful state you will get much more quality sleep and feel more rested when you wake up again.
Exercise also helps stabilize your mood and decompress your mind which will help you drift off into NREM Sleep.
Listen to a Sleep Story
Why do we read to children before bed? One because it’s good for their development…but also to help them wind down after an exciting day of discovering the world. Yet as adults we simply think that we don’t need to do the same.
We give our brains no space to decompress from whatever we were doing in the evening to hitting the pillow. And then we just toss and turn and get frustrated that we can’t seem to drift off.
Sleep Stories are excellent at two things.
Distracting your mind and taking them on a journey
Helping you meditate before you sleep
I’m awful at keeping up with the habit of meditating - despite the fact I know how good it is for me.
Being able to quieten the mind during the day is something that takes discipline and repetition - and my days lack structure for that to be able to occur.
Therefore I do my meditation as I drift off to sleep - and I kill two birds with one stone.
Might not be optimal. But it’s certainly possible for me - and I do these with Sleep Stories.
I can’t remember how I first discovered them…but I have been listening to them very consistently on the Calm App for nearly 5 years now - and have journeyed in my mind’s eye to some of the most amazing places the world has to offer - and it has benefited my sleep beyond words.
Sleep Stories do take a while to get used to…and they do require an element of patience. For a while I used to fight them so much, I used to find them intrusive and frustrating…but just like meditation the more you practice the better the effect of them.
So if the Sleep Story doesn’t work right away - the issue is not likely to be the story (although we all find different voices soothing and not so soothing). Work through it - the benefits of being able to calm the mind to ensure you drift off peacefully are very much worth it.
If you want to try a Sleep Story…luckily I have recorded a few myself for you to enjoy.
Listen to a Sleep Meditation
These are very similar to Sleep Stories but rather than distract your imagination they are designed to focus you on your breathing, using suggestive language to help you calm your mind and drift away into NREM Sleep.
Meditation is a very powerful tool to help you learn to quieten the mind and help you move away from the stress of your day.
Here is a selection of Sleep Meditations I recorded for my clients.
If the Sleep Stories are too distracting these might help you in a very similar way.
Get Off Your Phone 60mins before Bedtime
Your phone releases Blue Light. In fact, most screens do. And this blue light directly stops your brain from releasing melatonin, which is the hormone required to induce sleep.
It’s great to have this Blue Light during the daytime, as it can be helpful to keep our brains switched on, however it is not helpful before bedtime.
In fact, many screens these days have a “Night Shift” Mode which takes out the blue light and makes your screen look yellow. I have this turned up all day every day on both my iPhone, my MacBook, and my iPad.
It has got to the point where when I look at a phone without this on…I feel like I need sunglasses to look at it. I also make sure my TV Screens have their backlight and Brightness turned down. It takes some getting used to in the beginning. But is so worth it on the other side of a great night’s sleep.
Reduce Caffeine late in the day
Now by late in the day I really mean late in the morning like 11 am.
And by Caffeine I’m not just talking about Coffee. I’m talking about all caffeinated drinks, including Coke Zero and Cups of Tea.
Let me explain why.
The standardized recommendation for caffeine for an adult each day is just 400mg.
Caffeine has a half-life of 5 hours. This means that if you drink a cup of coffee with 300mg of Caffeine in it, like a Starbucks Venti Americano, at 11 am, you still have 150mg of Caffeine in your system at 4 pm. Wind this on further, and at 9 pm you still have 75mg of Caffeine in your system - and at 2 am the next day 37.5mg of Caffeine in your system.
Now I know many people, that believe Caffeine doesn’t affect them. This is certainly not the case. About 10% of the world has the “Caffeine Gene” according to a 2011 study.
If you are still able to consume caffeine and drift off to sleep then that’s great, but the effects of the caffeine will happen in your sleep. The caffeine will affect your ability to get into the crucial deep restorative REM sleep [12].
Reduce Alcohol Intake
Sorry, Homer. This just isn’t true…especially if you struggle with fatigue.
Much like Caffeine, Alcohol also inhibits that all-important restorative REM Sleep.
Although alcohol can induce sleepiness and is a relaxant, you will get into a vicious cycle if you rely on it for sleep, because of how it impacts your ability to have deep REM Sleep.
In Conclusion
Sleep is one of the single most important pillars of a healthy happy life. Away from your body weight, sleep is a critical part of your human behaviour.
Now I am acutely aware that sleep cannot be afforded to us all in a fair manner. My fiancee works in Emergency Services, and she has looked into the negative effect that shift work has on your health. Poor Sleep behaviour isn’t the sole reason that shift workers’ health is negatively affected, but it is certainly one of the largest.
I am also aware that many people struggle to sleep for much deeper psychological reasons pertaining to something from their past.
And of course, as I have mentioned previously, new parents are always going to struggle with their sleep behaviour for obvious reasons.
What I would ask of you is this.
Give yourself a chance. Many people do struggle to sleep, but they also don’t do anything to help the root causes of this either.
I once heard that the bedroom should only be used for two things.
Sleep and Sex.
If you want to make your Weight Loss journey as successful as possible, as sustainable as possible and you want to get the most out of your training, then stop looking for the BCAA supplements, stop looking for the quick fixes, stop looking for the optimal amount of nutrition and for crying out loud….PRIORITISE YOUR SLEEP.
If you get this in place first…I bet everything falls into complete insignificance.
Sleep and Sex.
If you remember one thing from this article.
Remember that.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.
A New Program Designed To Get You Stronger, Healthier & more confident than ever before.
My aim with the friends I work with is to give them so much more out of their fitness by focussing them on the process of getting stronger and therefore making them more confident.
Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can
My approach to online training is no different. The whole program is about you - how best can I serve you, and therefore help you in the best way possible.
Just like my client Tim who has nailed the last 5 months.
We actually worked very hard on two things I have referenced in this article with Tim. We increased his Steps (NEAT) and we improved his sleep.
Tim is getting married next year, and he is trying to make sure that he feels his most confident & strong on what will be a truly happy day. Tim has trained with me in person for a number of years until in 2021 he decided to take me up on my offer of working online.
And by making that switch…he really started getting some results. In 5months he has lost nearly 2 stone in weight, and every lift he is doing has improved. This coincided with asking Tim to get more steps in each day…and now he is on an average of 15k a day….and his sleep has improved leaps and bounds.
He still enjoys a beer at the weekend - and we both have a love of well Barista’d coffee.
But he has learned how to still enjoy meals out with his lovely fiancee (soon-to-be wife) as well as keeping on track with his goals of feeling stronger and more confident ready to tie the knot.
It goes without saying how utterly proud of him I am.
But more importantly…he is proud of himself.
And there is no better success than that.
If you want to get a Free Month of Coaching with me then hit the Learn More button below and apply to work with me on the next page.
Thank you so much for being here and reading my work.
Speak again soon,
Coach Adam
References:
the Guardian. 2021. Coronavirus lockdown caused sharp increase of insomnia in UK. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/02/coronavirus-lockdown-increase-insomnia-uk-sleep-mothers> [Accessed 24 May 2021].
Who.int. 2021. Mental health. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_2> [Accessed 24 May 2021].
Beccuti, G., & Pannain, S. (2011). Sleep and obesity. Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care, 14(4), 402–412. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0b013e3283479109
Scott, A. J., Webb, T. L., & Rowse, G. (2017). Does improving sleep lead to better mental health? A protocol for a meta-analytic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ open, 7(9), e016873.https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016873
Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 731–748.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
Kiecolt-Glaser JK, Habash DL, Fagundes CP, et al. Daily stressors, past depression, and metabolic responses to high-fat meals: a novel path to obesity. Biol Psychiatry. 2015;77(7):653-660. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.05.018
https://www.apa.org. 2021. Stress and sleep. [online] Available at: <https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2013/sleep> [Accessed 2 June 2021].
Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Skein M, Duffield R, Edge J, Short MJ, Mündel T. Intermittent-sprint performance and muscle glycogen after 30 h of sleep deprivation. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Jul;43(7):1301-11. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31820abc5a. PMID: 21200339
Azboy O, Kaygisiz Z. Effects of sleep deprivation on cardiorespiratory functions of the runners and volleyball players during rest and exercise. Acta Physiol Hung. 2009 Mar;96(1):29-36. doi: 10.1556/APhysiol.96.2009.1.3. PMID: 19264040.
Nigms.nih.gov. 2021. Circadian Rhythms. [online] Available at: <https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/Circadian-Rhythms.aspx> [Accessed 3 June 2021].
Sleepfoundation.org. 2021. Caffeine’s Connection to Sleep Problems | Sleep Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/caffeine-and-sleep> [Accessed 3 June 2021].
How To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit Without Being Hungry
The Calorie Deficit is an incredible tool when it comes to weight loss.
In fact…it’s the only tool.
So if you want to lose weight…you need to understand how to make a calorie deficit as easy as possible for you.
That being said…it isn’t an easy thing to do.
One of the quandaries that dieters are in is how to eat fewer calories overall….and not get stupendously hungry in the process.
And that is the aim of this article. To teach you how to figure out this conundrum - to keep hunger low and intake as high as possible - whilst still being in a Calorie Deficit.
Added to that I am going to share some recipes with you that are from the Recipe Manuals I give to, my clients on the Strong & Confident Program
The recipes are all:
As much food volume for as few calories as possible
Have MyFitness Pal Barcodes for you to track
Tasty as hell
For example…one thing that directly affects your caloric expenditure is indeed your caloric intake.
The simple adage: “Eat Less, Move More” is not only stupid but more and more it’s becoming clearer that you just can’t simplify the energy balance equation to something so base.
Firstly, let me say thank you to you for being here. What I am hoping by the end of this article is that you comprehend more about what a Calorie Deficit looks like in terms of the foods that will make it as easy as possible for you and help reduce your hunger.
Secondly, it would be awesome if we became friends by way of you joining my mailing list.
I will, of course, email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, and sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be delightful to connect with you more.
Just send me a friend request by filling out the form below…
Thirdly, please bear in mind that the body is clever…and it has what we call a “Set Point”. This Set Point in terms of your weight is where your body is happiest, and it’s very hard to change….but it can be changed.
Your body loves to be exactly where it is….and moving it away from that point, whether you want to gain weight or lose weight, the body will fight you.
Fight you every step of the way.
(Side Note: Sir Ian McKellen is actually one of the nicest actors I have ever met)
The body won’t fight you because it hates you, or because you are broken.
Your Metabolism is not broken (unless diagnosed by a Doctor and even then…it can still be affected to work for your Fat Loss in nearly all situations)
Don’t believe me? Read this:
Your body fights you, and everybody’s body fights them because of something called Homeostasis - which is your body being in balance hormonally. It likes who you are. Your body just loves being cosy and warm and loves to snuggle you exactly where you are.
Personally, I have been trying to gain weight for about six months now. My body is comfortable and really happy at 80kgs - it’s where I feel best. I feel strong, I feel happy in my clothes and my belly feels normal.
In February I weighed in at 83.5kg. I remember going to a Birthday Party for a 1-year-old and I felt so out of sorts. My body didn’t feel right, my belly felt bloated and although I was at 83.5kg it felt like I was a lot higher weight than that.
It was an abnormal spike, I weigh myself every day, and I knew it was a spike. But I personally felt very uncomfortable. I was bloated and I felt awful for the whole day.
But if I look at my average weight over the last 90 days it is 82kgs - and I feel exactly the same now as I did at 80kgs.
I don’t feel bloated and uncomfortable. I feel exactly the same. I have changed my Set-Point. My Metabolism, Muscle Mass and Diet have all fallen into line with where I am at the moment.
And this happens both in weight gain and weight loss.
It takes time.
It’s not easy.
And there are ups and downs.
BUT
You can change that set point.
This is why Dieting is hard. This is why you might feel incredibly hungry when you are in a Calorie Deficit.
And this is why I have written this article.
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: How To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit Without Being Hungry
You can listen to the audio version of this Blog Post on my Podcast: The Fitness Solution
How Much Food Should You Eat In A Calorie Deficit?
This is a crucial question.
Now I am sure you are reading this because you have an understanding of a Calorie Deficit and you probably know the numbers you are trying to work towards.
However, if that isn’t you…before you read this article please head here:
Now. personally, I get all of my clients to set their Deficit into a Caloric Window.
This window is between their Basal Metabolic Rate (70% of their Metabolism) and Goal Body Weight in LBS x 12.
(Provided they have given me a realistic Goal Body Weight - that’s a WHOLE other topic)
Then I encourage them to EAT MORE FOOD.
Many of them, when they start working with me will go for the lowest number…their BMR, because they believe that will give them their results the quickest.
But what you must always remember is:
“If the methods are unsustainable the results are unsustainable”
Therefore I encourage them wholeheartedly to eat more. Eat more food. Higher Volume food so that being in a deficit is as easy as possible for them.
If you want to learn how to lose weight and keep it off forever, then you need to do this too.
Sacrifice quick results.
For lasting results.
By eating more food than you ever have before.
The ultimate goal for your Calorie Deficit is to eat as much as you can within your numbers - that is the aim.
Not to eat as little to survive.
This comes down to the whole thrive or survive mindset - and like always I want you to be your absolute best….not just cling on for dear life.
What Foods should you eat to help with hunger?
Rather oddly.
Over the last couple of days, I have had a TikTok post go very viral.
All on this topic.
The aim of what you are going to eat should be quite clear to you now….
MORE FOOD!
But the question remains…how do you do that without increasing Calories outside your Window?
Don’t Forget To Follow Me On Instagram:
Protein - The Weight Loss SuperFood
The first place to look is here - under this Macro Nutrient.
I’m sure you are aware that Protein is a very important aspect of your diet.
I think the world is coming around to how advantageous Protein is when dieting. But many people do still underestimate how useful it really can be.
It can also be one of the hardest things to increase to adequate amounts. (about 1.8-2g/kg of Lean Body Mass)
It has only 4kcal/g and has a multitude of other benefits when dieting:
Helps maintain muscle when losing weight (i like to think of this as eating muscle to get muscle).
Keeps you fuller for longer - as it takes longer to digest.
Reduces Appetite and Hunger Levels - as it reduces the hunger hormone Grehlin in your body.
My Favourite Sources of Protein (PRO):
Meat per 100g serving:
Chicken Breast: ~30g Pro / 6g Fat / 0g Cho / 165kcal
Turkey Breast: ~28g Pro / 7g Fat / 0g Cho / 189kcal
Steak: ~26g Pro / 19g Fat / 0g Cho / 276kcal
Kangaroo: ~20g Pro / 1.3g Fat / 0g Cho / 102 kcal
Fish per 100g serving:
Tuna Steak: ~29g Pro / 1.3g Fat / 0g Cho / 132 kcal
Salmon: ~22g Pro / 13g Fat / 0g Cho / 208kcal
Dover Sole: ~18g Pro / 1g Fat / 0g Cho / 89kcal
Halibut: ~22g Pro / 2.5g Fat / 0g Cho / 115kcal
Dairy per 100g serving:
Eggs: ~12g Pro / 11g Fat / 1.1g Cho / 155kcal
Greek Yoghurt: ~10g Pro / 0.4.g Fat / 3.6g Cho / 59kcal
Whole Milk: ~3g Pro / 3.4g Fat / 4.8g Cho / 63kcal
Some people find Milk filling, and others don’t. I quite often when I am trying to lose weight am able to survive all morning on two medium Coffees.
YoPro Plain Yoghurt: ~10.6g / 0.3g Fat / 4.4g Cho / 64kcal
Cottage Cheese: ~11g Pro / 6g Fat / 1.9g Cho / 127kcal
Many of my clients really don’t like Cottage Cheese, so I tell them my strategy. Use it instead of Butter in your Sandwiches and Rolls and you won’t even notice it is in there.
Vegetarian Options per 100g:
Tofu: ~11.9g Pro / 7.5g Fat / 0g Cho / 127kcal
Tempeh: ~12.4g Pro / 5g Fat / 0.5g Cho / 112kcal
Seitan: ~25g Pro / 0.6g Fat / 5.3g Cho / 126kcal
Lentils: ~9g Pro / 0.4g Fat / 20g Cho / 116kcal
Supplementation of Protein per 100g:
Isolate Whey Protein: ~ 84g Pro / 3.9g Fat / 1.22g Cho / 380kcal
Quest Protein Bars ~ 35g Pro / 10g Fat / 7g Cho / 302kcal
My Favourite High Protein Meals:
Carbohydrates - The Demonised Food
Let me take a moment to be abundantly clear here.
Carbohydrates do not make you fat.
Sugar does not make you fat.
Carbs are literally a third of your diet and they are mightily important.
That being said some Carbohydrates have this annoying trifecta effect.
They are so damn tasty.
They are can be very high in calories
You don’t get to eat a lot of food for that calorie amount
And remember we are trying to make sure you feel full after eating - not empty. So your best Carbohydrate options will be the ones that are Lower Calorie, Higher Volume and will fill you up for longer as they contain more Fibre too.
I always advise the friends I coach online to lean into their Carbohydrate intake. If Calories are hard to keep down…then changing up your Carbohydrate source is the most powerful thing you can do.
Carbohydrates have exactly the same energy in them as Protein.
Please read that again.
Protein has 4kcal per gram and Carbohydrate has 4kcal per gram.
Irrespective of if you are eating sugar as your Carbohydrate or a Vegetable.
The issue arises when we eat sugar we normally eat an awful lot of it at once, and it makes us want more….which is why we begin to gain weight when we eat it.
My Favourite Sources of Carbohydrate (CHO):
Vegetables per 100g serving:
Sweet Potato: ~20g of Cho / 1.6g Pro / 0.1g Fat / 86kcal
Potato: ~17g of Cho / 2g Pro / 0.1g Fat / 77kcal
Carrots: ~9.6g of Cho / 0.9g Pro / 0.2g Fat / 41kcal
Broccoli: ~7g of Cho / 2.8g Pro / 0.4g Fat / 34kcal
Tomatoes: ~4g of Cho / 0.9g Pro / 0.2g Fat / 18kcal
Bell Pepper: ~6g of Cho / 1g Pro / 0.3g Fat / 31kcal
Interestingly Potatoes rank as the highest satiating food on the planet….according to the Satiety Index - and you can see the difference between Potato and Sweet Potato is negligible - both have their individual benefits.
My other fun fact about Vegetables is that this rule generally rings true: If it grows under the ground it will be slightly higher in calories than if it grows above the ground.
Fruits per 100g serving:
Strawberries: ~8g of Cho / 0.7g Pro / 0.3g Fat / 32kcal
Blueberries: ~15g of Cho / 0.7g Pro / 0.3g Fat / 57kcal
Blackberries: ~10g of Cho / 1.4g Pro / 0.5g Fat / 43kcal
Banana: ~23g of Cho / 1.1g Pro / 0.3g Fat / 89kcal
Apples: 14g of Cho / 0.3g Pro / 0.2g Fat / 52kcal
Watermelon: 8g of Cho / 0.6g Pro / 0.2g Fat / 30kcal
Fruits are incredibly powerful in filling you out and being able to fuel your workouts. I have a Banana before every strength session I do and start most days with fruit and a protein yogurt. Many fruits are so incredibly low in calories which means you can eat an awful lot of them if you need to cure hunger.
Whole Grains per 100g serving:
Oats: ~12g Cho / 2.4g Pro / 1.4g Fat / 68kcal
Brown Rice: ~23g Cho / 2.3g Pro / 0.9g Fat / 111kcal
White Rice: ~28g of Cho / 2.7g Pro / 0.3g Fat / 130kcal
Bulgur Wheat: ~76g Cho / 12g Pro / 1.3g Fat / 342kcal
Quinoa: ~21g Cho / 4.4g Pro / 1.9g / 120kcal
Cous Cous: ~23g Cho / 3.8g Pro / 0.2g Fat / 112kcal
Beans and Legumes per 100g serving:
Legumes: ~14g Cho / 5g Pro / 0.4 Fat / 81kcal
Tinned Mixed Beans: ~22.8g Cho / 8.7g Pro / 0.5g Fat / 127kcal
My Favourite High Carb/Low-Calorie Meals:
Dietary Fats
As we are here let me know touch on Fats.
Fats in and of themselves might not be the satiating for you. It’s quite a personal thing.
Some foods high in Fats like nuts, also contain Fibre just like many of the carbohydrates foods I have outlined above.
However, Fats carry a whopping 9kcal per gram and so when you start to increase these in your diet…you also increase your Calories.
Fats play an essential role in our health - they help the absorption of the ADEK Vitamins. Fats are also very useful for our cognitive function and helping to regulate our Hormones.
Don’t avoid them. But when focussing on Fat Loss make sure that you use them wisely.
I always like to add a portion of Nuts to my Salads and I usually have an Avocado with Salads and whenever I have Beans on Toast.
It seems to keep me going just fine.
Other Foods That Will Help You:
High Protein Bread per 100g:
My personal favourite is Burgen Soy and Linseed Bread: 15.2g protein/287kcal
Helga’s Soy and Toasted Sesame Bread: 15.8g protein/280kcal
These are both great options - as they rank high in the Fibre department too.
Many people believe that “bread is bad” and actually, come to think of it when I first started as a Personal Trainer nearly 7 years ago….I used to say this too.
But I got educated, and am happy to admit that I am on a journey of growth as much as anyone else.
I love these two loaves of bread because, well, it gives you an opportunity to make a more informed choice that will help you. You are always going to eat the bread…so how do you affect the quality of that bread? Well, I think these two do that just brilliantly.
Zero Calorie or Very Low-Calorie Sparkling Water per 100ml:
Plain and simple Carbonated Water is 0kcal per 100ml.
or
Mount Franklin Lightly Sparkling Raspberry Flavour: 2kcal/100ml
I use Sparkling Water all of the time. I use it late at night to help me avoid going for Beer when I am just sick of drinking water - and it’s really effective, it’s really refreshing and I can’t recommend it enough.
Low-Calorie Pasta Alternatives per 100g:
Slendier Spaghetti: 3.9g Fibre/8kcal
The whole Slendier Range is just simply magnificent. The amount of Volume of food you can eat for such little calories - I wouldn’t be surprised if they put conventional out of business very soon.
My fiancee and I use this whenever we make Spaghetti Bolognaise, and honestly…I notice no difference at all.
Low-Calorie Ice Cream per 100g:
Strawberry Cheesecake Halo Top: 5g protein, 15g carbohydrate/132kcal
My Favourite Desserts:
Other Tips and Tricks to Help with Hunger
Brush Your Teeth
It’s odd how brushing your teeth kills your appetite. But apparently, it’s because removing the small food particles in your mouth it stops them from playing tricks with your brain about how hungry you are.
I think there’s also something nice about it that prepares you for bed and you are aware you don’t want to be eating too close to when you sleep.
Mindful Eating
That rage. That rage you feel when you are hungry….
I know you know it well. Because we all experience it.
And then you eat something….
And the rage seems to still be there.
Oh.
Maybe you weren’t hungry, to begin with, hey? (sorry….Australia is starting to get to me).
Being truly mindful in these situations is really helpful. I do think Mindfulness and the whole chat around it at the moment is just vogue…and it’s not really a term I truly enjoy using. But it does seem to sum this up quite well.
When you feel hungry ask yourself: “Am I actually hungry or just a bit bored?”
Boredom eating is a form of emotional eating combined with stress eating - something which I think we all do in truth.
What is really going on here is your inability to work with and process the emotions you are feeling.
It might not be as cut and dry as “hungry vs bored”. You could be anxious, depressed, upset, feeling lonely, or vulnerable.
When you feel “hungry” it’s really important you begin to ask yourself what is truly going on. Have an important and difficult conversation with yourself and see if there are other emotions at play that you need to process.
Slow The F-Down
I’m terrible at this too. I eat far too quickly - and whenever I do I am always a touch more unsatisfied than when I just take my time.
There is also Science associated with taking your time when you eat.
There’s a hormone in your belly called Leptin - and this Hormone tells your brain when you are full.
But Leptin isn’t quick - it takes 20mins for that signal to be sent, and twenty minutes is more than enough time to absolutely eat many many more calories.
Some key strategies to slow you down would be:
Put your fork down between each mouthful.
Don’t watch TV or Sport when you are eating.
Engage in conversation with your family at the Dinner Table.
Don’t “work on your lunch break”
Try it. See how it feels.
Did You Find This Useful?
Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.
I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.
A New Program Designed To Get You Stronger, Healthier & more confident than ever before.
My aim with the friends I work with is to give them so much more out of their fitness by focussing them on the process of getting stronger and therefore making them more confident.
Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can
My approach to online training is no different. The whole program is about you - how best can I serve you, and therefore help you in the best way possible.
If you have enjoyed this article and want to see if a Free Month of Coaching would suit you then please click on the Learn More Button below:
I also have a couple of other articles that might help you navigate your Calorie Deficit:
Again, I hope you enjoy them.
Speak again soon,
Coach Adam