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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 To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps
You might think that my choice of image for this article is an odd one.
But by the end of you reading this, I promise it will become clear.
I am writing this because I got this gorgeous question from one of my one-to-one clients on the Strong and Confident Program.
Firstly, the fact that my client feels like she is personally battling this, means that there are probably millions of others out there battling with it as well.
It’s normal to feel scared about wanting to stop counting calories.
So my first point is, if you are here reading this, you are not alone.
You are here because you are struggling, and you want to find a release…this Article will provide that release from counting calories obsessively.
An awful lot of people when they are struggling feel lonely.
So please don’t.
To help stop you from feeling lonely, it would be awesome if you wanted to become my friend.
As your friend, I will send you some things. Links to my podcasts, an opportunity to work with me, some educational material, and a few books. and workout programs and probably the odd story about me, and my cats Nala and Simba.
If you want to chat more, please just send me a friend request by filling out this form:
My face now we are friends:
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: How To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps
Does Calorie Counting Work?
Should You Stop Counting Calories?
Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting
The Process Behind Stopping Calorie Counting
A Little Pep Talk
You can listen to the audio version of this Blog Post on my Podcast: The Fitness Solution
You can watch the video version of this Blog Post on my YouTube Channel:
Does Calorie Counting Work?
It wouldn’t take you long to flick through my Blog Posts and see that I regularly give out advice to help people learn how to manage counting calories and how to make it more effective.
This is because if your goal is weight loss or weight gain - counting calories can work.
But that doesn’t mean it will always work.
And it doesn’t mean that it is the best strategy for everyone.
If you look at the titles of my posts:
It would be fair to assume that I am indeed in favour of this as a strategy. But if you read the posts and look deeper, you will see the great variance and nuance in my message around Counting Calories and their relative success for you in your Weight Loss goals.
This morning I was talking to a Physician who specialises in Type 2 Diabetes Healthcare - and we got into a glorious discussion about what is optimal healthcare for these clients.
The conclusion we both had was:
You have to let the person decide what science you are going to use.
There is Science out there that clearly shows Calorie Counting can help manage body composition [1]:
“Over 3 times as many Consistent Trackers as Inconsistent Trackers achieved ≥ 5% weight loss at 3 months (48 vs. 13%) and at 6 months (54 vs. 15%; ps < .001). Though causality cannot be determined by the present study, tracking weight and/or diet nearly every day [on a Commercial App] per week for 12 weeks a commercial app may serve as an effective strategy for weight loss. Strategies are needed to promote greater consistency in tracking.”
There is also science that shows truly how damaging counting calories can be. Damaging for a relationship with food, relationship with body image, relationship with social occasions - and this damage is real - I’ve worked with more than enough people to know that to be true.
This study [2] analysed 5.5k posts on community forums and three mobile food journals in relation to the difficulties with food tracking.
It found posts summing up these emotions of those who engaged in this behaviour:
Food journalers report feelings of shame, judgment, 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”
Many of those feelings I can imagine you relate to. Which is why you are here.
The great tragedy in all of this is that my dear friend, “the fitness industry” has painted this as a black and white scenario.
Counting Calories = losing weight. Regardless of the cost.
And with all behaviour there is a cost attached - and you must always ask yourself when engaging in behaviour whether the cost is worth it.
But the good old “fitness industry” doesn’t tell you this. It doesn’t understand that everybody is different and you need a unique path for you.
It just draws a line from where you are to where you want to be and expects you to follow it.
Counting Calories has worked for many people. If it didn’t Under Armour would never have bought My Fitness Pal.
But its greatest failure is its inability to screen its users to actually check to see whether or not they should be counting calories.
Because there is a whole host of people, people more than likely just like you, who should not have engaged in tracking calories, to begin with.
So here I am. A humble fella with just his keyboard as his weapon to try and help you reverse that damage and show you a way out of this tunnel you feel like you are in.
Take my hand… Let’s find you a way out.
Should You Stop Counting Calories?
As I mentioned previously, many people can count calories and use it as a perfectly decent way to manage their intake.
But many others cannot.
This doesn't mean that one person is superior to the other, it simply means that there are no black and white rules in fitness, other than you must always treat each and every case on its individual merits.
This also doesn't mean that if you don’t count calories, you can’t achieve your goals.
Believe me, you really can. In fact, I would say 80% of my clients on The Strong and Confident Program don’t count their calories, and we manage their nutritional needs in other ways - more on this later.
As I write this, it is very important to me that I am clear on who should not be counting calories, so that you can judge whether you fall into one of these categories, and can therefore learn how to move away from this obsessive behaviour.
Have you ever been diagnosed with an Eating Disorder?
If the answer to this question is yes. Then you should not be counting calories.
Period.
No ifs. No buts.
End of discussion really.
You must remember with every behaviour there is a cost attached, and the cost attached to counting calories if you have ever had a diagnosed eating disorder - or suspect you might have an eating disorder - just isn’t worth it.
It’s not worth the cost to your Mental Health and physical health.
Knowing the calories in your food is not worth the negative effects that can occur from counting calories.
This study [3] looked into this very topic and found:
“Of the app [MyFitnessPal] users, 73% stated that the app had at least somewhat contributed to their eating disorder, with 30% reporting that the app very much contributed to their eating disorder. Additionally, the more likely an individual was to report that usage of the calorie tracker had contributed to their eating disorder, the more likely they were to have higher eating disorder symptoms”
If you are already susceptible to an eating disorder, tracking your calories is only going to re-open that pandora’s box again.
And believe me, no physique goal is worth that.
Are you a perfectionist?
If you have perfectionist tendencies, then tracking your calories is not a good idea as it will create too much stress in your life.
Calories aren’t perfect.
The calories that are published on packets can be up to 20% inaccurate.
This study found the following:
“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”
Added to that, all the clever equations we use in Fitness to help calculate your Maintenance Calories, for it is from there where we can establish your Calorie Window, is just the best guess.
Figuring out your weight, height and age, and then asking you to subjectively rate your movement each week in terms of intensity is not going to be accurate.
This is why when you use many different Calorie Calculators, you get different numbers. Whether it’s the Katch McArdle Method, or the Mifflin St. Jeor neither are perfect.
This is exactly why I work with a Calorie Window with all of my clients. I don’t need their calories to be perfect, I need them to be in a range that will work.
Therefore if you are a perfectionist in an imperfect set up you will find untold stress in trying to get it right all the time.
You can’t get it right. But you don’t need to. Comprehending the imperfect system will help you be less obsessive with counting calories.
Do you feel guilty after eating certain foods?
If you can’t eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut without feeling like you have to go to the gym for an hour to “burn off those calories” then you need to start creating space between what you eat and that immediate feedback on the calories involved.
No good can come from eating something and then chastising yourself by logging it immediately, and to see that the calories are more than expected which compounds all of those feelings of shame and guilt around what you enjoyed.
Even though you see tracking and logging your foods as a way of working towards your goals, it is actually counter-intuitive if you experience this guilty feeling. This is because it will slowly rot away your self-esteem. You will feel completely undermined, and you will be left with three choices:
Spend countless hours in the gym time and time again to punish yourself for the food you ate - damaging your relationship with your body and exercise.
Stop tracking the foods that make you feel this way and therefore feel like a failure every time you have them - and be aware you are “lying” to yourself about your caloric intake - damaging your sense of self-worth.
Give up on your whole fitness journey period - again leading you down a path of feeling like a failure and thinking you will never succeed at changing what you want to change.
None of those options are ideal for your long-term success.
Do you refuse to eat when you are hungry because you are worried about going over your Calories?
Calories are a best guess.
If you are refusing to eat when you are genuinely hungry because you might be over for a day - then you have a problem.
Hunger can mean many things - not all hunger is a desire for food.
Hunger can mean you are bored, you need a hug, or you are in need of a connection other than for food.
But there is an element of hunger that is related to the need for food - if you are denying that hunger too much in order to stay within your calories, and you are doing it too often, then there is no way you will be able to keep that up.
The hunger will win - and then you will again give into that physiological feeling - perpetuating your feelings of failure either way.
Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting
You are probably sitting there thinking this all so far makes sense but how on earth do you keep working on your goals when you have no idea what your intake is?
But there are many ways to manage a calorie deficit without having to track your calories.
A Study called: The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time [3] concluded that:
“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”
However, when you look at how they were asked to track their dietary intake you find a great nuance that doesn’t involve MyFitness Pal.
They managed this long-term weight loss by:
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;
Weigh themselves frequently and at least weekly
They each worked with a Health Coach and attended interactive sessions designed to educate them on nutrition and exercise adherence.
Strategy 1: Food Journals
The food journal in the study above could well have been on MyFitness Pal. But it doesn't have to be on there exclusively.
A Food Journal can just be writing a record of what you ate and when you ate it. No Calories but just the foods.
For example:
I chose this diary as an example because I love the “Starbucks” comment.
I do think that with Food Journals if you can also document an emotion along with the food you are eating it would be really helpful. It just needs to be a sentence, explaining how you were feeling at the time and how that led. to you eating what you had.
For example:
Porridge with peanut butter - was a little tired but wanted to have a good breakfast.
Coffee - I was tired, and I love starting my day with coffee.
Plant Kitchen No Chicken Indian Wrap - I thought this was a good lunch option, but I was a little short on time because of my work schedule, but I enjoyed it.
By doing this you begin to create objectivity between your food and emotions. You can begin to see how your emotions are impacting your food choices and the more information you gather in this way the more you can see patterns and get insights into how your emotional state affects your caloric choices.
Strategy 2: A Structured Diet
I come across an awful lot of people who use Calorie Counting as a way to try and control emotional and binge eating. But as we have seen from the studies, this can be very counterintuitive.
A lot of calories do come into your diet when:
You don’t eat because you are “busy”
You restrict too much and then binge.
This is where a structured diet will have huge benefits. The two issues are essentially the same.
Just yesterday, I had a banana for breakfast and some toast at about 07:30 am - not a huge amount of calories for me - then I didn’t eat again until I was in a restaurant at about 12:30. But by that point, I could feel my blood sugar levels dropping, I was getting anxious and was beyond hungry. The second I sat in the restaurant, before my lunch, I asked for a Croissant with Nutella in it. Just because I was ravenous.
I then ate my full lunch too.
That is an extra lot of calories that could have been managed a lot better by having a much better breakfast.
I have worked with many people who vow that they don’t eat that much, I then ask them to start eating breakfast…and they start to achieve their goals.
As this study [4] backs up:
“Eating breakfast is a characteristic common to successful weight loss maintainers and may be a factor in their success.”
When you don’t eat at regular times during the day it creates moments where you overeat at mealtimes.
By eating in a more structured way you protect yourself against that.
In many ways - you will feel like you are eating more - and yet you are actually consuming less.
How To Structure Your Diet
I have one method: 3 Meals. 2 Snacks.
Each meal must fit on one plate - as much food as you want - but it must only be on one plate.
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.
Remember:
“We find freedom within a structure, without structure all we have is chaos”
The other important aspect of structured dieting is actually spending time with your food. Don’t eat in a distracted manner, if possible. As in, don’t work as you eat, don’t watch TV as you eat, and certainly don’t scroll social media as you eat.
I fully respect and understand the issues with this advice for parents with young children - you are exempt - just do what you need to do to get through dinner.
But allowing yourself a moment of self-love, self-care and nourishment when you eat is going to help you improve that relationship with food, and will help stop the mindless eating.
It is all about being more mindful, not mindless.
Strategy 3: Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life
I came up with this for my clients when I first became a personal trainer. It was more instinct than science, and since then science has very much backed up what I put in place.
These Five Rules are very simple:
Be in a Calorie Deficit
and the others help you achieve that, without counting calories:
2. Three Litres of Water A Day
3. Protein and Veggies at every meal
4. 10,000 steps a day
5. 7-8 hours of sleep a night
I explain all of them in much more detail right here:
5 Easy Ways To Do A Calorie Deficit Diet without Working Out
Or you can watch this:
Strategy 4: Portions and Food Choice
Now within 3 Meals, 2 Snacks it would be wise to still follow some guidelines for better nutrition. It’s important we don’t overthink this because overthinking this can lead you back to that desire to track what you are doing to make sure you are getting it “right”.
I recommend Protein and Vegetables at every meal.
In fact, some meals I have personally, are only protein and veggies.
You are allowed Carbs - probably more Carbs than you think you should have - in fact, Carbohydrates will be the fair majority of your diet - in the forms of Fruit, Vegetables, and Complex Grains.
Remember, no one ever gained weight from eating too many fruits and vegetables.
The fact that within 3 meals, and 2 snacks you are only allowed your food to fit onto one plate is designed to help control portions.
When it comes to Carbohydrates, portion control is the issue. They are so easy to overeat.
This is why I always recommend building your plate of food with Protein first, Vegetables second, then Carbohydrates last.
But it is also why you should make sure your food fits onto one plate because then you know you are controlling portions in a more optimal way.
When you look at the study I referenced earlier one of the points that led to more successful weight loss was:
“Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar”
There are a number of other studies that back this up. In this study [5] participants had maintained a weight loss of at least 13.6kg for at least 1 year, and they found that:
“Successful maintainers of weight loss reported continued consumption of a low-energy and low-fat diet.”
The tasty food isn’t the Carbohydrates. It’s a very real combination of carbohydrates, Fat and Salt.
Like with potato chips. Let’s take the greatest potato chips ever made:
These have:
123kcals, 6.5g of Fat which is 58.5kcal and 14.3g of carbohydrate which is 57.2kcal.
If you want to have a bag of chips, then please do. But as you do. consider the portion size a lot more and by doing that you will naturally improve your calorie management.
The Process Behind Stopping Counting Calories Obsessively
Everything I have so far said in this article will help you stop calorie counting because it is all designed to help take your fear away.
Because I get it.
You are stuck in this loop of;
“I don’t want to count calories anymore, but I am scared of having no control over what I am doing”
And the thought of just not logging into MyFitness Pal and not tracking that one carrot and teaspoon of Hummus you ate a 20:30 when you were at a friend’s house is just too scary.
So there are a couple of things you can do to help ween yourself off tracking your calories.
Make Sure You Have A Structured Diet
I am not going to go through the structure again;
***Cough***
Three Meals, two Snacks
***Cough***
But I do want to make sure I emphasise how truly important this is to your success away from tracking calories obsessively.
Track One Meal A Day
Pick a meal - any meal - and just track that each day. Then over time, you will see that you are still making progress by only tracking one-fifth of your intake, and you will show yourself that everything else you have implemented aside from tracking food is working.
Go into an Education Mindset
I believe this should be the case for anyone who starts tracking anyway - but sadly very few people set themselves up in this manner. When you started tracking your calories, rather than using it as a way to control your intake, you should have used it as a way to educate yourself about your intake.
And this difference takes away the shame.
It adds in the aspect of investigation and exploration, two very important themes in how I work with clients.
Therefore if you are trying to stop tracking calories obsessively, give yourself a time frame of a month or two to use the tracking as a way of learning, a tool for you to create a knowledge and database in your head about what you usually eat and how that all plays into your goals.
Tracking your calories should only ever be used as an educational tool - not a tool to control you, and the more you learn the more freedom you will find over time.
Make Sure You Are Doing “The Work”
Many people use calorie counting to control their intake because it gives them a sense of working towards their goals. They almost use it as a way to make up for doing the other work that is required.
They aren’t going to the gym, they aren’t getting their steps in, they aren’t making mindful and healthful choices with their food and so they can use tracking as a way to either help beat themselves up for not doing the other work, or they see tracking their intake as “the work”.
A great way to make sure you feel comfortable in moving away from tracking your calories is to make sure that you are executing a well-thought-through plan each day that helps you move towards your goals.
I am by no means saying you can give up tracking and do nothing else and still achieve your goals. Implementing the rest of your plan will help reduce your anxiety about stopping counting your calories.
A Little Pep Talk: Life After Apps
The reason you are so nervous about giving up calorie tracking is that you are scared of undoing your progress, or not making any at all.
This comes down to a trust issue.
MyFitness Pal is very clever in the sense that it gets you to put your trust into it and you therefore attach your success to the app.
Its a very good marketing strategy. But it comes at great cost. Great cost at your relationship with food, and great cost at the expense of your confidence in yourself.
To give up calorie counting. you have to teach yourself to believe in yourself.
You have to build your confidence to be able to stand on your own two feet.
You have to trust that you are able. You have to trust that you can do this. You have to trust that you won’t “screw up again”.
And I know that you can do that.
As this article draws to an end, I want you to use this as your guide, I want you to start working on the concepts laid out in it, and I want you to start rebuilding your trust in yourself.
You deserve food freedom.
You deserve unconditional permission to eat and enjoy your food.
You deserve the balance that can be found between those two concepts and your goals. You deserve self-love and self-trust.
You deserve self-empathy and compassion.
I started this Article with a text from one of my clients who gets one-to-one coaching from me on the Strong & Confident Program.
I would also like to finish with what she put in her weekly report to me the other week.
There are four weeks between the first text I showed you and the one I am about to show you:
She has put in the work to get to this point. She has implemented behaviours and actions that have bought balance into her life.
Those behaviours have allowed her to begin to release the toxic control that counting calories can have.
Set and Keep Promises To Yourself
If you want help developing a system where you can rebuild that trust in yourself. Rebuild your confidence and develop your ability to know that you are doing the things that will work towards your goals then I would suggest starting with getting a few things written down and laid out for you immediately so that you can have a system which supports you.
It started with this Google Form right here:
The First Step To Building Your Confidence
What’s Next?
I 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.
I also have some other articles you might find useful to help you navigate scale weight and your relationship with it:
It would also be a delight if you wanted to join my Facebook Group. It’s a safe space for anyone who would like some free help with empowering their Fitness Journey. I can’t wait to have you in there.
References:
Patel ML, Brooks TL, Bennett GG. Consistent self-monitoring in a commercial app-based intervention for weight loss: results from a randomized trial. J Behav Med. 2020 Jun;43(3):391-401. doi: 10.1007/s10865-019-00091-8. Epub 2019 Aug 8. PMID: 31396820.
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.
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.
Wyatt HR, Grunwald GK, Mosca CL, Klem ML, Wing RR, Hill JO. Long-term weight loss and breakfast in subjects in the National Weight Control Registry. Obes Res. 2002 Feb;10(2):78-82. doi: 10.1038/oby.2002.13. PMID: 11836452.
Shick SM, Wing RR, Klem ML, McGuire MT, Hill JO, Seagle H. Persons successful at long-term weight loss and maintenance continue to consume a low-energy, low-fat diet. J Am Diet Assoc. 1998 Apr;98(4):408-13. doi: 10.1016/S0002-8223(98)00093-5. PMID: 9550162.
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.
When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym
The Gym can be a very intimidating place.
And there are few things more intimidating than increasing the weights you lift.
Whenever I rack on a few extra KGs I still hear my Mum’s Voice:
“You be careful Adam!”
And I respond like my 14-year-old self with a “Yes Mother” in my own head.
Ask most people who haven’t spent a long time in the Gym, or working out, and they will tell you that a Gym is a dangerous place and that if you lift too heavy…you will hurt yourself.
Interestingly the most common person to be injured in a Gym is a 27-year-old male,:
“Patients' mean age was 27.6 years (range, 6-100 years); 82.3% were male”
And most of the time…they are trying to get the Pectoral Muscles and shoulders of a Greek God:
“The upper trunk (25.3%) and lower trunk (19.7%) were the most commonly injured body parts” [1]
And women, I’m not sure what you have been doing but…
“Females had a larger proportion of foot injuries” [1]
Actually, I found some footage that might explain this:
From 1990 to 2007, 25 335 weight training injuries were seen in US emergency departments, correlating to an estimated 970 801 injuries nationwide
That is four injuries a day that went to an Emergency Department - in the whole of the United States.
“The most common diagnosis was sprain/strain (46.1%). The most common mechanism of injury was weights dropping on the person (65.5%)” [1]
The Gym is a relatively safe space to exert yourself physically.
It's far safer than contact sport participation.
Don’t get me wrong, Social Sport and participation in a Group Sports Activity are very very important…so much so that after years of retirement, I have rejuvenated my career as a Football Referee here in Australia.
Yes. This is in Australia. I was promised sun and sand…its all lies…
Social Sport is very important for many aspects of your wellbeing - but mainly:
Community
Humility
Sense of Achievement
Enjoyable Exercise
Eye Hand Co-ordination
And I recommend everyone finds a sport they enjoy to participate in but you do get more injures on the field of play than you do on the Gym Floor.
This is mainly due to the duration of exercise and fatigue setting in.
However, the stigma around the Gym being dangerous, especially for non-gym goers is very real and very true.
The fact that the most common diagnoses in the Gym were sprains/strains leads me to believe one main thing that too many people are “upping the weights” far too quickly, or misunderstand how, why, and when to increase the weights they are lifting.
Thus leading to the 46% rate of strains and sprains.
So here we are.
Let me take you through when to increase your weights in the Gym, so it remains effective for your goals, sensible for you ability and above all lets you be in charge of the decisions you need to make when it comes to putting on 5 more kgs!
Table of Contents for “When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym”:
What are Sets and Reps? A Practical History Lesson
What Sets And Reps Should I Chose?
How much weight should I actually choose? And at what Intensity?
Progressive Overload
When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym
Bottom Line
To be able to explain and empower you to make strong and informed decisions about your weight training, I will need to first explain to you why we have different numbers for Sets and Reps. I’m a firm believer in understanding the systems in place, and why, so that when you make decisions on those systems you are making a much more informed decision.
I can’t simply tell you when to increase your weights in the gym, without first telling you the context behind the decisions that will determine the weights you chose in the first place.
If you want to know the Golden Rule for When To Increase Your Weights In The Gym - it is written at the bottom of this article. But I would encourage you to get the education and context you need to help you make a better decision when the time comes to lift heavier.
So here is your context:
What are Sets and Reps? A Practical History Lesson
Simply put:
A Set is one group of repetitions of a particular exercise you will perform, typically with rest after the set is completed and before you commence a new set.
A Rep is the number of repetitions of a single exercise you will do within a set.
So if you did 10 push-ups, in three separate non-stop goes with a rest time in between each block of push-ups, you have achieved 3 Sets of 10 Reps of a Push-Up.
The History of a Set
When I write my programs I play around with Reps more than I do with Sets.
I ask my online clients to typically perform 3 sets of each exercise or 5 sets of each exercise. But very rarely fewer than that.
The reason behind this is steeped in lots of Science that is very much agreed upon in the Fitness Industry.
In May 2015, a study was done on 48 men with no experience in Resistance Training and it split them into three Groups: 1 SET, 3 SETS, and 5 SETS.
Over 6 months the men trained 3x a week and the study found:
“that multiple sets would result in greater changes in strength and local muscular endurance than single-set training and that there would be a dose-response for these same measures were supported.” [2]
Concluding that multiple sets are more beneficial than singular sets in un-trained populations.
And as I am called The Gym Starter I suppose that is what I should educate you about.
This 2015 study also found that any number of sets was effective for Body Composition:
“The percentage of body fat was reduced significantly and FFM (fat-free mass) significantly increased in all training groups, with no significant difference between groups”
The whole 3 sets of 10 are quite an interesting story….
A physician 1948 called Thomas L. DeLorme prescribed 3 Sets of 10 Reps of resistance training to his injured patients to help with their rehabilitation, and he recorded his results. Once they were published, that was it.
3 sets of 10 Reps became “permanently etched into the collective subconscious of the fitness community.” [3]
So that is our default starting point thanks to Dr Tom with Sets.
The History of a Rep
You can play around with Reps a little more in a workout - which is fun.
Because different Rep ranges elicit a different response in the Muscle.
The lower the number of Reps you are working in, the heavier the weight you should try to lift.
Here are the Guidelines:
1-5 Reps = Power
Think of this range as “very heavy, very intense” just want to get strong AF. Lots of concentrated effort and it will tax your Central Nervous System a lot more.
(Intense being a word we will come back to later)
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 2mins
5-8 Reps = Strength
Think of this as granite strength. Not explosive power, but solid and stable, useful for sports performance.
Not as intense as Power, but still aware you have worked hard.
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 90secs
8-12 Reps = Hypertrophy
Your “Popping” muscles. This is the range you want to be in to grow your muscles and make them show.
This range increases Sarcoplasm in your muscle, which is responsible for 30% of the total makeup of your muscle.
This is why it helps make them look bigger.
If only it was as easy as eating a can of Spinach!
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 60-90secs
12-20 Reps = Muscular Endurance
This would be where you want to be if you are an Endurance Athlete. Training and building your muscular ability to train for an extended period of time.
If you are working on this aspect of your training, then you will be typically be lifting lighter weights, but for a longer period of time.
If you’re a runner, triathlete, or cyclist this is where you will want to be, as you will not only create more ability in the muscle, but it will also help your injury prevention.
Recommended Rest Time Between Sets: 60secs
The Bottom Line on Sets and Reps
Think of Sets and Reps as an intricate web that interacts with itself.
Just because you are doing 12 Reps of an Exercise as opposed to 8 doesn’t mean you aren’t getting stronger.
Or just because you only do 6 Reps of an Exercise, it doesn’t mean that muscle isn’t gaining the long-term ability for that movement.
Each Rep Rage is a guideline. A guideline that supports all of the others at the same time.
What Sets and Reps Should I Choose?
Like with most things, I like to keep it simple when constructing a workout and this can be overthought, over-philosophized, and over-complicated very quickly.
So this is how my brain figures it all out…whenever I am programming for one of my clients on my Strong and Confident Coaching Program
The guiding principle of my structure is Intensity.
I have to consider their Goals, Ability, and above all enjoyment.
Intensity guides everything.
I want my clients to be working most intensely when they have the most energy.
Intensity can be established in three ways in a workout:
More Sets
More Reps
More Weight
I will show you these looks in a workout, in a little bit. But first I will need to talk you through how to judge your Intensity - as that will tell you how and when you should increase your weights in the Gym.
But if you want a very quick answer to What Sets and Reps should I choose?
My best advice is this:
Pick an Exercise.
Pick something. Anything within the Rep ranges I have outlined previously for your goals: 3 Sets of 10 Reps. 4 Sets of 12 Reps. 5 Sets of 5 Reps.
Pick a weight - any weight you feel comfortable with - but err on the side of caution, to begin with.
Then execute. See how it feels. And amend from there.
The next time you come to do that exercise, try and do a little more.
You can do this by either - increasing your Reps, increasing your Sets, or increasing your Weight.
If you want to stay in a particular Rep range, for a particular reason - muscle growth, endurance, etc, then when you find your ability is exceeding the weight you have chosen, you can either increase the weight or increase the Sets.
Most people chose to increase their weight - because it’s simply more time-efficient.
How much weight should I actually choose? And at What Intensity?
When you are in the Gym, on your own, without an expert…it is surprising how good you will be at judging what weight to use.
You won’t always get it right.
Sometimes it will be too light, sometimes it will be too heavy.
And that’s ok…because you need to remember:
““When it comes to Fitness there is no right or wrong; just exploration””
Yes. I quoted myself.
Let’s move on…
Personal Trainers don’t automatically know what weights to choose for each client, we simply have the best guess….and amend from there based on the performance we see.
You too can only try something. And amend from there.
Once you have your starting point there is a guideline to let you know whether or not you are working hard enough throughout a given Set of movements.
Or the more accurate term for this is “Intensity”.
When it comes to resistance training you must apply a certain level of stress on the body in order to achieve the desired outcome. As in, its pretty pointless lifting 2kg Dumbells on a Bench Press if you aren’t working to the correct intensity.
A systematic review called ”Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods” on literature between 1996 and September 2019 which was published in 2019, concluded the following:
“Effective hypertrophy-oriented training should comprise a combination of mechanical tension and metabolic stress. In summary, foundations for individuals seeking to maximize muscle growth should be hypertrophy-oriented RT consisting of multiple sets (3−6) of six to 12 repetitions with short rest intervals (60 s) and moderate-intensity of effort (60−80% 1RM) with subsequent increases in training volume (12–28 sets/muscle/week)”
Now finding your One Rep Max (1RM) isn’t necessary to see results - and this study backs that up, as you need to be working to 60-80% of your 1RM.
How To Establish 60-80% Intensity
The guide you need to use to find this Intensity is called the RPE or Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale.
This is a subjective sliding scale from 1 to 10 which will determine whether or not you are working with enough Intensity in a Set to get the desired outcome.
When I write plans for those I work with Online I don’t tell them what weight to lift, I tell them what RPE to aim for - and let them decide for themselves whether or not the weight they have chosen, is creating a big enough stimulus on their body.
This is how we establish the weights you need to lift, without having a Personal Trainer there with you on the Strong and Confident Program.
The RPE Scale looks like this:
Throughout a workout, you want to be working through the RPE Scale in this manner:
Warm Up = 1-2 RPE
Main Movement For The Day = 8-9 RPE
Rest Of Workout = 6-8 RPE
Optional Cardio-Metabolic Finisher = 8-9 RPE
In an actual Workout that I have written for my Client Tim it looks like this:
You will notice that as the workout progresses the Target RPE drops. This is to account for fatigue over a workout. If you can keep the Intensity high throughout then be my guest - but remember it’s always a balance between what is possible and what is optimal.
If what is optimal might hurt you - let’s not do that.
The Main Movement in a workout is the most important part of your workout as well - which is why it has the highest intensity attached to it. In workouts, I write this is always a multi-joint compound movement, and if all a client does in a workout is that one exercise, to the desired RPE, then that is still a successful workout.
And then the rest of the workout is there to support my client’s goals from their fitness.
When it comes to what Weight to actually choose…as you can see there is no one size fits all. Everybody is different, and everybody is different, which is why I would encourage you to use a subjective answer as opposed to an objective one.
When it comes to increasing your weights - and crucially when to increase your weights…we need to discuss one more principle before we bring it all together.
Progressive Overload
Now, we need to go back to Ancient Greece, to learn about a Wrestler called Milo or Croton. Milo was the most successful Wrestler of his day, having won the Ancient Olympic Games, 6 times over. Milo was a six-time wrestling champion at the Ancient Olympic Games in Greece. In 540 BC, he won the boys wrestling category and then proceeded to win the men's competition at the next five Olympic Games in a row. He also dominated the Pythian Games (7-time winner), Isthmian Games (10-time winner), and Nemean Games (9-time winner).
In the rare event that an athlete won not only the Olympic title but also all three other games in one cycle, they were awarded the title of Periodonikes, a grand slam winner. Milo won this grand slam five times. [5]
So how did Milo build such strength and athleticism? Well, it comes in the principle of Progressive Overload - the core and guiding principle of any method of self-development, including building strength.
As legend has it, a baby Calf was born near Milos's home when he was a boy.
Every single day Milo put the Calf on his back and walked him on his shoulders.
Milo did this every day for four years.
The calf grew into a four-year-old bull, and as the animal grew so did Milo of Croton.
This is the guiding principle of strength training - to create a Progressive Overload over time.
As you can imagine your body will adapt to the same stimulus quite quickly also known as a “plateau”, therefore you need to change the stimulus to encourage growth.
Progressive Overload can be created in a number of ways:
Increase the weights you lift in the Gym
Increase the number of Reps you do
Increase the number of Sets you do
Improve your Form through an exercise.
Slow down the Tempo of your Reps or increase “Time Under Tension”
Do more workouts (to a point)
A 2011 study decided to test Progressive Overload.
Researchers found progressive overload — gradually increasing the weight and number of repetitions of exercises — to be effective for increasing bicep strength and muscle growth in both men and women. [6]
Every time you address a bar or a dumbbell, you should give yourself a thought, a task, a mindful check-in, to try and work on one thing on the progressive overload list.
Increasing Weight is always the easiest one to go for, especially as a beginner, but it is quite common to get caught between weights. I.e: 10kgs is too light, and 12.5kgs is too heavy for your Rep Range.
And this is when awareness of Progressive Overload comes into its own - by focussing more on form or time under tension at the same weight one day you will be able to make that 12.5kgs move like a hot knife through butter.
Drawbacks of Progressive Overload
With everything in life, there is a point of diminishing returns.
This is evident in a form of training knowns as German Volume Training - upon which you are expected to do 10 Sets of 10 Reps of an Exercise.
This study in 2017, found that with such a High Load of Volume the actual gains being made after 5 Sets were non-existent. Participants were just wasting time in the Gym and working out for the sheer sake of working out.
The study also concluded, which backs up the study from before when I was discussing Sets and Reps, that:
“To maximize hypertrophic training effects, it is recommended that 4-6 sets per exercise be performed, as it seems gains will plateau beyond this set range and may even regress due to overtraining.” [7]
Ergo more is not always better in the Gym.
Therefore always try to work within the parameters of what we outlined above in terms of Sets and Reps.
With regards to trying to achieve the principle of Progressive Overload, if you go for too much…too quickly it could have negative repercussions, injury for example.
Do it slowly, steadily, and surely.
The only other thing to add here is that the stronger you get, the more slow progression will occur.
“For males, baseline strength capacity appears to be negatively associated with hypertrophy, and thus stronger males may be less likely to experience the same degree of hypertrophic adaptation over 12 weeks as compared to weaker males.” [7]
This is why being aware of all of the aspects that can create a progressive overload is important because when you find you are lifting the same weight week on week, it can get demoralizing. So having other ways and means to demonstrate and experience progress is a great way to keep motivated.
When To Actually Increase Your Weights In The Gym
Now that you know why we do what we do when it comes to the Gym floor, you should be able to establish when it is sensible and logical for you to increase your weights in the Gym.
There are a lot of myths around this as well.
One of the most common ones is that you should “confuse your muscles”.
This is in a word:
Firstly, your muscles don’t have brains - so how can you confuse them? Secondly, there is ZERO Science to back up the Muscle Confusion theory. Thirdly, it will move you away from consistency and our bodies need consistency to be able to adapt. The more you change the less likely you are to see results.
If you really want to confuse your muscles, do it by adding a greater stimulus in a movement that you have been working on - as in - increase the weights you are lifting.
The Golden Rule is coming up…as promised.
I will now tell you EXACTLY when to increase your weights in the Gym
The Golden Rule is:
Increase your weights when in a Set you are no longer hitting “Target RPE”
By working towards your Target RPE you will be in the best position to strike a balance between the intensity required for growth (60-80% of 1RM) and your own personal ability.
Thus protecting you from Injury and still allowing Progressive Overload over time. RPE will take into account all the Progressive Overload factors, such as when you decrease or increase the tempo when you increase or decrease weight when you increase or decrease Sets and Reps your RPE should respond accordingly.
The human body can be a fickle system - especially when it comes to energy levels. RPE also allows for this. If you go to the Gym having slept well, fuelled well, and it’s early in the morning and you are full of beans.
You are likely to be able to produce more effort.
If you are sleep-deprived, tired, and just have no energy, you are likely to produce less effort.
RPE allows for these changes in your system and is more than likely still going to drive you to your goals as you will still be working to between a 60-80% intensity.
The Bottom Line
The answer to this question of when to increase weights in the gym comes down to balance.
You will always be balancing three main factors:
Your own physical ability
Your energy levels
Your likelihood to cause injury
Just walking up to a Barbell with an arbitrary number of KGs on it with no context or frame of reference as to whether you can actually do it, will likely not end well.
And this brings me to my last and final point on the topic.
Tracking your workouts is the key to your success.
You must track your workouts.
Without recording what you are doing then you will have no idea if you are actually making progress, or whether or not you are able to life the weight you want to set yourself.
Track the following data as a minimum:
Weight
Sets
Reps
RPE
If you write nothing else down - those four are the key to your success.
Then from there, when you see the Weight, Sets, and Reps staying the same - and the RPE coming down - you can increase your weights.
Or if you see the Weight, Sets, and Reps staying the same - and the RPE is increasing or not coming down - maybe take some weight off, and try to acquire the progressive overload in another way.
Time Under Tension
Higher Rep Scheme
More Sets
Add a workout into your week
The amount of weight you lift is your prerogative.
All I would ask is that you keep working hard, be consistent, and always try your hardest.
That deosn’t always mean lift more weight or always push yourself beyond belief.
Sometimes working your hardest can be just showing up.
Just remember to make sure every workout is effective to work to the Target RPE and adjust accordingly.
If you do that as each workout passes, you will begin to feel more and more like this:
Because really.
Thats the goal isn’t it.
Become Strong and Confident.
Be the Bad-Ass you were born to be.
Because you deserve to be.
Did You Find This Useful?
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References:
Kerr ZY, Collins CL, Comstock RD. Epidemiology of weight training-related injuries presenting to United States emergency departments, 1990 to 2007. Am J Sports Med. 2010 Apr;38(4):765-71. doi: 10.1177/0363546509351560. Epub 2010 Feb 5. PMID: 20139328.
Radaelli, Regis1; Fleck, Steven J.2; Leite, Thalita3; Leite, Richard D.4; Pinto, Ronei S.1; Fernandes, Liliam3; Simão, Roberto3 Dose-Response of 1, 3, and 5 Sets of Resistance Exercise on Strength, Local Muscular Endurance, and Hypertrophy, Journal of Strength and Conditioning Research: May 2015 - Volume 29 - Issue 5 - p 1349-1358 doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000000758
https://journals.lww.com/nsca-jscr/fulltext/2012/11000/Thomas_L__DeLorme_and_the_Science_of_Progressive.1.aspx
Krzysztofik, M., Wilk, M., Wojdała, G., & Gołaś, A. (2019). Maximizing Muscle Hypertrophy: A Systematic Review of Advanced Resistance Training Techniques and Methods. International journal of environmental research and public health, 16(24), 4897. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16244897
James Clear. 2021. How to Build Muscle: Strength Lessons from Milo of Croton. [online] Available at: <https://jamesclear.com/milo> [Accessed 27 June 2021].
Healthline. 2021. Progressive Overload: What It Is, Examples, and Tips. [online] Available at: <https://www.healthline.com/health/progressive-overload#benefits> [Accessed 28 June 2021].
Peterson, M. D., Pistilli, E., Haff, G. G., Hoffman, E. P., & Gordon, P. M. (2011). Progression of volume load and muscular adaptation during resistance exercise. European journal of applied physiology, 111(6), 1063–1071. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00421-010-1735-9
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.
I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.
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 want to find out more about how the Strong & Confident Program works, and get a free month of coaching from me, then please fill out the application form below…and I will get back to you within 48 hours.
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I can’t wait to hear from you!
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Speak again soon,
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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>.
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
There quite a few apps out there that can help you track your calories and therefore help you lose weight.
The most popular of these is MyFitness Pal and it is probably the most commonly used around the world.
These apps are helpful yes. But they can also be unhelpful in your pursuit of losing weight for a number of reasons.
This article will show you exactly how to set up MyFitness Pal for your success with weight loss, teaching you what to avoid and how to get around these common potholes that the app has which might hinder your ability to succeed.
MyFitness Pal (MYFP) is a wonderful tool for the vast majority of people and it is a phenomenal database of foods from all around the world to help you track your calories.
But…
Will it actually help you lose weight?
You have probably all seen all over the internet advocates of tracking your calories on My Fitness Pal. Followed by swathes of others who just don’t have success with it.
Like with anything in the Fitness Industry there are pros and cons and especially with My Fitness Pal, there are some potholes in there that they just hope you fall into, especially when it comes to weight loss.
Pros of MyFitness Pal (MYFP) are:
It has a Large Database of Food
The Barcode Scanning is quick and effective
Macro Breakdowns
Graphs for your weight, Macro Intake, and Calorie Intake over meals
You can Build Your Own Meals in a quick and easy manner
A lot of Take Out Food and restruants are in their database.
As you can see, there is a lot to like about MyFitness Pal and therefore it is worth figuring out how to make it work for you.
Cons of MyFitness Pal (MYFP):
It sets a vert aggressive calorie deficit.
It gives you back calories burned from exercise.
It can feel time-consuming when you start to use it.
Eating out in restaurants is hard to track,
It can appear that you are constantly failing,
The micro-messaging via the colors it uses in the App
It can get obsessive for some people.
As I mentioned above let’s work through this cons list and figure it all out to make sure that by the end of this article you will know exactly how to use MyFitness Pal to help you lose weight and make the Cons work a lot better for you and your success.
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR “DOES COUNTING OR TRACKING CALORIES HELP YOU LOSE WEIGHT?”
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
My Fitness Pal Sets An Aggresive Calorie Deficit
When you log into MyFitness Pal (MYFP) and set yourself a goal.
It asks you a series of questions:
What is your Goal?
How Active Are You?
Personal Details
More Personal Details
What is your weekly goal? (with a recommendation to lose 0.5kgs per week)
Once you then go through some other legal selection boxes you are congratulated and it says:
You should lose: X kg by X Date
Alarm bells should now be ringing in your head.
This is now setting you up for failure…because in truth an App has no idea who you are, what your life looks like or your ability to actually lose weight.
Added to that…it has no idea if the Goal you have set yourself is actually possible for you.
At this point, I have worked with many many people who tell me that they have a lot more to lose than they really actually do.
In this world of Instagram and Social Media, people are being cheated and lied to, to a point where they will be very convinced that they need to lose a lot more weight than they actually need to or actually can.
When choosing a Goal Weight it is not a good idea to simply chose a number based on a friend or what you think you would like to weigh.
My best advice for this is to choose a weight that you have weighed before, maybe 5-10 years ago, and make sure it’s a weight you feel comfortable at. That being said, if you are a person who carries a lot more weight then you might be able to be a little more aggressive with your goal weight number. But please remember “carrying a lot more weight” is a term used in comparison to the whole of society…not your own personal opinion of yourself.
How Does My Fitness Pal Choose Your Calorie Deficit?
In a nutshell, it deducts 500kcal from your Maintenance Calories — no matter who you are but it is capped for Men at 1500kcal/day. and Females at 1200kcal/day.
In their words: “Our calculator uses the Mifflin-St. Jeor equations to estimate your BMR (Basal Metabolic Weight) which is believed to be more accurate than the more commonly used Harris-Benedict equation” [1]
This is a true statement based on being able to predict someone's RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate) not actually their BMR. [2]
The difference isn’t that crucial but it's good to note there is a difference between RMR and BMR.
Once the equation has your vital statistics it then asks you for your activity level and uses that as a multiplier to figure out your Calorie Deficit.
For example, you have:
BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) = 1300
Activity Level is Sedentary = multiplier effect of 1.2
Maintenance Calories = 1300 x 1.2 = 1560kcal
Then to chose your Deficit it appears that MYFP just deducts 500kcal from your Maintenance Calorie number which would leave you trying to eat 1060kcal a day in this example.
Which is far too low for 99% of the population.
But MYFP does have a “lower cap” due to Government restrictions in the USA.
Let's now take a real-world example of someone. Meet Jacquie.
Let us say that Jacquie is 40 years old, she currently weighs 74kgs and is 5ft 8in tall, and has a BMI of 25.1 putting her in the overweight category but she does weight training 2x a week and works in an office.
Her Goal weight is 70kgs as that lowers her BMI to 23.4.
Her BMR is calculated at about 1600kcal/day.
Then we add her multiplier of 1.2 for her Lightly Exercise Level to get her Maintenance Calories.
1600 (BMR) x 1.2 (Activity Multiplier) = 1920kcal/day or “Maintenance Calories”.
MYFP dictates that we deduct an arbitrary 500kcal which equals = 1420kcal/day.
I actually put Jacquie into MYFP and this is what came up:
As you can see, the way I believe MYFP is working is pretty accurate.
Putting a human being into a straight caloric deficit below her BMR, without any rests or diet breaks scheduled into her plan is in short setting her up for failure.
Personally, I don’t advise any of my friends that I work with online to go below their Basal Metabolic Rate when working on their deficit. Basal Metabolic Rate is defined thus:
“Basal Metabolic Rate is the number of calories required to keep your body functioning at rest”
Keep your body functioning at rest.
This is literally the minimum amount of calories you need for your body to be able to function daily without any movement.
So if you eat less than this for a prolonged period of time what do you think might happen? You will of course gradually get tired, irritable, your performance in the Gym will suffer and all of this leads to one thing.
Giving up.
Which then makes you feel like a failure.
Which then makes you give up on your goals.
My suggestion is to manipulate the App so that you get a Calorie Allowance number that set to either your BMR or your Goal Body Weight in LBS x 12.
To do this on the app, you need to click on the three dots in the bottom corner called More> Goals > Nutrition Goals > Calorie, Carbs, Protein, and Fat Goals > Calories
Then you can set your Customised Calories based on my suggestions above.
If you need help setting your Calorie Targets then you can grab a Free Customised Calorie and Macro Calculator from my website by clicking here: https://www.thegymstarter.com/free-fat-loss-giveaways
By doing this it will ensure that your Calories are set to a level that will create enough adherence for you so that you can be consistent, still enjoy your favorite foods, and still reach your goals.
I am suggesting taking your Calories up so that you don’t continue on the cycle of overly restricting yourself, then binging and forever treading water with your success.
To find out more about how to set your Calorie Deficit watch this:
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
Calories Burned From Exercise Equation
This is my single biggest bugbear of the whole app. This combined with other Fitness Pros encouraging people to share photos of “Calories Burned from Exercise” on Social Media.
This is a practice that just has to stop.
Period.
Calories Burned from exercise is a near-impossible thing to calculate, and an Iowa State University study found that activity trackers can be up to 60% inaccurate in calculating Calories Burned from exercise [3].
A study by Standford University and The Swedish School of Sport and Health Sciences in 2017 took 60 participants and tested an Apple Watch, a Fitbit Surge, and a few other wearables.
The Apple watch was top of the class when it came to tracking Heart Rate during Exercise and all activity trackers were within the 5% error margin of acceptable.
However, when it came to energy expenditure or Calorie Burned the results were worryingly poor:
“In fact, the study claims that the Fitbit Surge was the most accurate with energy expenditure tracking, with an error rate of around 27 percent. The Microsoft Band came in at around 33 percent, while Apple Watch reported an error rate near 40 percent, though it was consistent” [4]
Added to all of that, the most inaccurate readings come out when Aerobic Exercise is performed — namely Cardio and HIIT workouts.
The one saving grace here is that they are consistently rubbish.
Why is this a problem in relation to MYFP?
MYFP tells you to basically “eat your calories burned from exercise back”.
It calculates the calories you have eaten.
It calculates the calories you have “burned from exercise”
and adds those back into how many calories you should be eating for the day.
So let’s say you can eat 1500kcal a day.
It’s now lunchtime and you have eaten 750kcal at this point giving you another 750kcal until you have hit your allowance for the rest of the day.
You then workout and “burn 350kcal”.
MYFP will then give you that 350kcal back…so you can now eat for the day a total of 1100kcal.
1500–750+350 = 1100kcal remaining for the day
This is what it looks like on the App using my numbers:
In truth, I don’t have 266kcal remaining. I have 261kcal remaining until I hit my target of 2860kcal.
You know that being in a Calorie Deficit is hard work combined with the fact that being able to eat to your Deficit Number or come in below that is hard as well.
You also know that exercise will help you get into your Calorie Deficit.
So why would you eat the calories back from the exercise you just performed?
This will just keep you spinning your wheels.
Personally, I am aware that exercise is more than a method to burn calories, and I would never promote someone going to the gym just to “earn their food”.
Exercise is worth so much more than just a tool to burn calories — it can build confidence, strength, and can give you so much more from life than you ever dreamt of.
But it does burn calories and that can’t be overlooked when trying to lose weight.
Unless you eat back the calories you have burned from exercise.
The other great failing in MYFP with this is that it also gives you calories back from all movement.
Including your Steps.
Now when it comes to a Calorie Deficit the second-biggest portion of your metabolism which will help you lose weight is called Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis or NEAT.
This is 15% of your Metabolism and other than calories in is the single greatest weapon in your toolbox to losing weight.
Unless you are on MYFP — because yes, MYFP gives you these Calories back as well.
You can fix this in two ways:
Just focus on your Goal Calories and your Food Calories when looking at the app and ignore everything else.
Disconnect MYFP from being able to read your Exercise Data. I only know how this works on IOS but you have to go to Health > Click on your Profile Photo opposite the word Summary >Privacy > Apps > MyFitnessPal
Then you can toggle what Data you want it to read and what data you don’t want it to read.
I recommend turning off Steps and Workouts.
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
MyFitness Pal Is Time Consuming
Tracking Calories is something that gets a lot easier over time and MYFP gets better and better at remembering what it is you eat so that it becomes more time-efficient for you to do it.
I can’t deny that inputting all the ingredients in your home-cooked meal into your phone doesn’t take up some time.
But it doesn’t take up A LOT of time either. Not really.
And scanning a Barcode does not take up any time at all.
When I cook and if I am tracking I will get the scales out, and just weigh as I go, and as I am doing that I am cooking and preparing the food.
MYFP becomes laborious when you try to reverse engineer the food that is on your plate.
MYFP also allows you to create Recipes which Bulk Imports your Ingredient List and then you just have to find the right measurement of your food (oz, grams, kilos, cups, ml, Large, Medium, Small) and then select the serving size and the number of servings.
My trick for this is to always try to find a food that is measured on the app in grams, choose a serving size of 1g and then the Number of Servings can equal how much the food actually weighs on the scale.
Stop trying to be perfect.
Your desire to make MYFP perfect is also draining your time.
If you are spending 10mins scrolling, trying to find the right selection of Carrot that you have in your house, you need to assess your priorities.
In truth, no one ever got fat from eating too many Fruits and Veggies so just pick a carrot, get the grams right and move on.
For my friends that I work with Online, they get access to over 250 recipes which all have MYFP Barcodes on them. So you literally just have to scan a barcode which takes less than 10 seconds.
If you have read this and you still feel like it takes up too much time you can adopt this policy with MYFP:
You must track anything you eat with a barcode on it by scanning it in at home or out and about.
You must track down the calories in restaurants you eat (or best guess them) and add 30% to that figure and track that.
Don’t track Home Cooked Meals as long as you have built your meal in this manner: Protein, then Veggies, and then Carbs.
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
Eating in Restaurants is hard to track
Yes. It is.
But that shouldn’t stop you trying.
Many popular chains actually do show up on MYFP, and if they don’t many restaurants publish their calories on their website.
So just head there, find out how many calories the meal you will have has in it, and then input it into MYFP.
If you still can’t find that information…you can only do the best you can do.
In truth, even a restaurant that has published its calories will still be a long way off depending mostly on the Chef they have on that day…and how much oil said Chef likes to use.
If you are eating out more than once a week…the simple reality is that your tracking will be inaccurate and your ability to adhere to a Calorie Deficit will be affected.
Throughout my career, I have come across people who I train that eat out most nights…and trying to get a result for them in terms of weight loss is very difficult, so we look elsewhere. We will work on performance-based goals, track their energy levels, try and improve their sleep and create habits throughout their day that will make them feel better, without them focusing on Weight Loss as a goal.
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
It Constantly Looks Like You Are Failing
MYFP has a lot of trackable stats.
Calories are one piece of the pie. When you look into your Macros you are given targets and a sliding bar of how close you are to hitting your target.
If you go over your target you get a big red minus number informing you that you failed.
These charts are literally impossible to get right.
But that's ok because you aren't trying to be perfect, you are trying to be consistent.
If you go over on your Macros…chill, because you will feel exactly the same about yourself if you go under on your Macros too: you literally can’t win.
So stop trying. Just do your best. And see it as a constant work in process.
When it comes to weight loss and building muscle these are your order of priority;
Calories In
Protein In
That is all you need to worry about. So if you want to play the “perfect” game then just try and do your best on those two markers.
Get as close you darn well can to your Calorie Allowance.
And if you go over by 50–100kcals — that's ok.
If you come in under by 50–100kcals — that's ok too.
Perfection is impossible with this App. I promise you.
The only day you fail at fitness is the day you give up. This isn’t a pass/fail situation. All you ever do in Fitness is learn and from that education, you develop and amend to move forward again.
In truth, we are all beginners.
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
The Apps Use of Colours
If you are “under” your calories MYFP makes the numbers Green.
For good.
If you are over your calories MYFP makes the numbers Red.
For bad.
I’m not sure who needs to hear this right now…but whatever happens with your nutrition it is neither Good nor Bad.
It's just fact.
And every day that passes you get a new opportunity to create a new fact.
But if you keep seeing Red on an App — you are going to believe you are failing. And that might be fine in isolation, but day in and day out it will slowly get to you and make you want to give up.
Added to that Green doesn’t mean good either.
As I laid out above your Calories are always the best guess and MYFP sets them really really low for someone. So for the App to then suggest that you are being Good for coming in under what is an already low number is going to equally lead you to a path of failure.
Because you can’t sustain a Calorie Deficit that aggressive and you will end up overeating pretty quickly.
There is no Good or Bad. And subliminal messaging to that degree is harmful to users of the App.
Try to ignore the colors and just understand that no matter what you log or what the App says you are always trying your best.
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
It Can Become Obsessive For Some People
A large argument I see against tracking your calories is that it can become obsessive for some.
But let me ask you this. Is checking your Bank Account obsessive? Is tracking your income and your outgoings obsessive? Is checking to see how much petrol you have in your car obsessive?
That is all Calorie Tracking should be for you.
It can become obsessive when you directly align it with the success or failure of your goal and don’t keep everything else that goes into a Calorie Deficit in perspective.
It feels like a good time to say this as well:
You don’t have to track your calories for the rest of your life…nor should you want to.
It’s a way of getting yourself educated on what you eat and how that impacts your weight. It's about spending some time understanding Energy Balance, the foods you eat, and how it impacts your life.
I recommend tracking for about 4–6 months.
That should give you enough data to be going on your merry way, and if you ever need to check in again with it in the future you will know exactly what to do and how to do it.
Tracking your calories is something you should use to empower you to be able to learn and manage your food intake no matter what your goals.
It’s not a life sentence. Nor should it be
Does Counting or Tracking Your Calories Help You Lose Weight?
Conclusion
MYFP has its uses and I truly believe it can help you lose weight. If you manage to use it in the manner I have laid out in the article.
MYFP is a business.
And it earns money from you logging in again, and again and again.
Therefore the further from your goals it keeps you the higher the chance it has of you continuing to use it.
The more money it makes.
Just remember the following when you use it:
Set your Calories to GBW in LBS x 12
Ignore Calories Burned from exercise
The more you do it the less time consuming it becomes
It will never be perfect nor should you want it to be
You aren’t failing despite the App trying to tell you that you are
Red doesn’t equal Bad and Green doesn’t equal Good
It’s not obsessive to want to learn more about something — just remember this isn’t a life sentence, this is an education to lead you to be more confident and empowered for the future.
And that’s it!
What’s Next?
I have plenty more articles about weight loss for females throughout this website.
Here is a selection I think would make great further reading for you:
You are also invited to get a bindle of Fat Loss Goodies from me including:
Get yourself a free month of workouts (Home and Gym-based options)
Get yourself a free copy of my e-book ”27 Ways To Faster Fast Loss”
Get yourself a free customized Calorie Calculator
Straight to your Inbox
All you have to do is put your email address in below:
References:
Myfitnesspal.com. 2020. BMR Calculator, Basal Metabolic Rate Calculator | Myfitnesspal.Com. [online] Available at: <https://www.myfitnesspal.com/tools/bmr-calculator#:~:text=Your%20BMR%20does%20not%20include,commonly%20used%20Harris%2DBenedict%20equation.> [Accessed 14 November 2020].
Amirkalali, B., Hosseini, S., Heshmat, R., & Larijani, B. (2008). Comparison of Harris-Benedict and Mifflin-ST Jeor equations with indirect calorimetry in evaluating resting energy expenditure. Indian journal of medical sciences, 62(7), 283–290. https://doi.org/10.4103/0019-5359.42024
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 14 November 2020].
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://www.mdpi.com/2075-4426/7/2/3>
How To Find Your Calorie Maintenance Level
I always feel like Calorie Maintenance gets a bad rap in the Fitness Industry.
It’s the one that gets forgotten. The reason for this is that we cannot sell Calorie Maintenance.
Imagine if you saw an advert for The Fitness Collective (my coaching program) and it said:
“I will teach you to keep your weight exactly where it is, so you can saty exactly as you are”
You’re going to look at it like this:
And I understand why.
But if you think that maintaining body weight is not something you should be concerned with…then you need to read on…because in taking a moment, hitting the pause button and understanding the role that Calorie Maintenance can play in your fitness, health and above all your Fat Loss, is crucial.
Yes.
I did just say that Calorie Maintenance can be crucial in helping you to lose weight.
But don’t worry. I haven’t gone mad and abandoned my Calorie Deficit principles…so let me show you what I mean by this.
But before I do just that… it would be wonderful if you got onto my email list and we became friends.
I will email you things. Sometimes they will be educational, sometimes they will be inappropriate, sometimes I might just want to know how you are; either way…it would be delightful to connect with you.
Just send me a friend request by filling out the form below…
Oh, and I will also send you some free fitness goodies to help start our new friendship off on the best foot possible.
Table of Contents for “How Do You Find Your Calorie Maintenace Level”
If you want to see this Article explained in Video Format then watch this YouTube Video:
What is Calorie Maintenance?
Time for a quick science lesson recap about your Metabolism.
I promise. It will be quick.
As you can see from the infographic your Metabolism is made up of four components:
Basal Metabolic Rate
Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Exercise Activity Thermogenesis
Thermic Effect of Food
All combined these four things make up your Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE.
Simply put that means how many calories you burn each day.
Once we know your TDEE we know how many calories you need to eat to be in Calorie Maintenance.
If you want to understand your Metabolism so much more, and begin to understand why you can’t break your Metabolism then please do more reading and join 100s of other people by reading this: https://www.thegymstarter.com/articles/is-your-metabolism-broken
There you go.
I told you the lesson would be quick.
The issue we have with just looking at our TDEE, finding out the calculation and going from there is that the factors are variable.
For example, you may not exercise, you may not eat foods that have a good TEF like High Protein Foods, you may not keep your NEAT high enough each day.
So knowing your TDEE is one thing, and it’s a great starting point…but when figuring out Maintenance Calories we need to be a little bit cleverer than that.
I will come back to this point later.
How Do You Find Your Calorie Maintenace Level
When should you go into Calorie Maintenance?
At this point, it would be useful to tell you that there is another term out there for Calorie Maintenance…and it comes from Jordan Syatt (who is basically my Coaching Idol)
He calls Maintenance the following:
“Momentum Calories”
And this is important when we are figuring out when to move into a Calorie Maintenance phase.
In my experience with clients when we bring this topic up they think it is a comment of failure. When I say to them, I think we need to start considering a move into Maintenance, they look at me all puppy-eyed and plead me not to say it.
This is an actual photo of one of my clients
There are two overriding reasons this reaction occurs when talking to someone about Calorie Maintenance:
You think that because you aren’t at “Goal” weight I don’t believe, as your trainer, you will ever get there and therefore I want to just “try something different”
You are petrified you will “put it all back on”
Neither is true.
The truth is you cannot Calorie Deficit forever. It’s too stressful, it can be too restrictive and it’s just a downright pain in the backside.
If it’s not the hunger annoying you….
It might be a lack of energy…
Or the lack of improving strength you can build in the Gym…
Or the simple fact you want to enjoy the Holidays.
All perfectly valid reasons to get frustrated with something.
This is where Jordans “Momentum” term comes into its own.
Because you are simply taking a moment, giving yourself some time to pause, relax and gather up the energy you need before you go again.
The analogy I like to use in this situation for you is the following: Every professional Sport in the World has seasons. Off and On. The reason these are in place is that demanding certain things from your body creates stress and we all need a break from that stress.
It's perfectly normal. And if professional athletes need it, then we can bet your bottom dollar its probably a good idea for you as well.
As for being petrified, you will “put it all back on again” this is a very understandable worry.
But Calorie Maintenance isn’t a free pass. It isn’t an excuse to go and eat whatever the hell you want.
Yeah sorry about that.
Its a controlled break from the Calorie Deficit and Weight Loss, one upon which you slowly but surely figure out how to stabilize the scale and enjoy the benefits that brings to you before you decide what to do next.
Added to this is that we know Fat Loss isn’t linear and using Maintenance as a way to accept that more might be just what you need. By cycling in some Maintenance moments over a much longer time frame for your Fat Loss Goals then you are going to be able to be so much more consistent for a lot longer.
So truly at what point should you go into Calorie Maintenance/Momentum?
Well, you have to first earn the right to do it.
This isn’t an excuse for you to step away from your Deficit because you want cocktails with your friends each weekend. It’s not what the “Cheat Meal” has become where people just eat what they want and excuse their behavior not being congruent to their goals with two simple words.
If you want to truly lose weight you must be in a Calorie Deficit. You must also be truly consistent with that Calorie Deficit and give it the due care and attention it deserves.
You cannot simply move into Maintenance when the going just gets a little tough, and you’re finding it hard to figure out.
I personally would say this: You can move into Calorie Maintenance once you have been in a Calorie Deficit for at least three months, hitting your Calorie Deficit numbers at least 24-26 days out of 31 in each month.
That is a consistent Calorie Deficit following the 80/20 rule.
I do think many people can sustain a Calorie Deficit a lot longer than that…and you probably should if you are still not getting towards your Weight Loss Goals.
Others moments when you should go into Caloric Maintenance are:
You are truly exhausted of the Calorie Deficit, you are irritable and more and more you are noticing that you are really struggling to stay within your numbers.
When you have reached your Goal Weight and want to start figuring out how to get greater flexibility in your diet at that weight.
Your goals are changing and you want to focus more on strength and PBs on the Gym Floor
There is a high Social Calander on the horizon…like the Holiday Season…and you need more flexibility in your Calorie Allowances.
When you feel like you need a little more Brain Space for what life is throwing at you…for example times of higher stress.
When you want more energy on a day by day basis.
When you want to experience less hunger each day and you have noticed it increasing.
These are all perfectly good reasons to move into Calorie Maintenence and maybe a few of them have rung true for you.
This is also a wonderful path away from Yoyo Dieting.
How many times have you lost weight, and then put it all back on again, because you couldn’t figure out the flexibility and the parameters you needed to exist in since your body has changed so much?
Yeah. Me too.
How Do You Find Your Calorie Maintenace Level
What to expect when you do go into Calorie Maintenance
The first and most important thing here is that:
The Scale Will Go Up:
Now please don’t freak out.
You must keep in mind four things.
One, we know it's going to go up, we know the scale will increase and you are entering into this knowing that is the outcome you want.
Two, you aren’t stopping your fat loss journey. You are simply hitting pause to explore new options, and go back into a Calorie Deficit anytime you like.
Three, there is no time limit on when you need to lose weight and there is no rush. So taking a pause will be great, and allow you to move further forward in the future.
In a lot of technical things sometimes you must regress in order to progress.
Four, you aren’t increasing your calories by that much really. It’s going to be a slow build of adding in about 27kcal a day for a few weeks.
It’s hard to say how much the scale will go up, because we are looking for that moment on the scale where it stays true. It will always fluctuate up and down and that will probably be anywhere between 1lb-5lbs.
You Will Have More Energy:
You are eating more! That means more calories, which means more energy!
Obviously the extra calories should still come from foods congruent to your goals for health. So just helping yourself to an extra 200kcal a week of Haribos might not lead to more energy overall.
Your Strength In The Gym Will Increase:
You know that in order to gain muscle you have to be in a Caloric Surplus. Therefore any increase in calories will help you with the goal of gaining muscle.
You won’t look like Arnie.
But you should notice your workouts feeling a bit more full of energy and strength, and that progressive overload is a touch easier obtain.
You Will Have More Brain Space:
A calorie deficit is stressful and tiring. That takes up CPU power in the brain. But the truth is that by removing the pressure to lose weight for a small period of time, by renewing your focus and changing your goal for a brief period it will give you more vigor and motivation.
How Do You Find Your Calorie Maintenace Level
How Do You Go Into Calorie Maintenance?
The first and most important thing here is that I recommend you do this after a phase of being in a Calorie Deficit. It makes life easier once you know what you need to eat to lose weight, to then increase from there.
You will need to figure out your numbers. For which there are three methods I recommend. The first Method is the way you should do it…but its not the most simple or most effective.
Method One:
Once you have decided to go into Calorie Maintenance then, you need to start adding in 200kcal per week. From there, you will see the scale increase.
Don’t forget to weigh daily, because without that you will never know whether the weight has stabilized, dropped, or spiked for no reason.
If you want to improve your relationship with the scale then head right here to my article which has helped hundreds of people learn how to use the Scale Every Day: https://www.thegymstarter.com/articles/2020/5/2/your-scale-strategy
Then just keep building your calories up, until you have regular weigh-ins that hover around 1–5lbs above your starting Maintenance Weight: that is the window we are aiming for.
Method Two:
Download my Calorie Calculator right here: Free Calorie Calculator and other Weight Loss Goodies
Fill out all of your Data on there and then follow the guideline laid out for “Maintain Weight”. This is basically a Free TDEE Calculator for you.
Method Three:
Bodyweight in LBS x 14.
Just take your current body weight in pounds and times it by 14. You will get a fairly rough estimate of where you need to be.
In truth, its probably wise to do all three, and figure out your averages, and what sits best with you. That way you are keeping well educated and in touch with your body.
How Do You Find Your Calorie Maintenace Level
Conclusion
Remember if you decide to come away from your Calorie Deficit and come into a controlled period of Calorie Maintenance then it doesn’t mean any of these things:
That you have failed
That you can’t lose weight
That you aren’t focussed on your Goals
What it does mean is this:
You need a little rest
You are assessing new possibilities
Your goals have aligned differently
You are finding balance in the Calorie Deficit process
Calorie Maintenance is hard to get right because your Daily Activity will change from time to time. So it’s like an ongoing and fun experiment.
The scale will go up, but that's ok, as it’s part of the plan and its nothing to freak out about, plus you won’t lose all you lost again because you are putting your extra calories and extra energy into the Gym and what more the body can do.
I genuinely believe that Calorie Maintenance is the answer to “what now” once you hit your Goal Weight, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use it as a tool to help you continue working towards your goal weight and your Fat Loss if you aren’t quite there yet.
Calorie Maintenance is where to go when you feel lost, confused and frustrated with the constant yoyo of what modern-day dieting has become.
It can help give you balance all the way along the journey.
And as we know, balance is the most important word in the English Dictionary and in Fitness it is important to exercise it at every opportunity you get…because that creates consistency.
And consistency leads to success.
With a healthy dose of balance too.
Did you find this useful?
I have plenty more articles about Calories on this website.
Here is a selection I think would make great further reading for you:
You are also invited to get a bindle of Fat Loss Goodies from me including:
Get yourself a free month of workouts (Home and Gym-based options) which takes the guess work out of your workouts so that you know exactly what to do to burn body fat!
Get yourself a free copy of my e-book ”27 Ways To Faster Fast Loss” which is the most comprehensive step-by-step guide to losing weight you can find on the interent so that you never have to worry about pills, potions and magic fixes. The answers to your weight loss goals are in this book.
and
Get yourself a free customized Calorie Calculator which will give you the exact overall calories you need to achieve your goals for sustainable and flexible weight loss.
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How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And are Progress Photos useful to use?
The infamous “Progress” Picture. Some of this Article will sound damn obvious. Some of this article will shock you to your core.
But the overall aim of this Article is, like so much of my content, designed to change your perspective on two things:
How you feel about your own “Progress” photos
How you feel when you look at other people’s “Progress” photos.
One of my favorite progress photos is the following:
“I finally had the courage to upload my Progress Photo…it wasn’t easy but I managed it”
The reason I love this Meme so much is that it sums up the entire point of this Article.
Table of contents for: How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And are Progress Photos useful to use?
How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And are Progress Photos useful to use?
What is a “Progress” Photo?
I’m sure you have heard about them…or seen them. Even if you are ever so slightly interested in fitness or have ever logged into Facebook or Instagram I am almost certain you will have come across a Progress Photo.
A “Progress” Photo is a picture of someone on one day in time, typically when they started a new program placed right next to the same person a few months on when the program has finished.
And you are “expected” to see a difference between Photo A and Photo B.
They are also sometimes called “Before and After” photos.
I dislike this term more because it gives a finite beginning and end, which I don’t think is helpful for you.
Now it's great for the Personal Trainer that made you do it in your 12-week program and wants to exploit you and your pictures to try and get more clients…because as far as they are concerned it is Before and After.
Before you ever knew them.
After you are finished with them.
They now don’t give a fuck about you because they have their marketing photo. Its a classic, use, and abuse. In and Out. Kick to the curb.
And it disgusts me.
Disclaimer: I have been known to use my client's photos for marketing purposes. But none of them has ever done a 12-week shred with me. None of them have been with me as a client for less than a year. And they all understand that its a part of the sad world I exist in. I have also never edited a progress photo in order to create a better image of the result. But I am definitely in the minority.
I wish I could sell Personal Training without them. I really do. And I try to use them as little as possible. I very rarely use my own photos to sell how good I am as a Trainer because just because I can get a ripped body for myself doesn’t mean I know how to coach someone else to that end.
And that is a very important point. If you are choosing a Trainer based on how they look…then you are falling for a very easy trap. Anyone can follow a plan and get results themselves…the art of coaching is to be able to get someone else to do that, someone who isn’t you, who has a very different life and who needs very different guidance not just from who the trainer is, but also from all of their other clients too.
You are an individual.
And this is part of the problem. The market decides what sells…and you…yes…you…I know you have judged someone’s training experience based on a “Progress” photo you have seen of them. You have made a snap judgment on their trainer…and a snap judgment on the person based simply on a once in a moment photo.
And that is what sells.
I also think we all have a responsibility when posting them. Whether it is myself to try and garner business or yourself to demonstrate your hard work and to show how you have changed.
I always think…whenever I chose to use a “Progress” photo…I always think what effect will this have on someone somewhere?
Will one of my clients who is struggling right now see it and feel worthless?
Could someone see it at the wrong time of day and it means that they sink further into darkness?
Could it inspire someone to make a change?
I generally do not give a flying hoot about what I post and if someone is offended by what I say…I know they can move on, and I certainly can.
But a “Progress” photo has slightly different energy…and I have a responsibility to make sure that they are used in a more progressive way…and if you are reading this…I would like to think I have stopped and made you think about that too.
And this is based in reality. A trainer I used to work with created an online program that was based around a 6 Week Fat Loss shred. The image they used of their “client” (personally I had never seen them work with them and there was no Social proof for this either over the 5 years I had known said person) was of “this client” looking “large” and then “small”.
The tag line was “6 Week Transformation”
The advertising for this was huge. This woman was almost life-like in size on the website and the online ads and Social Media pictures were in your very in your face. But what really got to me about them was the following: It was all a lie.
This “client” did not do this program.
This “client” did not change her body that much in 6 weeks.
The people who did do this program never got results like that in 6 weeks — so imagine how they must have felt when all was said and done?
Luckily, I never worked with the trainer personally…we were just both in the same industry in the same town. But this is what really hurt most about it.
I was in a session with a client. A client who has struggled with weight her entire life. The issues with her weight have permeated through into her Mental Health and for the first time in her life she felt like she was learning and beginning to get to where she wanted to get to.
She was targeted by this advert online and the posts…she sent them to me…feeling very lonely late one night and asked me:
“Is that true?”
I told her the truth that the whole thing is a lie and the transformation took a good four or five years, and her response was this:
“That makes me feel really sad. That makes me feel so small and so unworthy. I’m so glad it isn’t true, but that picture makes me feel so angry because for a while I thought it was true…and it made me feel horrible”
We have a responsibility. We need to do better. We need to stop putting finances above people’s mental health in an industry that is about Health. We must stop selling lies and impossible truths just because we have egos. It's not helping you, and it's not helping your clients.
The worst bit…the program did really well in terms of sales. The results? Well, I’ve never seen a “client” who actually went through the system on any campaign from this trainer since….nor have I seen any of their progress photos on social media.
This brings us quite nicely to…
How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And are Progress Photos useful to use?
How Should You View “Progress” Photos?
Let me be clear. As much as I think they can be bad for the majority of people to see…they do have a place and can be effective for you in tracking your goals. I think they are a terrible way to draw clients in due to how untrustworthy they really can be.
It's more like the “Progress” photo itself isn’t the problem…but like with all things it's the way we personally view them.
When I was at Drama School we would be constantly working on a play. And every so often different people would come into rehearsals and critique the play. Whether that was a Movement Director, a fellow student, a Fight Director, a Voice Coach, a Casting Director, a Producer, the productions Composer and the Lighting Designer. You also had the Set Designer, Costume Designer, Script Writer (if they were still alive…alas I never met Shakespeare). Oh, then there's the whole Stage Management Team as well.
All in all about 30 people.
That wasn’t involved in all of the rehearsals They just had to show up and go away again. But every time they would show up an interesting phrase kept creeping into the rehearsal room:
“It’s a work in progress”
I used to view this as an excuse in case the people watching thought it was totally rubbish…and we would have time to make it better.
Then I was in Twelfth Night…and our Director, James Kemp, spoke to us about how a play is never finished. How a Production is never finished. How every night you must keep digging and digging, you must keep finding new things to discover because that is how you keep a play alive.
And no one wants to sit through a very stagnant three hours of Shakespeare.
You see, this is what your “Progress” Photo is.
It's not a beginning and an end.
Your fitness, if you have taken it on, and want to improve it should never exist with the concept of a beginning and an end. You must always be searching, always be digging, always be developing and letting your experience reveal new truths to you as you go.
There is no end. Just exploration.
A “Progress” photo doesn’t do that. A “Before and After” photo doesn’t do that.
Therefore I think it is a lot more healthy for you to view these photos as
“Work In Process”
Not just your photos, but those of others you see on the internet as well. They are just Work In Process.
I take a photo of myself after every single training session.
And yes…I do have narcissistic tendencies, but that is not why.
Its a lot like my article on “Your Scale Strategy”
Read my article that has helped 100s of women improve their relationship with the scale right here: Your Scale Strategy
The more you expose yourself to a picture like this then the less pressure you will feel first when you see it of yourself, and secondly when you see others. Yes, you might not notice progress as much…but who cares? Like with everything in Fitness…there is no end game. There is no finite; just exploration.
All Work In Process photos must be taken with a huge pinch of salt because they are quite literally just an image of someone frozen in time.
The drawbacks of what you see in a Progress photo are huge.
How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And Are Progress Photos Useful To Use?
What are the Pros and Cons of “Progress” photos?
Well…as we are here…let's start with the Cons:
Some of the biggest cons are that you have no idea about these elements of the subject's health:
Their relationship with food
Their mental health
Their hydration levels
Their physical health
Their relationship with exercise
All of these things could be very much affected…and the more “drastic” a “progress” photo is…and the more professional the photos look the more extreme we can assume the pendulum swings.
I know of BodyBuilders that get to a point where they can only drink what they pass when getting ready for a photoshoot — they also can’t get health insurance…due to the state of their livers.
Yes…that is the extreme side of the equation. But it all counts. Because every time you flick through Instagram and see a very shredded person…it still makes you feel like crap. Even a little. It makes you say “I’d never be able to achieve that” and that isn’t good enough.
Some more cons:
It is well known that people have had their own “progress” photos stolen to sell products and programs they never participated in.
The use of lighting can affect a huge amount of the way you look when they are taken (there is actually a thing called “anabolic lighting”)
They can easily be edited to make the subject look a lot better than they are.
Here are two photos…one on the right I edited on my phone…and the other is the original.
Please excuse the towel…
You can see my Pecs look a lot bigger in the edited photo due to the enhanced shadow, and the coloring looks a little off…but you are comparing like for like. How many “Progress” photos do you see where the subject is comparing all things the same?
I used a specialist app to edit this photo and these are some of its features:
Reshape — including Detail and Bloat (this might sound defunct but it makes your muscles look so much bigger if used well)
Retouch — teeth whitening, smoothing.
Brighten / Darken (very useful for anabolic lighting)
Tall — yes, you can actually make yourself taller
But my favorite feature is the following:
Stickers — Male Ab Stickers, Male Chest Stickers, Female Ab Stickers, Collarbone Stickers, Cleavage Stickers (yes, you can actually put someone else's breasts on your photos — I use this feature personally a lot)
I was going to put a funny photo in here of myself with that feature…but some things just can't be unseen.
In the photo above, I have managed to increase my arm size, my pectoral size, and I was able to darken my Abs so they looked so much more defined, and so that I look a lot more muscly and ripped than I actually am.
It took 5 minutes. Maybe less.
And…this app…is totally free.
Other Cons?
They build pressure on you
They can de-motivate you when you don’t see any progress
They can feel like a much bigger deal than they actually are
They can be very exposing and scary if you have never done them before
If you don’t know how to look at them, and what to look for you may never see the progress in them. I have had a number of clients submit photos to me and despite huge differences, they just don’t see them. Being subjective towards them can be very diminishing. I’ve had full-blown discussions with clients to try and show them what I can see in a photo…they just never believe it.
And this is why I don’t think they are an effective way to draw clients into programs either…
Let’s say I took on 100 clients into a 12 week program and made them all eat 1000 calories or less each day. I would get some amazing before and after photos…trust me. Especially if I only took on clients who had a BMI of 25+ for this program.
Now only about 10% of that number would actually get to the end. I now have 10 clients.
Of these 10 clients, lets say…maybe 5 or 6 of them remembered to do their photos at the beginning, and maybe 2 or 3 remembered to do them at the end.
I had 100 clients. I now have 2 or 3 that I have amazing photos of…to then use to sell the advocacy of the program to you.
You are buying into a program that has revealed 3% of its truth.
If I gave you a 3% chance of success in any program would you want to spend £100s on that?
Hardly seems honest, does it?
97 people, who failed. 97 people who you have no idea about and 97 people who the trainer can’t even remember their names.
On the internet also…there are many accounts that produce these comparison photos…and I kid you not…they don’t even use the same person in both photos. This is no joke. I promise you.
When I saw this it got me thinking of a checklist you should probably ask yourself every time you see a “Before and After” photo. It's really important you protect yourself from stuff like this. So always use the following filter when you are looking at photos of this nature:
Are there any Pros?
Well, yes. There are.
Photos can be and should be used as another way to track your Work In Process. They can reveal a lot. They can reveal things that the scale might not reveal.
They can build huge confidence in people, as they can be challenging, and overcoming a challenge can move you into growth.
And when they reveal development…it is a great feeling.
It really is a nice feeling. But that is chased with trepidation because I’m sure in the past you haven’t seen progress from one photo to another…and it has stopped you in your tracks.
How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And Are Progress Photos Useful To Use?
How Should You Take A “Work In Process” Photo?
There are rules on how it should be done…and in all honesty mine are a terrible example for a number of reasons — which when I explain below you will understand more.
I would also like to take this moment to TELL YOU TO DO IT.
But only if you agree to the following:
1. Its a Work In Process photo and you remember that at all times — there is no end to the process.
2. You understand that its only one method of tracking your work in process — the scale, measurements, the way your clothes fit, and what other people say to you are all huge indicators of progress too.
3. You will only compare every two to three months (you can and should take them much more regularly so you get to practice and used to taking the photos)
4. You follow the best practice as laid out below…
If I had a dollar for every client that said to me…
“I wish I took photos at the beginning”
In fact just this week one of my clients in The Fitness Collective said just this. Word for word.
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And I understand why you don’t want to when you start.
You feel scared of failing, and you definitely don’t want a photo to remind you of another moment where you failed. Plus…you’re in this to lose weight…because deep down there are parts of your body you hate…and a “reveal all” photo to send to your trainer when you can’t even make love with the lights on just isn’t happening. Full Stop.
It is a challenge. And a photo isn’t mandatory. But if you have someone who believes in you, as much as I do. If you have someone who is your number one cheerleader then of course you aren’t going to fail and that photo could be something you are immensely proud of and giving yourself that opportunity could be life-changing.
So this is how you do it:
1. Always take your progress photos at the same time of day. Mornings are preferred…as much fewer variables are in play ie: how much food you have eaten that day and therefore how bloated you are.
2. Try and use natural lighting as much as possible. Go outside and get the photo as it is going to be a much truer reflection.
3. Use the same clothing — never change your clothing. It's ok to have a progress photo in a T-shirt, but remember that won’t tell you the whole story…but if you need that comfort that’s ok. But always where the same one!
4. Use the same phone, and put it in the same position! Do not change lenses, do not change angles and do not do it like a selfie. In fact the phone should always be lower than you think. Usually, the best position for the phone in relation to you is about in line with your belt buckle.
5. Put the phone about 6 feet away from you so you can capture your whole body from toe to head on the screen.
6. Keep the phone completely parallel to your body. Do not angle it upwards or downward as it is a variable you will not be able to repeat.
6. Stand naturally…no flexing, no tensing, and no worry. Just be you. Because you are all that matters.
7. Try to put the gridlines evenly across your body, and make sure you stand in the center three boxes. Like this:
And that’s it.
Nearly.
Now the photo is taken…
You then have to wait a minimum of 8 weeks and then repeat the process.
Then…and this is probably the most important part of Work In Process photo.
Send the photos to a professional who can look at them objectively.
I promise you…you won’t see what they see…and what they see is what is really going on. You will be hell-bent on seeing a reduction in your belly, but you will ignore all the differences in your posture, your muscular development, the difference in confidence and so much more.
It takes practice and work to really see what is going on in photos…and that is something you do not have experience in.
I tell you what…if you got this far in this article…email me and I will look at them myself for you…to help you…just email me on adam@thegymstarter.com
How Do You Track Weight Loss With Progress Photos? And Are Progress Photos Useful To Use?
Conclusion
I really hope your biggest take away from this article is the following:
Stop viewing these photos as “Progress” photos or “Before and After” photos. Looking at them in that mindset is helping people manipulate you into buying into very large untruths about their work and the effectiveness of losing weight.
I want you to start realizing they are a “Work In Process” photo.
There is no end. It's just where you are at over this last two to three month period.
A Work In Process photo is useful, but it only reveals one very small and slim side of someone's story. It doesn’t tell you their relationship with food, what drastic measures they have had to go through to get the photo in the first place.
Its just two photos…two or three months apart. You have no idea how happy that person is…and I bet even though they lost some weight…they still aren’t happy.
Because this is the kicker: Losing Weight doesn’t make you happy.
The work and focus on the process of looking after yourself might. But reducing the size of your body will not make you happy…so stop thinking that it will…and above all stop thinking that the people you see in these photos are happy.
If they look happier on one photo compared to another its because they have manipulated it that way…they have slouched and sunken in the first one and stood up straight in the second one.
There’s more to this than you think.
So let's get you focussed on the Process. On the work. On the toil.
And let's get you viewing these photos with a more critical eye when you see them….
And let's get you viewing your own ones as quite simply…
A Work In Process.
Because that is beautiful. Just like you.
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Coach Adam