How to lose weight in 2 simple steps

[Cerwin Vega]

1. Eat less than your what body needs.
2. Stay persistent with step 1.

It all comes up to this. Any sort of diet, meal plan, or lifestyle will try to achieve is this: CICO (calories in/calories out) below 1.0. Everything expensive diet or technique built around this idea, and tbh, they're just clutches that limit your results.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter what you eat. You will always lose weight if you eat less than your total daily expenditure. If you're a low-activity, healthy male, we're talking 2000-2300kcal/day. Your body can live for weeks without eating anything, so 1500kcal/day is more than enough to sustain it.

Now, that doesn't mean you can stuff your face with 13 twinkies/day to fulfill your daily needs -- you will still lose weight, but you'll also lose muscle, and feel like **** 24/7.

You have to learn how to manipulate your body to satiety, which means that you need high-volume, low-calorie foods such as vegetables. You also need building blocks such as protein, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids, but that's for my next post.

So...how do you start?
-Cut down on the portions
-Replace calorie-dense foods with low-calorie foods (big bowl of vegetables instead of pasta/rice)
-Eat MORE MEAT, EGGS AND FISH. It's packed full of protein.
-Go COLD TURKEY on foods which trigger binging. For me, that's sweets. I can't hold myself around them, so I stopped buying them

Do all the above while monitoring your calorie intake, and slowly go down to 2000->1750->1500kcal/day.
This applies to the average male; if you're >6ft and muscular, increase these numbers by 10-15%.

Now, here's the important part. Don't forget step #2. You must do it persistently for at least 6 months if you're >10kg overweight, and I guarantee that you'll see the results.

This will not only help you look more attractive, but also reduce your mortality, and even make you feel better. Obesity is an epidemic. I've seen plenty of 30-year-old patients with occluded coronaries, and kids as young as 12 starting on antidiabetics and antihypertensives...it's not fun, and in many cases it's irreversible.

 

[jimwho]

Good stuff. (are you a Doc?). Some of my own unprofessional tips. Stop eating every time you're hungry. Embrace and learn to get used to hunger. I tell my kids when you're hungry that's your body removing fat. Not sure if it's true but I live by it and it works for me. Plus imho the body can work on other stuff instead of digesting all day.

Sustained calorie deficits will use some muscle also for fuel. Keep an eye on that and move weights around very often.

If you live alone all this is easy. My buddy asked me "Dude how do you do it?" teach me. I told him you can't because you have three kids and a Mexican wife that knows how to make tortillas "come on"..

 

[Cerwin Vega]

Good stuff. (are you a Doc?). Some of my own unprofessional tips. Stop eating every time you're hungry. Embrace and learn to get used to hunger. I tell my kids when you're hungry that's your body removing fat. Not sure if it's true but I live by it and it works for me. Plus imho the body can work on other stuff instead of digesting all day.

Sustained calorie deficits will use some muscle also for fuel. Keep an eye on that and move weights around very often.

If you live alone all this is easy. My buddy asked me "Dude how do you do it?" teach me. I told him you can't because you have three kids and a Mexican wife that knows how to make tortillas "come on"..

I'm an MD. Unfortunately, physicians will get very little to no training in nutrition. Everything I've learned was through my own research, so don't expect your GP to know about diet more than you.

Also, excellent advice! There's nothing wrong about feeling hungry!

I actually learned to like that feeling. Research has shown that intermittent fasting has very little if any benefits on overall health, but if it helps us eat less - then why not?

About the muscle loss - very true, but it's easily reversible - you won't lose any muscle fibers; they'll just become smaller, which can be fixed by training and increasing your calories a little bit over maintenance once you're done losing weight.

 

[jimwho]

Well since you're an MD you should do a monthly "Vega's tip of the month" post. Next month do a how to heal a tendon faster.

 

[BillyPilgrim]

Fasting is a good way to go. Retrains your habits and also shrinks your stomach if my understanding is correct.

 

[Toddy]

Keto and intermittent fasting have been great for me.

 

[Bolixx]

1. 80% of weight loss is diet.
2. tracking food

 

[Schwing]

Back in July when I was having those chest pains and wasn't even doing my cardio on the bike for a couple weeks my doctor said to cut out soda and caffeine. Even when not working out and stopped drinking soda for 2 weeks I noticed I lost 3lbs.

 

[henryj3]

1. Eat less than your what body needs.
2. Stay persistent with step 1.

It all comes up to this. Any sort of diet, meal plan, or lifestyle will try to achieve is this: CICO (calories in/calories out) below 1.0. Everything expensive diet or technique built around this idea, and tbh, they're just clutches that limit your results.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter what you eat. You will always lose weight if you eat less than your total daily expenditure. If you're a low-activity, healthy male, we're talking 2000-2300kcal/day. Your body can live for weeks without eating anything, so 1500kcal/day is more than enough to sustain it.

Now, that doesn't mean you can stuff your face with 13 twinkies/day to fulfill your daily needs -- you will still lose weight, but you'll also lose muscle, and feel like **** 24/7.

You have to learn how to manipulate your body to satiety, which means that you need high-volume, low-calorie foods such as vegetables. You also need building blocks such as protein, vitamins, minerals, and fatty acids, but that's for my next post.

So...how do you start?
-Cut down on the portions
-Replace calorie-dense foods with low-calorie foods (big bowl of vegetables instead of pasta/rice)
-Eat MORE MEAT, EGGS AND FISH. It's packed full of protein.
-Go COLD TURKEY on foods which trigger binging. For me, that's sweets. I can't hold myself around them, so I stopped buying them

Do all the above while monitoring your calorie intake, and slowly go down to 2000->1750->1500kcal/day.
This applies to the average male; if you're >6ft and muscular, increase these numbers by 10-15%.

Now, here's the important part. Don't forget step #2. You must do it persistently for at least 6 months if you're >10kg overweight, and I guarantee that you'll see the results.

This will not only help you look more attractive, but also reduce your mortality, and even make you feel better. Obesity is an epidemic. I've seen plenty of 30-year-old patients with occluded coronaries, and kids as young as 12 starting on antidiabetics and antihypertensives...it's not fun, and in many cases it's irreversible.

I like it , Thanks for sharing the informative stuff

 

[9-3enthusiast]

1. Eat less than your what body needs.
2. Stay persistent with step 1.

In the grand scheme of things, it doesn't matter what you eat. You will always lose weight if you eat less than your total daily expenditure. If you're a low-activity, healthy male, we're talking 2000-2300kcal/day. Your body can live for weeks without eating anything, so 1500kcal/day is more than enough to sustain it.

I lost well over 100 pounds a few years ago, and have kept it off - so I know where I'm coming from on this topic....
Long story short:- Bad marriage, eating crap, led to me weighing 295lbs at age 50 --> Health scare (high blood pressure) --> Got serious about my Diet --> Lost 85 pounds the first 10 months, then a further 30 over the following year......

Anyways.... How it worked for me....
If you take tour weight in pounds and multiply by 15 - That gives your calorie usage for someone of 'normal' activity
By 'normal' I mean just going about your normal day with no extra exercise - but also, not a couch-potato lifestyle.
So for a 180 lb guy, that would be 2,775 calories.
(Less if you are a couch-potato - more if you exercise - As Cerwin says, you'll only use maybe 2000 - 2300 if you are lighter or have low activity)

3500 calories, equates to about 1 pound of fat - So by eating 500 calories a day below your maintenance level, you'll lose around a pound in a week at first....
Bear in mind, that after a while, your body will use fewer calories, and your maintenance figure will gradually drop.
Partly due to your weight loss, but also a little more than that, due your body adapting to use less calories.

At 295 pounds, my weight maintenance level would be 4,425 calories, but I was keeping myself to around 2,500 a day - and the weight fell off quickly at first (4 or 5 pounds some weeks)
By the time I got to 210 pounds the weight was getting harder to shift with an intake of 2,500, so I began to cycle (I used to be a competitive cyclist when I was in my 20s).
Now I'm at around 180 pounds I still keep to around 2,500 calories a day - though I do take an occasional liberty, but always make sure to reduce for a day or two afterwards to compensate.

Counting the calorie intake can be a pit of a PITA at first, but you soon get a handle on it.
At first I was weighing EVERYTHING... carefully checking packaging, etc.... But by the time you've been doing it a few months you get to the point where you know the contents of everything you eat regularly.

Now - a few years down the line - I can look at food and estimate the calorie content of something to within 50 by sight alone.

Point number 2 is the key.
Anyone can keep to pretty much any diet for a while - To keep the weight off, and stay fit... It needs to become habit.
You need to get into the mindset where it's a lifestyle change rather than a 'temporary' diet.





** For me..... sugar was my downfall.
I was getting through huge amounts of it due to 'comfort-eating' due to having given up on myself at that point.
The blood-pressure scare (Stupidly high numbers) was a big wake-up call for me.
I dumped all processed/refined sugars as completely as I could, and it turned out that my 'regular' food intake wasn't that bad once the sweet/sugary crap was removed.

Today I still regard processed/refined sugars as the food-equivalent of Satan, and avoid it wherever practical.
(sometimes, if you eat out, it's difficult to avoid - but I keep indulgences to a minimum)