https://imgur.com/gallery/46wyZnh
Today marks exactly 50lbs since my highest recorded weight.
34, coming up to 35 year old male, 196 to 146lbs, 5’11”.
Just over a year ago I decided I was absolutely sick and tired of being an unhealthy overweight desk-jockey, and decided it was time to turn myself into a healthy, sensible-weight desk jockey instead! I was in a very bad place, mentally, following a family tragedy, and in the deepest hole I’ve ever been in.
Just as I was feeling like I was sinking deeper into that hole and would never get out, a spark went off inside of me (triggered by what, I can’t pinpoint), and I just went for it. Non stop, all out. That was around a year ago and I’ve never looked back.
To answer the most common questions, I would say the following:
-
It’s my belief that around 80% of this change happened because of the changes to my diet. Establishing the deficit I needed to be in to see consistent progress, and sticking to it. Being very religious about calorie counting, not just winging it. Logging everything, to the gram. Every meal, every day, every week, every month. Just do it! It went from being a real chore to actually something I really enjoyed doing, planning out a week’s worth of meals and tweaking things around to work out exactly how much I could have of things....it made me learn a lot about nutrition in the process!
-
My workout was primarily cardio for 80% of the time, mostly running and HIIT spin bike, following a 35 minute video I found on YouTube. Towards the end of my cutting phase I started implementing weight training, and now that’s the vast majority of what I do, as my goal from here is to add lean muscle mass.
Now for some things that I discovered along the way that really helped me:
-
DO NOT try to cut too aggressively. You MUST think of this as a long term lifestyle change and not a quick fix. It’s better to lose 1lb a week for a year than 2.5lbs a week for 3 months and then burn yourself into the ground and go back to your old ways. I learned this the hard way, and experienced some pretty unpleasant mental side effects of severe caloric restriction. Don’t fall into this trap.
-
Treat your calorie requirement as a weekly ‘fund’ that you can access at any time. You will have days where all you want to do is eat, and you will have days where the urge isn’t so bad, a lot of this is dependent on what you are doing activity-wise. If your calories to lose weight are 1,800 per day, think of it as 12,600 per week instead and allocate it across days in a way that works for you. Like to have a Saturday night treat meal? Fine, have 2,500 calories on a Saturday. It’s not a problem.
-
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking everything you like is off limits. Throughout my ENTIRE cutting phase, I drank wine, ate ice cream, ate chocolate, ate crisps, ate pretty much everything that people consider ‘bad’ on a diet. Newsflash, there’s no such thing as good and bad food, just too much of it. Moderation is key, and finding lower calorie alternatives that let you have higher volume is a great way to pad things out.
EAT FOOD THAT YOU ENJOY
This is so important! The only diet that works is the one you can stick to. Don’t eat broccoli and rice 3 times a day if you hate broccoli and rice. Calories in, calories out, it really is that simple. Now I’m obviously not advocating getting all of your daily calories from Krispy Kreme, but the reality is, if you are in a constant calorie deficit, then you ARE going to lose body fat. Not might, ARE. Food choices are important for a variety of reasons, but if your diet is largely comprised of clean, whole foods, then having daily treats of things you like is absolutely fine. Like most things in life it’s about balance. The 80/20 rule is golden - if you’re consuming most of your calories through wholesome, nutritious food, then getting 20% of it from ‘bad’ food isn’t going to be a problem in the slightest.
And please, please, PLEASE don’t fall into the ‘can’t have carbs’ nonsense trap. Carbs are NOT your enemy. Bread and pasta don’t make you fat. Too MUCH of any food makes you fat. Yes, your body will retain more water if you have lots of carbs, but this is NOT fat! Yes, you can lose several pounds cutting out carbs for a week....but ask yourself what is the point? All you’re doing is changing the amount of water in your body at an arbitrary moment in time. It’s completely false ‘weight loss’ and is making no difference to your levels of body fat.
So once again, EAT FOOD THAT YOU ENJOY! And you will reap the rewards of a lifestyle change that doesn’t feel like restriction.
I’m deliberately not getting too much into macros etc here as there’s lots of information out there about nutrition and I’m trying to come at this from a more practical tips standpoint rather than the science of things.
-
Take the occasional break. I can’t stress this enough. If you have been cutting for 8/10/12 weeks, you’re going to be feeling it. Take a week off. Eat at your maintenance calories and let your body and mind replenish. You will feel much better for it. This has been proven by people much more educated than I to be beneficial to long term weight loss. Again, it’s about considering it a lifestyle change that’s here for the long haul. Do you really think you’ll look back in a year, two years, three years and say....”oh, if only I didn’t take that week off three years ago where I ate enough to maintain my weight”....NO!
-
Use a seven day average for your weight. This is SO, SO important. Take your weight daily and take an average on the same day each week. Compare that to your previous average. The way most people do it, of comparing their weight each Friday (for example) will lead to stress and doubt - your weight fluctuates so much daily down to so many factors beyond your level of body fat. Taking an average evens out these fluctuations to a degree and makes it much easier to assess your progress.
As an example, my weight last Thursday was 1.9lbs higher than it was on the same day 4 weeks ago. However my average weight in that period has decreased by 2.8lbs. Now look at the vast array of (wrong) conclusions that could be drawn from that if you only had one data set or the other!
- My single biggest tip has been touched upon before, but it really is a case of adapting this as a long term, sustainable lifestyle change and not falling into the trap of chasing instant progress/gratification. Short term targets are fine but you need to be thinking about long-term goals and the sustainability of what you’re doing.
That’s about all I can think of for now in terms of tips and advice but as I think of more things I will add them to the original post :)
Good luck on your journey!
[link] [comments]
from loseit - Lose the Fat https://ift.tt/2YB09yH
No comments:
Post a Comment