Andy Rodriguez - @thatfitinvestor
The average person gains 11 pounds for every diet they try. Even worse, when they lose weight they also lose muscle and fat. When they regain weight it’s all fat. And since muscle burns seven times as many calories as fat, their metabolism is slower than when they started the diet — cruelly requiring even fewer calories to maintain their weight.
Do you know someone overweight who says they don’t eat that much? They may not be lying. They’ve damaged their metabolism by yo-yo dieting. There are two keys to losing weight and keeping it off: reduce your appetite by fixing out-of-whack hormones and brain chemistry that drive hunger and overeating — not by white-knuckling it and starving yourself — and increase your metabolism so you burn more calories all day long.
Unfortunately, most diets have the opposite effect – increased hunger and slowed metabolism. Here's five reasons that majority of diets fail:
There is science behind hunger. Unfortunately, most diets trigger hunger by making you eat less. You can only starve yourself for so long — our brain compensates and protects us from starvation, self-induced or not, by dramatically increasing our hunger cravings and dropping metabolism to conserve energy. Eating low fat, high carb, and/or sugary foods actually increases hunger and slows metabolism.
2. Focus on calories
The mantra of “calories in/calories out”, or energy balance as the key to weight loss, is quickly being thrown into the scientific trash can. Some calories make you fat, others make you thin. What we now know is that any foods that spike insulin — sugar, flour, excess grains/fruit/beans — trigger a shift in your metabolism.
Insulin drives all the fuel in your blood from the food you just ate into your hungry fat cells. Your body thinks you’re starving even though you just downed a giant bagel or a milkshake. Remember the two things that happen when your body thinks it’s starving: increased hunger and slowed metabolism.
You CAN get your daily sweet fix from sugary foods, but keep refined sugars under 20% of your total daily calories.
3. Not tracking
Many of my clients think they eat less than they actually do. If it goes into your mouth, you need to track it. Every single bite, no matter how small. Pennies a day add up, and so do calories.
4. Not having a set plan
Five P’s: proper preparation prevents poor performance. How will you arrive at your destination if you don’t have directions?
5. Not following me on Instagram
Just sayin’. @holyfitgym
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Here’s a story that may sound familiar - a person starts a new diet with a weight loss meal plan and they’re really excited about how it’s finally going to change their health around. Maybe there’s some early success! Eventually though, six months or maybe even two years down the road, the diet fails. It happens to so many people that it’s almost an expectation.
A scientifically sound weight loss meal plan is a fantastic foundation for losing weight. Obviously what you eat matters, A LOT. But that’s not enough — without a long-term strategy for success in place most diets are doomed to fail. We want you to take the weight off and keep it off, so here are three ways to make your weight loss meal plan successful for the long haul.
1. Set Realistic Goals
Goals should be concrete daily objectives like “drink a gallon of water a day for 30 days” or “work out arms for 30 minutes today.” Writing down and working toward short-term activity based goals is a common strategy for successful professionals in all walks of life — athletes, musicians, entrepreneurs — but those goals have to be realistic to have any chance of working.
The best strategy is to reverse engineer your long-term visions to create short-term goals. Let’s say you want to lose 5 pounds in a month. Twenty minutes of cardiovascular exercise in addition to cutting out processed sugars everyday is a rational, attainable goal.
2. Healthy Caloric Deficit
Putting yourself in caloric deficit (burning more calories than you ingest) is absolutely essential for weight loss, but it is incredibly easy to do so in ways that negatively affect your health and sabotage your long-term goals.
Cutting too many calories too fast will send your body into survival mode, crippling your metabolism as it desperately stores away all energy from everything you consume — your lizard brain thinks you are starving. Your body won’t want to burn fat.
Instead, figure out how many calories you need to maintain your current weight and cut that number by 20%. This shouldn’t be enough of a change to trigger your body’s survival mode. Not sure how many calories you’re taking in every day? Keep on reading.
3. Accurately Count Calories
We know, we know. Counting calories can be a demanding chore, but it really is necessary for long-term weight loss success. Good news though — a good weight loss meal plan (like our Lean Box) does the work for you! The calories of every meal are already counted for you — simply put the numbers into your favorite nutrition app, or write them down old-school in a nutrition journal.
And don’t forget — document EVERYTHING. A little snack here and there might not seem like much, but those calories add up too.
In It To Win It
If you’re thinking about investing in yourself and getting healthy with a weight loss meal plan, congratulations — you deserve to live your best life! Help guarantee your self-investment is successful in the long run by adding these tips to your weight loss strategy.
