How to Actually Lose Weight
Want to know the biggest weight loss secret?!
Here it is: there is no secret.
Plenty of companies with well-researched advertising strategies and perfectly placed adds will tell you otherwise.
That is because they want your money!
Let me say that again: they want your money.
Their goal is not for you to lose weight, if you do, you will stop buying their products.
That being said, there are some basic strategies which may help a lot!
Let’s start with the following rules:
Weight loss is not fast.
Weight loss is not easy.
You may be doing several things that are completely wrecking your hard-earned progress.
Medications may help you, but are not always a good long-term solution (blog coming next soon: Are Weight Loss Medications Right for Me?)
Yes, there are exceptions to these “rules”, but the exceptions are almost never sustainable.
*Medical considerations before we get into the nitty gritty: it is recommended to get a basic blood work panel (including a thyroid level) if you have not had blood work done in a while and have been struggling with your weight. If you would like to get blood work done or do a weight loss consultation/visit at our office, please give us a call or schedule an appointment. Weight loss visits include a full evaluation of your weight and medical history, physical exam and plan for weight loss (with discussion and possible prescription for medication(s) to help with weight loss).
The “Step-Up” Approach to Weight Loss
These are the basic steps I recommend to my patients who are trying to lose weight.
Step 1: Decrease/cut out sugar and refined carbs
I have had plenty of patients lose weight by doing step one, and only step one. I find this especially true when the patient is a big soda/sugary drink drinker to start with and they completely cut out the sugary drinks.
Foods/drinks high in sugar or refined carbs: dessert, sodas, sweet tea, juice, pasta, bread, rice, corn, potatoes, breakfast cereal and tortillas.
Other upsides of decreasing sugar and refined carbs: due to the anti-inflammatory effects of a low sugar/refined carb diet, most people experience an increase in energy and a decrease in chronic pain (blog soon to come on anti-inflammatory diet and lifestyle!)
If step one is not enough, go to step two
Step 2: Eat meals not snacks.
Work on getting 2-3 filling, 400-600 calorie meals a day.
One of the biggest mistakes I see is when people eat small, non-filling meals that are “healthy”. A salad is NOT a meal. They eat their tiny “healthy” meal, and are hungry again in about an hour. Guess what they do next, they eat whatever is available, which is usually high calorie, unhealthy, and also not very filling.
When you eat filling meals, you are much less likely to snack. Snack food almost always has next to no nutritional value, is high calorie, and is very easy to eat in large quantities.
If step 1 and 2 are not enough, go to step 3
Step 3: Calorie count
If you are not losing weight with step 1 or step 2, calorie counting is non-negotiable. Yes, it is a massive pain in the butt. Yes, it is inconvenient. Yes, it WORKS.
You need to put in EVERYTHING you eat, even if it is a really small snack or even just one bite of something. If you eat a single M&M, its got to go into the calorie counter. This also includes condiments like ketchup, salad dressing, and butter or oil that you cook with.
When you start calorie counting, I high recommend not changing your diet at all for the first 5-7 days. This will allow you to get an idea of how many calories and what types of food you are actually eating (not just the food you remember eating later in the day or the next day).
Everyone’s calorie intake for weight loss will differ. As a rule of thumb, women should try 1400-1600 calories a day for weight loss, men should try 1600-1800 a day. If you start at this level and still lose no weight after 3-4 weeks, decrease your daily intake by about 100-150 calories/day.
Use an smart phone app! There are several available that are completely free including MyFitnessPal and MyNetDiary. Do not write it down by hand or in a note in your phone. No one has the time to hand calculate their calorie intake, and even if they did, it is unlikely that it will be very accurate.
If step 1, 2, and 3 are not enough, go to step 4.
Step 4: Calorie count better
Get a food scale. I repeat: get a food scale.
Do not assume you know what something weighs when putting it in the calorie counter. For example, if you are not sure what 4 ounces of meat looks like (and almost no one actually is), weigh/measure what you eat. This is one of the most common ways people underestimate the amount of food/calories they are actually eating.
The Biggest Mistakes That Keep You from Losing Weight
Many people make several mistakes while trying losing weight that completely ruin any hard-earned work.
Exercise is NOT a weight loss activity
Exercise is a healthy, energy-boosting, inflammation-decreasing, anti-aging activity. I highly recommend it. It is not, however, very effective for weight loss.
Most workouts only burn 100-250 calories. This is the amount of calories in a small snack. If you are working out but increasing the amount of food you are eating, you will likely gain weight instead of lose it.
Weight loss happens almost completely from diet changes and reducing the amount of calories you eat in a day.
Have cheat meals not cheat days
Losing one pound requires a deficit of 3500 calories. If your body requires 1800 calories a day, so you eat 1300 calories instead everyday for a week, you will lose one pound.
It is very easy to totally undo a weeks worth of hard-earned progress over the course of a day, much harder to do with a meal.
Weight loss starts slow and remains slow, keep going!
When people first start changing their diet, they will often not lose weight for the first 2-3 weeks. Only after the first 2-3 weeks, will they start to lose weight. Many people get frustrated and give up before they reach 2-3 weeks of hard work.
It is normal to work really hard and continue to lose weight slowly. A great goal is 1-1.5 pounds a weeks (or 4-6 pounds a month)
Weight loss that happens quickly usually happens when someone goes on an extreme diet that is not sustainable. Regardless of what diet you do, if you do not maintain the dietary changes you have made, you will gain the weight back.
If it is not sustainable, it’s not going to work
This is why crash diets do not work in the long run. Yes, you can lose several pounds pretty quickly with extreme dieting, but the day you go back to your regular diet, you will start to gain the weight back.
This is also why extreme exercise regimens usually don’t work. They are not sustainable, and therefor the weight loss that they may help with is also not sustainable.
This is where individualized strategy comes in. One of the most difficult things about sustaining weight loss is figuring out what works for you, not what has worked for other people. A very low carb diet is sustainable for some people, intermittent fasting works for others and meal prepping works for others. What matters is what works for you. You have got to figure out a pattern that you are able to stick to. This may involving trying different strategies for a couple weeks at a time to see if you actually like them or not.
DO NOT punish yourself for messing up
This may be one of the most important points.
Losing weight is hard and it takes a long time. You are not going to last if you are constantly punishing and putting yourself down when you mess up. And you are going to mess up. If you overeat one day, DO NOT try to make up for it the next day by eating way less. This will create a miserable, demoralizing cycle that will make weight loss even harder than it already is.
If you have a bad day, or even bad week, the most important thing you can do is give yourself a clean slate, and congratulate yourself for trying again.
If you would like to further discuss your weight loss goals and go in depth on strategies that may work for you, give us a call or schedule an appointment here on our website. We look forward to strategizing with you!
Elizabeth Yamaguchi, FNP, DNP, RN, BSN
NEXT WEEK: Are weight loss medications right for you?
