Weightloss: What to do and what not to do #1

Hear me out...don't get upset...put the pitchforks down folks! What I'm about to say might offend some people... For the average person under 60 years old who's 10-20lbs overweight...losing weight isn't that difficult. Now before you riot let me explain!!

Weight loss is a simple thing, burn more calories than you take in. For every 3,500 calories burned over the calories you take in, 1 lb of fat (approximately) is lost. So for example if over 1 week you eat 15,000 calories, but you expend 18,500 calories, by the end of the week, not considering water weight lost or weight from waste dependent on yesterday meals, you should have lost about 1 lb. That isn't a hard thing to do...

HOWEVER, when people think about weight loss it's almost never about losing a single pound. It rarely is ever just about losing any amount of weight truly. What most people's weight loss goals are, are really to lose x-amount of weight, then maintain that weight loss. It is the weight maintenance that is the hardest part of weight loss for the vast majority of people. In the following post, I'll discuss three tips to maintain a lower weight and three things to avoid when your goal is to lower your body weight and maintain it over a long period of time. (6+ months)

Do: eat your protein first!

By eating your protein first, you eat more of what is valuable as far as an energy source for your body resulting in minimal fat gain. Additionally protein is the most satiating of the three macronutrients, the other being carbs and fats. This means that by eating your protein first, your appetite ceases faster, and generally you eat less calories. If you are an active individual target carbs next as 1 gram of carb equals 4 calories, versus 1 gram of fat equaling 9 calories (1g of protein also equals 4 calories). If you are more sedentary, you want to eat fat-rich foods next as they are more calorically dense than carbs, but because carbs are the most readily available energy source for your body, the fewer carbs you ingest as a sedentary person, the faster your body will turn to fats as a fuel source.

Don't: fall into old habits

When you lose 10-20lbs, it is unfortunately very easy to fall back into old habits. You see the weight loss and think "wow I look great!" and yes! Yes you do! However, you look great because you likely just put in grueling effort into changing your diet, lifestyle, habits, physical activity etc. Don't believe that just because you lost weight, you are invincible! Commit to a healthy routine similar to some extent to what you just went through in order to lose the weight you lost. An excellent rule to follow is to commit to putting in 80% of the effort into your diet and physical activity as you did when your goal was to lose all of the weight that you lost. Time and time again, people lose the weight, but once they see the results they love, they fall right back into old habits. If during your weightloss journey you brought your calories down from 2,800 per day to 2,400 and brought your physical activity up from 30 minutes per day to 60 minutes per day, then while trying to maintain your weight ingest about 2,500 calories per day and keep PA around 50 minutes. Essentially, you can afford to tone things back a little bit to maintain weight loss, but don't switch back completely to old habits especially regarding nutrition and PA.

By keeping these things in mind, you will find more success in maintaining your weight loss, and keeping yourself as healthy as can be. This do and don't blog will be a part of a running series on my site all about different areas of fitness and advice that I myself would recommend to clients. These are applied and practiced principles that I've learned throughout my tenure with Umass Kinesiology and whilt working with professors, trainers, and researchers over the past five years. Advice and tips like these are the least I can do to help you be your best fit self!