Weight Loss 101

Having difficulty losing weight is one of the most common problems that everyone face. Losing weight is simple but it is not easy. Before you say that you already know that you got to be in a caloric deficit, let’s look at factors such as self-discipline and ability to comply to your exercise and diet regime. I will admit this, the first time I tried any sort of diet or exercise program, my compliance was shit. Most of us know what to do (for those that don’t, welcome and read on) but hormones from dieting for a long time tend to get all out of whack, causing us to get super hungry, losing sight of what we want to achieve and we end up never achieving that stage of leanness. So we are going to discuss the two major reasons why people don't lose weight and why they are at a plateau.

Non-Compliance

Non-compliance or not following your plan could be due to multiple factors such as, having been on a diet for too long. For example, person A, his maintenance intake is 2900cal. But he is cutting at 2250cal which is a big deficit, over -600cal. When we look at person A’s caloric intake for the day, it usually ends up looking like the follow. Day 1, he does well at 2250cal. In fact, Mon-Fri, he is good but comes Saturday, his caloric intake rockets up to 4500cal. Sunday fun-day, he also goes overboard at 5000cal. His average caloric intake for the week (which is what we want to look at) averages out at 2964cal daily. If he is maintaining at 2900cal but average intake is at 2964cal, he isn’t going to lose any weight. It doesn’t matter that he is sacrificing for the first five days because he ends up blowing it all off on the weekend.

So the big advice for the person who has a problem with non-compliance is to realize what you are doing this for and also frame it that this is very short term. Next tip would be to create a smaller deficit. I am convinced, having been there before, that if person A stuck at 2500-2600cal on average every day instead of being in that big deficit, he probably would not be as hungry and the whole process would be more sustainable.

Zero-Balance ‘Plateau’

This means the calories that you are eating and the calories you are expanding is the exact same so you end up with a net change of 0cal. One important thing to note is that fat loss is not linear and it doesn't occur at say, 2kg loss every week. You will reach new plateaus every several weeks as your body adjust. You are weighing less, so you will need to adjust by eating lesser food.

This will happen, so here are 3 ways to handle it. First, decrease energy intake. Everybody wants to slash calories but what happens when you slash your calories? Muscle loss occurs because you are creating too big of a deficit over time. Most people tend to gravitate towards this, eating less. That is when non-compliance happens because the deficit is too big and the body will start using muscle for extra energy.

Usually, I like to have a smaller calorie deficit and instead try to increase energy output which brings me to my second point. This usually means muscle-sparing activities, NEPA, walking around more so that you burn calories in a way that is not going to make you catabolize your muscle (e.g. walking up the stairs instead of taking the escalator during your daily MRT commute). We can talk about HIIT, complementing with strength training and other exercises but by and large if you are not losing weight, I would recommend to first decrease your calorie intake. Do activities that are easy on the body such as, walking, playing sports and then consider adding additional HIIT.

Lastly, we can talk about a combination of both but that is usually at the end. You want to start off simple using the first two methods.

Embrace the ‘Grind’

When we talk about weight loss, it is simple as what was mentioned thus far but you got to embrace the grind. This is the big message in this article because it is inevitable that we are all going to go through and hit a plateau at some point. You might get stuck at the same weight for 2-3 weeks before a change will actually occur but that’s for another article.

That is why you CAN lose weight, it is either non-compliance or simply reaching a plateau, calories in vs. calories out. A lot of us lose sight of what is important so make sure to keep it as fun as possible.

#Weight #Loss #Fat #Nutrition #Calories #Diet