Creating a Sustainable Weight Loss Journey - Post 2

This is the second post in my Sensible Weight Loss Series.  I’m doing this series to help you lose weight in a healthy way, build a lifestyle that keeps weight off, and enjoy your life throughout the whole process.

Watch Me Discuss It

https://youtu.be/GugKUxpaO4s

If you missed the first blog post, I discussed some issues with fad diets and gave you a little homework to complete before starting your weight-loss journey. I recommend you go back and read that before you move forward with this one.

Disclaimer

• If you have a history of disordered eating, tread carefully. Work with a therapist trained in disordered eating before even considering a weight-loss journey.

• Discuss potential lifestyle changes with your doctor. Changes to eating patterns and exercise routines are healthy for most people, but you must keep in mind any risk factors or underlying health issues when making lifestyle changes, even healthy ones.

• The changes I suggest are considered healthy and beneficial by most standards. Suggestions I make have worked well for me and people I know, and are common concepts used among successful nutrition and wellness coaches. But you know you best. Don't do anything that doesn't feel right to you.

Previous Homework

That previous homework, to track your eating, your exercise, and your weight, was meant to be a reality check of what you are actually consuming each week, how much exercise you are really getting, and to get an assessment of both our current weight and some insight into how much your weight might fluctuate in any given week.  For me, my weight can easily fluctuate by 3 pounds from one day to the next.

How did the homework go?  

If it felt like too much work, I’m sorry.  To be truly successful, to get the results you want, you really do need to track your calories and weight so you have data to honestly assess your behaviors. Tracking our exercise keeps us active!  Tracking is the main tool you will use throughout the process.  So ask yourself, why was it so difficult?  Do you eat out too much and can’t estimate what you are actually eating?  Or do you make complicated recipes with a bunch of ingredients?  Eating out less and eating simpler meals might be the best way for you to nourish your body.  Or maybe you can simplify your tracking.  This won’t be as accurate, but might be good enough.  When you eat out, food trackers often list items from chain restaurants.  Can you find something close?  If you eat a complicated meal at home, can you find something similar listed? 

Another issue might be that you kept trying to lie to yourself.  This is a BIG issue for many people. You went to log something, saw the calorie count, and rounded down how much you actually ate.  Maybe you want to log that 7 oz pour of wine as a 5 oz glass? Maybe you snagged a mini candy bar off your coworker's desk and chose not to log it at all. You need to recognize this and nip it in the bud.  You can’t lie to yourself.  In fact, I recommend you try the opposite and overreport a little just to be sure. If you really struggled to be honest with yourself, take some time to look in the mirror and think about why.  Maybe journal on it. If you aren't going to be honest, you won't be successful.

Maybe you were able to pinpoint a trouble spot.  You notice that you eat healthy all day long, and then you just lose your mind in the evening, downing a ton of food while watching TV.  Start thinking about how you might curb that as you move forward.  Start imagining issues you are going to run into and how you are going to deal with them.  Think about it, brainstorm, and come up with solutions before the issue actually arises.

Or, maybe you were surprised by how little exercise you actually get during a week. You thought you moved around quite a bit, but then you logged your daily steps and thought, "What the Heck is wrong with me?"  That’s okay.  Remember, knowledge is power.  When we have real data, we can make real change.

But I get it, often we look at this data, this information, and we feel ashamed, we think we lack discipline or self-control. Try to let that go.  We are coming at this from a place of self-love.  To quote Maya Angelou, “When you know better, you do better.”  Now that we have some insight into our calorie intake and overall lifestyle, we can start making gentle changes. 

Let's Talk Calories

I KNOW!  It’s not all about the calories.  However, in all honesty, when it comes to weight loss, it really is.  There are no magic foods and no magic eating schedule that can correct for too many calories.  Fewer calories will be the only way to lose weight.  I’m sorry if that’s not what you wanted to hear, but it’s simply a fact of biology.  Of course, the quality of the food we eat matters to our overall health, but when it comes to weight loss, calories are the deciding factor.

We also are NOT going to start by jumping right in with a huge calorie deficit.  First, we are going to slowly start feeding your body a little better, which means we are going to take some time to clean up our diet a little and learn to eat reasonable portions.  I know, you likely want to jump in with both feet and get the weight loss started! But, as with all habit change, slow and steady is the best way to success.

*REMINDER* If you have any underlying medical issues or a history of disordered eating, I encourage you to talk to a medical professional before making any big changes to your eating and exercising habits.

Total Daily Energy Expenditure

We start this journey by calculating your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure).  This is the term for the calories you need to eat every day, on average, to maintain your current weight.  You can find several calculators.  If you are using the “Lose It!” app (no endorsement, it’s just what I use), it will do the calculations for you.  When setting it up, do not choose the weight-loss option; you want maintenance calories.  If you are using a different calorie tracking app, it likely has a calculator for this as well.  You can also find them online.  The calculators can vary widely in their results.  I find the "Lose It!" app and the calculator on the Mayo Clinic’s website seem to be pretty centered in the range, so use one of those or compare a couple and take an average. 

To calculate your TDEE, the calculator needs to know your gender, age, current weight, height, and activity level.  The activity level is another little sticking point. Each calculator seems to describe each level a little differently. 

I would recommend this:

Sedentary: Activities of daily living only (moving around your home, walking to the car, grocery shopping).  A desk job.  No purposeful exercise.  Less than 4000 steps per day.

Lightly Active: In addition to daily living, you walk/stand for much of your job (lab technician, mail delivery person, bartender) or you walk 4000-6000 steps a day.

Moderately Active: In addition to daily living, you walk/stand for much of your job doing a more physically demanding job that also includes lifting, or you get 6000-8000 steps a day, many of which are taken at a brisk pace (purposeful walking or jogging) or you do physical activities such as bicycling, mowing the lawn, long yoga sessions or light swimming 3-5 days a week.

Very Active: Daily living plus exercise or vigorous work/exercise (landscaping or carpentry work, swimming laps, jogging, active sports) most days of the week.

If you struggle to determine which category you fall into, I recommend either averaging the two you are between or simply choosing the more active option.  The more active you are, the more calories you need to maintain your current weight, and I’d rather you start with too many calories than too few.

As I mentioned in the previous post, when you set up your tracker app, be sure it doesn't add calories to your daily allowance when you log exercise. Your activity level is already factored into your maintenance calories. You want to keep track of your exercise without adding extra calories to your calorie budget.

Eat At Maintenance

Our homework: I want you to continue tracking your calories, but we are going to try to eat at our maintenance calorie level (our TDEE). Stay honest.  Do your best to stay at your maintenance calorie need every day, but remember it’s an average.  If you have a special event on one day and you know you will likely go a little over, just try to skim a few calories from a couple of other days to balance it out.

Why are we doing this?  Why aren’t we jumping into a calorie deficit?  There are a few reasons. 

1)      If you were already overeating, this will feel like a calorie deficit because you will be eating a little less.

2)      We want to make changes slowly, so they stick.  We have probably all done that thing where we try to eat very little, only to give up and rebound. This isn’t one of those diets. We aren’t doing that.  We are learning how to properly take care of ourselves.

3)      This time we spend eating at maintenance level gives us a chance to listen to our bodies.  See where our brain pushes back.  Where are we struggling with food noise? Notice your weaknesses.  Are there triggers that make you go off the rails and eat more than you want?  Journal about those.  If needed, maybe find a counselor to talk some shit out.  Come up with some troubleshooting strategies now while it’s still on the easier side.

4)      We are easing into change by still eating a lot of the same foods we are used to, drinking the same drinks we normally drink, just a little bit less.  We can also use this time to experiment with healthier food options while still enjoying our favorites.  Don’t dismiss your favorite foods just because they aren’t salad.  Be sure to find ways to include your favorite foods AND healthier options.  You can eat anything, just not everything.

5)      If you identify a habit that is causing a huge calorie excess, such as drinking a ton of beer on the weekends, sodas during the day, or maybe you realize you have an ice-cream addiction, focus your effort there for a little while.

We are going to stay here, eating at maintenance for a few weeks, even longer if necessary!  We need to learn some new eating strategies before we dive into a calorie deficit, or we will just be constantly hungry, and we will fail. We want eating at maintenance to feel comfortable and doable because this is how we will be eating after we lose the weight. Therefore, it's important you figure out how to make this work for you.

Tips For Eating Less but Feeling Full

Let’s end with a few ideas for cutting a few calories so you can begin eating at your current maintenance calories.  Implementing a couple of these ideas will help you in the future when it's time to trim calories even more.  And please, resist the temptation to go into a bigger calorie deficit.  We want to reduce calories gradually so it is not a painful experience.  We want this to be sustainable. 

You don’t have to do all of these.  They are just some ideas to help you along.  Experiment!  I can’t say this enough, but you want the changes you make to be sustainable.  The reason we cycle through weight loss and regain is that we lose weight using unsustainable habits.  You can eat nothing but salad for a month and lose weight, but as soon as you go back to your normal habits, the weight comes right back.  We aren’t designing a diet; we are designing our new and healthier lifestyle.

·         Stay hydrated with water.  Our bodies often confuse hunger for thirst.

·         Limit eating out.  Whether it’s fast food or a nice restaurant, food at home is almost always lower in calories.

·         Skip the empty calories in drinks.  Drink less soda, reduce alcohol intake, and add less cream or sugar to your coffee.

·         Reality check serving sizes. Use a food scale for a while and use measuring cups when portioning our food and drinks.

· Choose high-volume, low-calorie foods such as vegetables, popcorn, egg whites, and shrimp.  Adding more vegetables to your meals is always a good idea.

·         Chew slower so you eat slower.  Allow your body the time it takes to notice you are full. (wait 15 minutes before going for seconds)

·         Skip evening snacking.  The best way to do this is to go to bed early! You probably need more sleep anyway. Proper sleep has been shown to help people lose weight. We make better choices when we are well-rested, and good sleep reduces the body's stress response. So yes, prioritize sleep!!

·         You want your meals to be as satisfying as possible.  Build your meals around protein and fiber, as they help you feel full longer. If you aren’t satisfied without a dessert, make it something small, like a piece of dark chocolate, and be sure to log it! Include healthy fats in your diet by eating salmon and avocados.

I want you to stay here, eating at maintenance levels for at least 2-3 weeks, keep tracking your movement, and log your weight every day. If you are struggling to eat at a maintenance level, stay here even longer. Resist the urge to jump in faster.

Take care of yourself, eat mindfully, and keep at it until I see you again in the next blog post