Losing weight doesn't have to be dramatised, romanticised or bear too much thought on your conscience! It's important to know the facts in order to take simple steps of action. Weight loss can be a happy, healthy and healing process if done right.
What is Weight Loss?
Weight loss is such a personal topic. So much so that I used to stay clear of it at all costs. However, the problem with avoidance is that people are isolated, misinformed or get lost navigating their personal journey. Not everyone wants to loose a lot of weight, or conform to a societal standards of appearance but do want to make changes to their weight for their performance, overall health and longevity.
This article hopes to be informative, factual and unemotional so that you have the facts and know what decisions to make for yourself. Here’s the deal with weigh-loss:
Weight loss is the process an individual undertakes to lose fat mass and/or lose overall mass in their body. A person may want to lose weight in order to support their health, longevity, and to mitigate the risks of disease or harmful bodily conditions. Weight loss for some is about physical appearance goals too. Before we dive into the various steps to take to loose weight, it’s important to understand what the weight loss metrics are and what’s happing in your body.
Your weight management circles around your goals, the strategies you take will be in attempt to meet those specific goals.
How to lose weight
The human body requires oxygen, water, and food to survive. Even at a resting level, your body is constantly using these fuel sources to keep you at homeostasis: maintaining your temperature, cardiovascular system, respiratory system, nervous system, and all other bodily functions. Your body is a system that never rests, it requires constant maintenance to stay alive.
This food fuel source is categorised into Micronutrients (vitamins and minerals) and Macronutrients (carbohydrates, proteins, and fats). Your body uses these fuel sources to perform various functions. Nutrients are measured in units of calories or kilocalories. This measurement is useful in determining how many nutrients we need. Yes, thats all the delicious food we can eat.
When we eat nutrients our bodies can’t make use of, it stores them as excess adipose tissue (fat). Fat stores can be converted to energy when needed.
What should you be eating and How much should you be eating?
Everyone’s body and energy expenditure is slightly different - depending on your genes, your sex organs, your activity level and more. This can be roughly calculated by understanding your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).
Total Daily Energy Expenditure:
Basal metabolic rate
Physical activity level
Thermal effect on food
Non-exercise activity thermogenesis.
To maintain weight you need to consume enough food to comfortably meet your personal TDEE an individual. For someone like me that number is roughly around 2200 calories daily. If you would like to loose excess weight you need to consume less than the required amount to maintain your TDEE. Where does your body get that remaining fuel, mostly from the fat/muscle stored on your body = weight loss. This is called eating in a calorie deficit. Thus, If I would like to loose weight I would have to eat less than 2200 calories daily.
Eat Less, Move more
This is the most common strategy for weight loss.
There are some helpful app that calculate an estimation of your energy expenditure and amount of daily calories you should consume for your goals: weight loss, gain or maintenance.
Chronometer
My Fitness Pal
IFMM (If it Fits my Macros)
These apps use your age, height, sex, activity level to determine a relative energy expenditure and calculate an amount of food you should be eating - they further break this down into percentage of Carbohydrates, Fats and Proteins.
It’s helpful to understand your caloric needs. It's helpful to understand the nutrient quotients in food. This gives you an understanding of not only what quantities you should be aiming to consume for but also understanding what nutrients are found in different foods.
However, Calorie counting can be tough. It can be mental draining and sometimes all consuming. All you think of of is what to eat and how many calories you are wracking up. This can be unhelpful.
Alternative Weight loss methods
Keep a Meal Diary:
Take a look at your meals over the next few days. Write them down, every meal, every snack and every drink. Get an understanding of what you are eating - and ask yourself if these food are serving your goals?
Is there one simple action you can take to improve your meals? Drink more water / don’t eat sugar ion Mondays? Once you are able to habitually make that one change, add another.
Follow Dietary Guidelines:
I like to do things as a practise rather than a discipline. Practise following dietary guidelines:
Drink More Water
Eat less Sugar
Eat more whole foods and dietary fibre
Eat the rainbow
Have a balanced plate
There are a lot of interesting recipes that follow these guidelines in the Good Meal Guidebook.
Get Active:
Exercise assists weight loss in many ways. One important way is that exercise builds muscle. Muscle requires energy to be maintained thus requiring more fuel/calories. Strength training is one of the most effective weight loss methods because of this reason.
The exercise you can perform consistently - is the one that is best suited for you!
Second, in exercise you expend energy thus using more fuel. Your body will use excess stores on your body as energy and that is how fat loss can be achieved. This is achieved in any form of exercise. However, Cardio vascular exercise can burn a lot more calories in one sessions.
I opt for doing cross-training, mixing both cardio and strength training together. This requires a lot of energy and helps to maintain muscle mass.
Exercise awakens many bodily functions and systems that can't be achieved through diet alone. Regulating insulin levels, improving cardio vascular function, oxygen consumption, increasing bone mass, muscle strength, join range of motions, hormone regulation and whole lot more. For me exercise informs diet. I want to eat the right foods to help me perform and get stronger.
Join the Breakfast Club if you want to start moving as soon as this week!
Whats Next for you?
Decide on your long term goal. What do you want to achieve. Create a SMART goal that has a realistic deadline, and has actionable steps towards achieving this goal.
Good Luck!
More readings: Fat Loss Mistakes - Girls Gone Strong
