HOW I FINALLY WAS ABLE TO LOSE WEIGHT EATING NORMALLY INSTEAD OF DIETING (2024)

KEY POINTS

• Building muscle and not losing weight is the goal

• Getting enough protein throughout the day

• Adding low impact exercise

• Picking foods that you can consistently eat

• How long you can expect to eat this way

Whenever I think of dieting, I cringe. I’ve been on the diet rollercoaster most of my life, and most years I had season passes. When I started getting serious about making real change, that’s when I realized dieting is a short-term solution to a long-term problem. If you put on a few extra pounds (Or a lot of extra pounds), the first thing that is suggested is that you “go on a diet”. It’s straight forward that if you want to lose weight, it’s calories in versus calories out. I love how personal trainers and coaches simplify by saying all you need to do is “Eat a little bit less and move a little bit more”.

On the surface, that is a true statement, but what happens when you reach your goal? Most people go back to their old eating habits because they have achieved the desired outcome. It wasn’t until I realized that dieting wasn’t sustainable, that I changed my approach to food and thinking about how I could make it a normal part of my everyday life. One saying that has always stuck with me is, “You rent your physique, and you can never own it.” Just like anything of value, if you want to have it stay nice, you need to constantly maintain it. We do this with possessions like houses, cars, and other material things, but why don’t we do this with our bodies? When I hear someone say they are on a diet, I feel bad for them. To me, it’s the equivalent of trying to fix up your house one time and then seeing how long it stays nice. Just like your house, your body needs constant maintenance, and dieting is like throwing a few coats of paint over some wood rot. On the surface it looks ok, but it doesn’t fix the underlying problem.

1.Building Muscle Is Your First Priority

I promise that if you shift your focus from losing weight to building muscle, your life, and your sanity will improve. Dieting is a way to cut corners and take short cuts. Anything of real value takes time to create, and when you focus on building muscle, it becomes a process rather than a temporary fix. When you make building muscle a priority instead of losing weight, it will be challenging. I don’t’ know if it will be tough for you, but it was tough for me. I was so used to stepping on the scale and measuring my progress by the numbers going down. When your focus has become on building muscle, your weight will stay the same and even increase. It is very counterintuitive and hard to stay on course when building muscle is your goal. I would get discouraged not seeing my weight go down, but I could physically see my body changing. I would always measure my success if my weight was below 160 pounds. I’m currently 5’8” tall, and if I was below 160 pounds I would look lean. It was a psychological hurdle I had to overcome by not putting so much “weight” (pun intended), from what the scale was showing.

If you choose to make building muscle your goal, you’ll still need to pay attention to what you’re eating, it will just be for a different purpose. You will start to worry about how much less you should be eating, and what foods you need to eat to get the protein to build your body.

2.Focus On Eating Enough Protein

I can’t stress this enough, but I never see anyone eating enough protein. There are different recommendations on how much protein you need for your body weight. There are studies that talk about how much your body can absorb, but everyone is different, and you should focus on a daily target. For me, it was psychologically easier to try and eat more food that would support muscle growth, versus trying to restrict food. My rule of thumb is 1.2 grams per pound, so my target is about 200 grams of protein per day. I don’t always hit it, but I’m usually in the ballpark. I get there through shakes, Greek yogurt, and egg whites to fill in the gaps. My body may not be able to absorb it all, but at least I know there’s enough in my system each day.

For years, I would make the mistake of killing myself in the gym and being on an extreme calorie deficit. I was also not getting enough protein through my meals. If you are training hard and doing resistance training without getting enough protein, you are wasting your time. Building muscle is a process, and making sure you have enough protein is part of it.

Pro Tip: Track your calories for a few days on an app to see how much protein you are getting each day.

3.Develop A Calorie Burning Routine

Since my goals have shifted from dieting and losing weight to eating more protein and building muscle, I’ve had to adjust my workouts. If you want to lose fat, you still need to be in a calorie deficit. This is where calories in versus calories out still matters. The problem is whenever we start, everyone seems to try to cut as many calories as possible.

Instead of focusing on how many calories you can cut, focus on making sure you eat enough high protein foods that you enjoy and that keep you full. This has been a shift in mindset for me because I’ve associated “being hungry” with losing weight. You don’t need to starve yourself and be on a huge deficit to lose weight. It may take you longer, but who cares since this has now become your lifestyle versus a short-term fix. This is like replacing the wood rot on your house instead of just slapping some paint over it.

What has worked for me is to have a daily target of walking. I built it into my daily schedule where I walk 45 minutes on the treadmill or take long walks with my dog every day. This burns about 300-400 calories a day and is sustainable. This doesn’t sound like much but if you do it consistently, you’ll be amazed at how it adds up. The problem is that most people won’t make it a part of their daily routine. If I walk everyday and burn 400 calories (400 x 365), that will turn out to be 146,000 extra calories I’ve burned over the course of the year. Each pound of weight is roughly 3,500 calories, so all things being equal, I would have burned the equivalent of 42 pounds at the end of the year. If it sounds too easy, it’s because it is. Walking is one of the easiest and best ways to get into and maintain a deficit. It’s just not “sexy” and exciting like flailing your arms around at the gym with personal trainers with big ropes.

4.Get Comfortable Eating The Same Foods Regularly

When people think about eating the same foods repeatedly, they probably cringe. I don’t know what the problem is because I think most of us eat the same 5 to 7 foods regularly each week. Regardless of if you are a vegan or a vegetarian you probably eat a core group of foods.

Even though variety is the spice of life, I have been guilty of this too when trying to lose weight. You don’t have to drastically alter your diet but make changes to your core groups of foods and that will make a huge difference. I usually eat some combination of protein like chicken, fish, ground turkey, and red meat. I vary these throughout the week, and make sure I have enough to get me to my 200 grams of protein each day. It almost becomes a game to figure out how I can eat the right combination of foods to get to my magic number. I eat a lot of eggs, and then throw it fruits, vegetables, and other items to fill the gaps.

You may be thinking that eating the same foods consistently is “very boring”, but you’re probably doing it right now. We are creatures of habit, and if you make a few changes to your weekly eating, this will add up over the course of the year. You must be more deliberate about what you eat, but once you start swapping out the foods, it will become second nature. Besides, this is going to be a lifelong change and you can still eat the occasional junk food and snacks. I eat ice cream, chips, and various snacks all the time. Eating the same foods regularly doesn’t mean you can’t have treats or indulge; you’re focus is on changing the core foods that you eat.

5.Do It Over A Long Period Of Time

Just like most of us, this is where I had failed for years. I didn’t change my approach to eating until I realized dieting was no longer an option. If you’re focus is on the long term, your approach will change. It will no longer become a process of doing things with an end date and will evolve into figuring out how to incorporate these new routines and approaches into your daily life.

This is when I finally stopped obsessing about calories, how much less I need to eat, what the scale says, and how fast I needed to see change. It’s easier said than done to take the long road and change your approach. The benefit of taking the long road, is that it’s much harder to end up back where you started. When you take a short cut, it’s easy to go in circles and end up right back at the beginning. When you take the long road, you’ll no longer care how long it takes you to arrive. If you’ve ever driven across the country or traveled over a thousand miles, you stop caring about how fast and how long it takes you to get to your destination. You accept the fact it’s going to take a long time, and that “you’ll get there when you get there”. You stop focusing on the destination and start noticing the scenery. The time ends up passing and eventually you get to where you were headed.