Lose weight the easy way! This post is going to be straightforward and to the point.
We are going to cut past all the “sciencey” stuff and instead I’m going to give you a basic breakdown of how fat loss works and then the best fat loss plan for you to follow.
So let’s begin!
How does fat loss work?
Fat loss is SUPER simple. We lose body fat when we are burning more energy every day… than we are eating!
“Whoa, whoa… Hold up! This already seems confusing…”
I know. But I promise this breakdown will make sense so keep reading!
Food contains energy… we call that energy, calories. Each food item you eat contains a certain amount of calories (energy).
Why is this important?
Because energy cannot be created nor destroyed… only transferred.
So if you’re eating more energy (calories) than you are burning off every day, you will store that EXTRA energy as BODY FAT. And overtime that extra energy that is being stored as body fat makes you heavier and heavier (aka gaining weight).
So if we want to lose the extra body fat we have and lose the weight… We have to reduce the amount of calories (energy) we are eating and increase the amount of calories we are burning each and every day!
We do this in TWO ways:
- Reduce the amount of calories we eat every day through a solid nutrition plan.
- Increase the amount of calories we burn every day through a solid exercise plan.
How do we reduce our calories? Well first off we need to establish a basic understanding of food and nutrition.
The goal is to eliminate foods that are HIGH in calories and LOW in nutrients. And instead focus on eating foods LOW in calories and HIGH in nutrients.
The reason we want to eat foods lower in calories is because it will be the first way for us to start losing weight. But the nutrient density, meaning the high amount of nutrients in those healthy lower calorie food items will help us feels great in the process of losing the weight.
Contrary to what most people believe; the goal of fat/weight loss is to eat as much as humanly possible and still lose weight!
The reason most people find it hard to eat a lot of food and still lose weight is because they are picking the wrong or really I should say not the best food options.
Again, we want to include foods in our nutrition plan that are lower in calories but higher in nutrients. And just by doing this simple tactic, you’ll actually be able to eat more food… for less total calories. This is because most of the food that we would label as healthy and nutrient dense are lower in calories compared to the list of foods below.
So let’s start with some food/drink items you should completely kick from your life MOST of the time while losing weight:
- Fast food
- Fried food
- Junk food
- Snack food
- Candy & desserts
- Soda’s & sugary juices/teas
- Sugary sports drinks
- Heavy use of oils
- Breads & pastas
- Alcohol
Now although it’s ok to have these food items every once in a while… They should NOT be consumed on a daily basis.
Why? Because they are VERY high in calories and low in nutrients. Eating & drinking the items above often will lead to faster weight gain and make it more difficult to lose weight while still consuming them.
Instead you want to focus on eating food items like the ones listed below:
- Meat (beef, chicken, turkey, etc.)
- Fish
- Eggs & egg whites
- Greek yogurt
- Vegetables
- Fruit
- Potatoes (sweet & white)
- Rice (mainly white, but brown is fine)
- Whey protein
Now just to drill home the drastic difference in calories between junk food and healthy food, here are a few examples below:
1 pound of chocolate chips = 2,400 calories
1 pound of raspberries = 250 calories
Now how crazy is that! Same amount of food in terms of weight, but look at that INSANE difference in calorie content. You could eat almost 10 pounds of raspberries in order to eat the same amount of calories as 1 pound of chocolate chips. Is it starting to click yet? Here are some more examples:
1 big mac, 1 large french fries and 1 large soda from mcdonalds = 1,300 calories
1 pound of chicken, 1 pound of cucumbers, 3 medium potatoes = 950 calories
Another example of how healthy food (which is more nutrient dense) gives you the luxury of MORE FOOD… for less calories. If you didn’t know, 1 pound of chicken is a lot of chicken! way more food than one big mac. Here is another example:
1 large starbucks white chocolate mocha = 510 calories
1 large black coffee = 5 calories
1 large dunkin donuts frozen coffee with cream = 700 calories
1 vanilla protein shake blended with ice and black coffee = 150 calories
I hope these examples above showed you how powerful food choices really are for weight loss and weight gain. As you can see, just by drinking a high calorie coffee everyday it can drastically increase how many calories you consume on a daily, weekly, monthly and yearly basis!
Here is an example HEALTHY meal plan to follow:
Breakfast: [total calories below = 500 calories]
- 3 whole eggs & 1/2 cup egg whites
- 4 slices turkey bacon
- 1 cup blueberries
Snack: [total calories below = 120]
- 1 protein shake
Lunch: [total calories below = 550]
- 1 cup Greek yogurt
- 1/2 cup quick oats oatmeal
- 1 cup raspberries
- 1 tablespoons almond butter
Snack: [total calories below = 120]
- 1 protein shake
Dinner: [total calories below = 600]
- 10 ounces chicken breast
- 2 medium potatoes
- 1 entire bag frozen mixed vegetables
Total calories for the example day = 1,900
Now just for fun I want to share with you another example meal plan made up of high calorie fast and junk food:
Breakfast: [total calories below = 1,090 calories]
- 1 dunkin donuts bagel with cream cheese
- 1 dunkin donuts chocolate donut
- 1 large cappuccino with milk
Snack: [total calories below = 380]
- 1 snickers bar
- 1 soda
Lunch: [total calories below = 1,200]
- 3 slices of pizza
- 2 garlic knots
- 1 snapple iced tea
Dinner: [total calories below = 1,300]
- 1 mcdonalds big mac
- 1 large fry
- 1 large soft drink
Snack: [total calories below = 270]
- 1 cup vanilla ice cream
Total calories for the example day = 4,240
HOW INSANE IS THAT! I know… It’s a blow to the stomach seeing how many calories you can eat in one day just by eating fast/junk food. But it’s a reality you needed to really understand.
So start by making food swaps. Start swapping fast/junk food for healthy whole food and see just how big of a difference your body will look in 60 days.
Now, we talked nutrition… It’s time to talk exercise!
The cool thing about exercise for weight loss is that it’s not what you’ve been made to believe. Exercising for weight loss does not mean you’re going to be doing super hard workouts that leave you completely out of breath and sore for days. Maybe every once in a while you’ll experience that, but for the most part your exercising will be moderately intense and actually enjoyable!
The exercise you will be doing to shred body fat and lose weight is broken up into 2 parts.
- Cardio
- Strength training
Don’t worry… When I say cardio that doesn’t mean going for long runs or doing high intensity workouts. Nope, not at all. The form of cardio you will be doing is… WALKING. And a lot of it!
Walking is the greatest form of cardio for weight loss and it’s not even close! Why? Because it can be done pretty much anywhere, anytime, and very often.
The average person burns between 100-150 calories per mile walked. If you’re on the heavier side right now then you’ll be in the higher burning side. And the average person walks a mile in about 15 minutes when they’re walking at a brisk pace (which is the walking we want to do, brisk).
So if you were to walk for 30 minutes per day you would be burning 300 calories. If you walked 60 minutes per day that would equal 600 calories burned. If you do 60 minutes of walking 7 days a week you would burn 4,200 calories per week!
3,500 calories = 1 pound of fat. So if you walked 60 minutes every day you would be burning more than 1 pound of fat every week! Pair that with a lower calorie diet and you’ll be losing even more. But 7 days a week for an hour may not be realistic for you and that’s perfectly ok!
Try to get 3-5 days of brisk walking in for 30-60 minutes, every week! We are including walking because it burns a ton of calories every week without a lot of stress or impact on the body.
Strength training:
The reason we want to include strength training (lifting weights) in our fat loss program is because of the insane long term benefits it has for not only losing the fat but keeping the fat off!
Lifting weights helps us build more muscle. The more muscle we have on our body, the more energy (calories) we burn every single day! Even when we are sitting down doing nothing. How awesome is that? Super awesome!
Every pound of muscle you have burns about 50 calories every day. So if we add 10 pounds of muscle to your body in 1 year… That means for every year following you will burn and extra 500 calories every day… While you’re sitting down doing nothing! Literally like the title of the article says, lose weight the easy way.
The 2 big benefits of lifting weights does the following:
- Burn calories during your weight lifting workout
- Burn calories while doing nothing once you build the muscle
This helps out tremendously with long term weight loss.
A third and GIANT benefit of lifting weights during a fat loss phase is that you’re building a great looking body! And that’s what you want when you do lose the body fat, a good looking body underneath of the fat!
Many people will follow a SUPER low calorie fad diet and do super intense workouts for 4-8 weeks. They will drop 20 pounds but look in the mirror with disappointment! Why? Because although they lost weight on the scale… They don’t look as good as they thought they would. They look “skinny fat”.
“Skinny fat” is when you lose weight but you just look like a slimmer fat person. And that’s not the goal! Plus the crash diet and intense exercise leave you feeling like crap, burnt out, hurting and it ruins your metabolism.
A sample exercise routine:
Monday: Upper body weight lifting workout
Tuesday: 30 minute walk
Wednesday: Lower body weight lifting workout
Thursday: 30 minute walk
Friday: Full body weight lifting workout
Saturday & Sunday: 30 minute walks
Walking and weight lifting paired with a healthy nutrition plan help you lose weight gradually while building a good looking body AND keeping your metabolism high.
It’s the 3 musketeers of weight loss!
If you follow these fat loss protocols then I promise you will not only lose weight… You will look amazing when the weight comes off and FEEL amazing at the same time.
If you have any questions feel free to email me at:
stronggentscoaching@gmail.com
Check out below why morning routines are overrated!
Get strong and stay strong,
-Trainer Sam