At my heaviest I ate a lot. I ate a lot of the time and I ate a lot of the wrong stuff. Had I not seen “that” picture, there was a real danger that I would literally eat till I dropped. I loved eating that much that I once went to the toilet in a “Eat All You Want” pizza restaurant to make myself vomit. I wasn’t anorexic, I simply wanted to create more space in my stomach so I could eat all that I wanted to.
But all that has changed and if anything I now eat too little.
Too little!? Surely if I cut down on my food, I’ll simply lose fat more quickly? That was how I used to think. Luckily I have many friends who are Personal Trainers, Nutritionists and Medics. While in addition to being a geek, I am also embarking upon my own fitness education journey with Faster who are not only supporting my continued training but also my professional development.
But not everyone has the circle of friends and mentors that I have. Most are confused by the marketing of slimming companies, of food companies and even by health professionals and purveyors of multi level marketing products.
Eat less fat, eat more fat, eat no carbohydrates, eat only complex carbohydrates, don’t eat fruit, only eat fruit and a million other lose fat quickly diets and drinks that are usually based on eliminating certain food types, drinking expensive and heavily processed shakes and drinks or by reducing calories.
Now, there are those who say calories don’t matter. There are those that say ditch the scales. And guess what? Both are probably right.
But let’s be honest. Every fat person who wants to lose weight counts calories and stands on a scale….often daily and throughout the day.
And every fat person thinks I ate too much and got big, so I’ll eat less and lose weight. And I’ll eat a lot less and lose weight even quicker.
And we will. And probably quite a lot. At first. Eventually our bodies will respond to being starved by slowing down, by conserving energy. It’s a smart cookie ( sorry, shouldn’t mention cookies). And the weight loss will slow down and eventually stop.
I could bore you with all the science and research ( there’s lots of it), but we all know what we do next.
We reduce our calories further. And we start doing more cardio. My next post will focus on why that’s the second mistake most of us make, but for now let’s concentrate on the calories.
We reduce them and the scales start again moving in the right direction. But and it’s a big but ( no puns please), the weight loss isn’t necessary fat loss. Our body (smart cookie, remember) is worried. It’s went from having an abundance of lovely food to now being starved. And it’s not sure how bad it’s going to get. So it decides that it’ll keep the stored fat until it really needs it and starts looking for other sources of energy. But we aren’t eating fat, carbs or anywhere near enough calories so the body starts breaking down lean body tissue…ie our muscles. Rather than losing fat we are losing weight and our metabolism slows further. We find that we put on weight if we even eat a little more than normal.
So we cut calories again and do even more exercise. It’s a vicious cycle and minds smarter than mine have written extensively on the dangers of metabolic damage. Google it.
So, what should we do? What is the right way smarty pants, I hear you ask.
Well, I’d recommend that you calculate your Basal Metabolic Rate, which is the amount of calories your body needs to simply survive. General advice is that you then aim to eat about 500 kcals less. With some suggesting that obese people can reduce it by 10-30%
But here’s an idea. Rather than cutting calories why not try switching foods. Eat more veg (chips don’t count) and ditch your refined white bread and pasta for leafy green veg and rice.
But please don’t go down the route of very low calorie diets. It’s a recipe ( always food) for disaster. It’s so tempting to stop eating and to exercise more. I know this because, despite my knowledge, I am STILL guilty of it myself.
I know I should eat more. Especially as I now weight train. But, I’ve conditioned myself to believe that eating food is bad. I’ve been dieting so long and lost so much that part of me resists my new found knowledge. Thankfully I’m improving. Like many, I want to rid myself of the fat that limited my life and my happiness. And I want to do it now.It took me 10 years to go from a normal weight to over 25st and I can’t expect to reverse that overnight. Better to adopt healthy eating that will sustain me and be sustainable. Food is fuel for my body and it will not run smoothly on an empty tank.
Eat more and drop a dress size. Now that’s a diet that should sell.
