The Secret to Losing Weight (That Isn’t Much of a Secret)

Weight Loss has been over-complicated since the dieting industry was born.

Vegan

WeightWatchers

Paleo

Low Fat

Keto

All of them claiming to be THE diet.

The holy grail.

The answer to all your problems.

And you know what?

All these diets work.

Honestly, you could eat nothing but Mcdonald’s and lose weight.

The secret to losing weight is….

Wait for it…..

Burn more calories than you take in.

That’s literally it.

It is that simple.

You just don’t hear this very often because there is no money to be made by telling people this simple truth.

I can’t sell you a pill or juice or whatever else by telling you all you have to do to lose weight is burn more calories than you take in.

This truth puts the power in your hands versus searching for your holy grail elsewhere.

Everything you eat has a caloric value attached to it.

You simply have to burn more calories than you are taking in for a sustained period of time to lose significant weight.

And you could do that eating 2,000 calories of Big Macs or 2,000 calories of fruits and vegetables.

Now, obviously you don’t want to Big Macs everyday just because I told you it’s possible.

You see, it’s not what works.

It’s what you can SUSTAIN.

What can you do for the rest of your life?

When coming up with a plan for what to eat, figure out foods you like and can realistically see yourself eating forever.

So yes, keto works.

But do you really never want to be able to have pasta? Or bread?

Because sure you can lose 20-30 lbs. in a year from doing keto or any of these diets.

But what happens when you come off of the diet?

If you’re like me, you’ll find yourself binge eating 17 chocolate chip cookies at 2 A.M. because you have been depriving myself for too long.

Then once you’ve had your slip up, you can continue to spiral out of control until, before you know it, you have put every one of those pounds back on plus some.

So my recommendation is to find moderation in life.

If I were starting over, I would go to our friends over at 5-Star Nutrition and get a BMI done.

This tells you a variety of information about your fat and muscle percentages but the one I am after is Basal Metabolic Rate.

You Basal Metabolic Rate tells you how many calories your body naturally burns at rest.

This is your caloric burn without doing any exercise, just what it takes to function and keep your heart beating and what not.

Most people are in the ballpark of 1500-2200 calories depending on age, gender, weight, and muscle mass.

Now before you even think about exercise, you could play around with this information and find a system that would promote weight loss. 

If you were a 220lb male and found out your Basal Metabolic Rate is 2200 calories, you could aim to get 1700 calories in per day and be in a 500 calorie deficit.

A pound of fat is equal to 3,500 calories, so you could do this and lose a pound per week.

If you threw in exercise, it would be even more of a deficit (which I would recommend a higher caloric intake to account for this extra energy expenditure).

Apps like myfitnespal make tracking your calories very easy.

After a while of tracking you honestly figure out how to eat pretty intuitively without even having to track anymore.

And that is really all there is to losing weight.

It is just a bit a math and discipline.

So sure you can cut your carbs, go on a juice diet, or go vegan, but when you only focus on your caloric intake and sufficient protein intake to sustain a strength training program, you don’t have to cut out the foods you love.

If you are trying to lose weight, I hope this helps you wrap your mind around how simple weight loss can be.