Weight Loss: 5 Top Tips
As promised in my last blog, this month focusses on weight loss. Below are my 5 top tips for weight loss that are realistic and sustainable, and should also help to keep that weight off once you’ve hit your target.
*There are also links that look like this on this page. Feel free to click on them if you want to read up on studies and scientific research on the points I make throughout the post.
1. Protein
I believe protein can be your number 1 tool to lose weight, and it’s for more than one reason.
You will often be told that protein is good for weight loss because it keeps you feeling fuller for longer. This is true, and really beneficial for those who struggle to fight cravings and hunger pangs. However, there are more important reasons to keep your protein intake high as part of your diet.
Let’s break it down.
To keep at the same weight, the daily number of calories that come in (food) need to equal the daily number of calories that come out (Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or TDEE).
If you need to lose weight, food restriction will change the balance of calories in to calories out.
Once you start to lose weight, your TDEE will start to go down (you have less overall weight to ‘move around’, meaning your body doesn’t need to work as hard to function during the day).
The main priority for most people when they go on a diet is to lose fat. However, it’s not just fat that we lose as part of weight loss. We also lose muscle and bone density. If you lose a lot of muscle while you’re dieting, your TDEE will be even lower after weight loss. Therefore you will have to make sure your calories in are low enough to match your calories out, in order to maintain the same weight.
This is where protein can help. A protein-rich diet can help preserve muscle mass during the weight loss process, which in turn will prevent your TDEE from becoming too low.
As a bonus, protein can also help with maintaining bone density.
How much protein should you have?
The current scientific advice is that a person should aim for ~1.2-1.8g/kg per bodyweight per day.
I like to get my clients to aim for 100g of protein a day, as it can be difficult to eat that much protein-rich food at the beginning (see my comment about about feeling fuller for longer). In real terms, the average chicken breast has 30g of protein, while the average egg has 7g.
2. Water
Drinking more water during the day is probably the simplest and easiest way to help with weight loss. Most trainers will give this advice to new clients, and it’s clear to see why.
The average person should have around 3 litres of water a day. While we get around 1 litre of water intake from food, we still need to make sure we drink enough to hit that target.
Almost every client I’ve had will tell me they drink about a glass of water a day, and then will rattle off a list of soft drinks, fruit juice, tea, coffee and/or alcohol - all of which will make you dehydrated.
Dehydration leads to low energy and those dreaded hunger pangs. However, after a few days of drinking the right amount of water, everyone’s extremely surprised to find that their weight will go down, due to these two reasons:
Your body will hold water if you’re dehydrated.
You’re no longer confusing thirst for hunger.
Try it yourself
If you’re not drinking that much water at the moment, weigh yourself in the morning, then drink 2 litres of water every day for a week, and weigh yourself again. Most of you will have lost a bit of weight.
The bonus with tip number 2: drinking more water will leave you feeling less sluggish and more alert.
3. Resistance training
This tip is all about working in the Anaerobic Alactic (ATP-CP) system. Not familiar with this? Have a read of my last blog, where I provide an explanation.
All weight loss experts all agree that weight and resistance training is the best way to protect your muscle mass, bone density, and health whilst dieting. The term “Use it or lose it” comes to mind. Its really important to maintain as much muscle mass as possible when dieting, as this allows us to burn more calories (See Tip 1).
In a society where food is hyperpalatable and in abundance, we need to remember about calories in and calories out. When it comes to improving and maintaining muscle mass and bone density (which is really important, particularly as we age), nothing works better than weight/resistance training.
A bonus of tip number 3? As well as musculoskeletal benefits, resistance training has been shown to have cognitive benefits too, reducing the risk of dementia in older adults.
4. Tracking and measuring
Eating more protein, drinking more water, resistance training…remembering what you’ve done and where you are towards reaching your target weight can be challenging among all the other things we need to remember on a day-to-day basis. However, keeping track is really important, and could be really influential in making sure you’re going in the right direction.
As a general rule of thumb, you should keep track of the following things:
Your weight: As weight loss is your goal, you should weigh yourself occasionally and keep a note of your weight. This will be your benchmark to know how well you’re doing with you task.
Your daily food intake: You need to be aware of just how much your ‘calories in’ actually are. Underreporting of food intake can be one of the biggest mistakes people make, and when they get frustrated about slow progress despite being convinced they’re eating less, it’s easy to see why.
Try it yourself
Go to your food cupboard, and without using scales, measure out what you think is a portion of dry pasta to serve one person. Then weigh the amount you’ve just made. I can guarantee that the majority of people will have measured out more than the recommended portion size of pasta (~75g before cooking).
If you’re on a diet and haven’t lost weight, it’s more than likely that you’ve underestimated your food intake. The only real way to know how much you’re eating is by getting the scales out and weighing your portions properly.
A bonus of tracking and measuring? Studies suggest that consistently tracking your food intake will mean you’re more likely to stick to eating within your ‘calories in’ target for longer.
5. Weekend eating
The final tip is really linked to tip 4. I’ve worked with a lot of people who are great at following their diets, but have slip ups at the weekends. This is normally because they’ve had a busy week, worked hard on their diet, and feel they’ve earned a 'night off’. And this is perfectly understandable. However, being in a calorie deficit in the week and having a couple of calorie dense meals out will mean that calorie deficit is no longer there, leading to little weight loss, frustration, and a lack of motivation to keep going with the diet.
With the government introducing new legislation for larger eateries to include calories on their menus, you may have a better idea of the number of calories you’ll be eating in an evening. However, restaurant and food outlets want you to enjoy the food you eat, so will continue to use calorie dense ingredients - it will also be difficult to determine the nutritional value (such as amount of protein) are in your meals. Plus, who actually wants to go out for a meal and feel restricted on what they can eat based on how many calories meals are?
This isn’t to say that you can’t go out for a meal - just be mindful of what you’re having and how it will be affecting your weight loss goals.
As with all the other tips, there can be a bonus to swapping meals out for meals at home:
Cooking a ‘fancy’ meal at home can be a great way of treating yourself to something a bit more special than your weeknight meals. I often have people telling me they ‘can’t cook’. I believe anyone can make a delicious meal from scratch, and next month I’ll be sure to post some of my favourite recipes.
If you have a partner, or family, or friends, why not treat them to a home cooked meal (or even better, get them to help with the cooking)? It can be a great way of putting the phones away and spending some quality time together. Plus you’ll have some help with the washing up at the end!
It will also do wonders for your wallet. Why not think about putting the money you’d usually spend on a meal out towards something else as a reward for your weight loss achievement, like a new outfit, or even towards a gym membership?
As ever, thank you for reading and if you want to get on top of your fitness goals, why not join our gym? You can find out more by clicking here or contacting me using the details below.