Do you feel like you are doing all the right things to lose fat weight but it’s just not happening? This is far more common than you may think. I know you see people who look like they can just seemingly start a new diet and instantly drop weight. Maybe. But if we look at that closer, are they dropping water, losing muscle, or actually losing fat? We need full info for that but it’s an illustration that it may not be what it seems. It may not be healthy, and it may not last.
So let’s keep the focus on you.
(Extra Tip) Because you already know, the mental toughness part of this is not being distracted by others and staying in your own lane. Keep focused on you and only you because at the end of the day…..It’s all about your health.
When people come to me and ask for coaching to lose weight or fat, specifically, I always start with a review of their current “diet”. And then move to a fitness plan to accelerate their results. After all the client discussions and coaching over the years, there are a few topics that come up frequently that I want to share with you so you can get “unstuck” and make tremendous progress.
Here are 3 things you must know about dropping weight and losing fat.
1. You can get fat eating healthy foods – Yes it’s true! The truth is, eating healthy foods doesn’t get you lean. Eating healthy foods gets you healthy. It’s a sustained calorie deficit that gets you lean and drops weight. This simply means burning more calories than you eat in a day. Eat 2,500, Burn 3,000 = 500 calorie deficit!! This will drop the weight and fat.
2. You can lose weight and stay lean on a junk food diet – Seriously? Yes. It’s the Twinkies diet experiment. And it’s frustrating if you are eating perfectly and someone else loses while eating junk. Again, ignore that. Losing weight is not about a number, it’s about getting and staying healthy.
Don’t you want to keep your blood pressure down, reduce your risk of diabetes and heart disease and improve the quality of your life? Of course you do. Don’t eat the junk food. Keep your diet full of bright colored veggies and lean proteins. You can have treats periodically, but keep your focus on tip #1, it’s the total calories you put in and burn that get the results.
3. You likely eat far more calories than you think – Almost everyone eats more than they think. Why? Because almost all of us are bad at estimating how many calories are in our food. It’s not easy to eyeball a food portion and correctly guess the calories (darn near impossible in restaurants and if you get their calorie guide you will be shocked). Even if you can track a particular meal, are you good at remembering every little thing you popped in your mouth that day? Most of us have too many things on our minds to remember.
I strongly recommend an easy way to track to keep you generally dialed in. I use this with every client that I help with weight loss. Here it is:
Write down EVERYTHING you eat and drink for 3 days AND the time you ate it
Take a look and see if you are on track the way you thought. This 3-day tracking fills in gaps of macro nutrition (carbs, protein, fats) and if there are any timing issues such as 5 or 6 hours between meals, skipping breakfast, etc. This is easy to do and can be a great guide to get you started or tuned up with your eating and weight program.
Put these 3 tips into play today and see how things change for you this week.
