Weight Loss 101, Goal Setting, Excuse Busting

Up until about three years ago, I had spent most of my non-childhood somewhere between mildly and significantly overweight. In the years after I left college until I began my year-long process of losing weight, I weighed in between 180-210 pounds. I remember the day when I could no longer zip up my size 14 jeans - I was 19. I wore a size 16 wedding dress, and went into the hospital to give birth to my daughter at 260 pounds.

At age 22, approximately 200 pounds:

Almost 30, and about 50 pounds lighter:

Losing that weight and gradually increasing my fitness opened up a whole new world to me, and as my weight stabilized at 160 pounds around two years ago, I turned my focus more and more to training. I shifted my focus to fitness gains instead of pounds lost. In the process I lost another 5 pounds, and I have been within about 2-3 pounds of 155 for the past 2 years.

But the past few weeks I've revisited weight loss, this time for pure vanity. At 155 pounds I am well within a healthy weight range for my height and look good; losing 5 is purely a fine-tuning exercise to start my 30s feeling like I'm in the best shape of my life. And so far, I have to say it's working great - I really have never felt better. Perhaps it's the extra sleep; perhaps it's the not drinking - whatever it is, I really do feel great.

So I thought, since I'm back in weight-loss mode for the first time in 3 years or so, I might take a moment to lay out my weight loss philosophy/theory/game plan for anyone who might be interested, or who might themselves wonder how to effectively loose weight.

First, I will assume that the weight-loss-desirous reader is not a total idiot. This is not the normal starting point for weight loss advice. Witness: almost 500,000 Google hits for the phrase "weight loss for idiots."



The reason most weight loss programs try to tell you you are stupid is because they want weight loss to seem really complicated so you'll give them money for their "trick" or "miracle."

Well, guess what, weight loss is not complicated and has never been complicated. What it is, is hard. But I suspect "LOSE WEIGHT THROUGH HARD AND OFTEN BORING PERSISTENCE" just doesn't have the same marketing appeal as: "THE TRICK TO LOSE 10 POUNDS in 5 DAYS."

Which is probably why weight loss marketers continue to be handsomely rewarded for lying without delivering any results. Conversely, the most honest and straightforward diet book available, The Hacker's Diet, was written by a formerly fat and independently wealthy geek and is totally free.

So how not complicated is weight loss? Forgot everything you know about carbs, fat, protein, Mediterranean, Zone, Atkins, South Beach, pH balance, blah blah blah.

This is what you need to know: maintaining a moderate caloric deficit over time is the basis of every successful weight loss program. Nothing is more important, though many things will influence how comfortable or uncomfortable that moderate caloric deficit is (but that's another blog entry).

So, here's the terms: a calorie is a way of measuring energy. It's not evil, it's just a way of measuring something, like tablespoons or cups or miles. The food and beverages you consume contain energy, which is measured in calories. Your body uses energy - again, measured in calories - in order to do everything from breathe to digest to run 10 miles to sleep (some activities, obviously, take a lot more energy than others).

If you want to lose weight, you must USE more energy than you TAKE IN. That is how you create a caloric deficit. Specifically, for every pound of fat you want to lose, your body must expend 3500 more calories (the amount of energy in 1 pound of fat) than you consume.

That's it. That's as complicated as it gets. Maintain a moderate caloric deficit over time. That's not hard to understand. The math is so easy a third grader can handle it. The hard part is keeping your focus consistent in the face of the million small decisions each and every one of us makes about food and fitness every single day. So how do you do this?

The first and most important is to define and prioritize your healthy-eating/weight-loss goal. As with anything in life, it is not enough to say, "I want to get lean, feel great, and look hot." We all want a lot of things, and we don't get most of them. As my dad used to say to us kids when we said we wanted something: "So? How does it feel to want?"

Wanting is not enough. Wishing, hoping and dreaming are also not going to cut it. You have to define your goal and your terms in concrete ways. When defining your goal the word "want" is totally off limits. Good goals have concrete, measurable targets and end-dates. Without these things you will not be able to hold yourself accountable, measure your successes or minimize your slip-ups.

"I want to look hot for my wedding," is not a goal. This is: "I will lose 10 pounds by my final dress fitting on June 10th and keep my weight constant from then until my wedding on July 11."

"I need to eat healthier," is not a goal. This is: "By my 40th birthday I will have lowered my cholesterol by 10 points by eating a low-fat diet and walking 30 minutes a day on my lunch hour."

As Henry V said, "All things be ready, if our minds be so." So, write down your goal, really commit to it and you are half way there.

Now that you've defined where you are going you have to figure out how to get there. With weight loss this is pretty much about determining what your caloric deficit over time should be. The math is easy.

Using our wedding example from earlier, Blushing Bride determines that she has 8 weeks to lose 10 pounds. 10/8 = 1.25, so she's looking at weight loss goal of 1.25 pounds a week.

This is a reasonable goal, assuming our bride has 10 pounds of fat to lose in the first place (if she doesn't, all bets are off, as the body will protect it's last fat reserves pretty stubbornly. It's that pesky survival mechanism kicking in). Generally speaking, 1-2 pounds of fat is the most you can lose in a week. Don't try to starve yourself into a faster pace than that. You'll just lose muscle and if you think losing muscle is cool, get the hell off my blog and don't come back until you can snatch your bodyweight, biatch.

Anyway, Blushing Bride has 1.25 pounds a week to lose for the next 8 weeks. What daily caloric deficit does she need to maintain to achieve this?

3500 (calories per pound of fat) x 1.25 (pounds of fat to lose per week) = 4375 (total caloric deficit per week)
4375 (caloric deficit per week) / 7 (days in the week) = 625 (caloric deficit per day)

So, to achieve her goal she will need to create a moderate caloric deficit of 625 calories per day for 8 weeks. That is the specific roadmap that will get Blushing Bride to her specific goal. See, easy.

So Blushing Bride knows she needs to eat 625 calories less per day than she burns. She is armed with almost all the information she needs to begin the slow, boring process of successful, no-bullshit weight loss. There's just one more thing: Blushing Bride still needs to know how many calories she burns every day, so she can figure out how many she gets to eat.

How many calories you burn in a day is called your metabolic rate. The extremely stripped down version is called your basal metabolic rate, and is how many calories you would burn if you laid in bed all day doing nothing harder than keeping your vital organs alive. Figuring out your basal metabolic rate is easy: there are all kinds of calculators on the web developed to give you a pretty decent approximation. Here's a good one: Basal Metabolic Rate.

But since Blushing Bride has all kinds of things to do: job, errands, wedding planning, we will assume she does get out of bed and move around, so for our purposes, here's a good calculator for Metabolic Rate with Activity Level factored in.

Let's assume Blushing Bride is 5'7", 160 pounds, 28 years old and lightly active. The calculator linked to above indicates she needs 1965 calories to maintain her current weight.

1965 (calories to maintain) - 625 (caloric deficit) = 1340 calories she should consume per day to meet her goal, assuming her activity level remains unchanged.

Now, 1340 calories really isn't a lot of food for a 5'7" person, so Blushing Bride is going to be a lot more comfortable for the next 8 weeks if she increases her activity level. If she burns 250 calories every day at the gym, she gets to eat 1590 calories, which is a lot more do-able. If she burns 500 calories at the gym, she gets to eat 1840 calories and still lose weight.

So in the end the roadmap to your goal is simply a numbers game. When you understand the numbers you understand how your decisions take you closer to or further from your goal. There are other parts to it, of course, mostly involving being honest with yourself about your behavior, keeping yourself accountable, and cutting out the bull-shit you've been telling yourself that has been keeping you from reaching your weight goal. You know what I mean, things like:

"I eat pretty healthy so I don't understand why I can't lose weight." Sometimes this is true. But usually most people who "eat pretty healthy most of the time" have no idea what they are actually eating because they are not maintaining a log or a journal, they are not properly weighing or estimating portions of food, or they are just forgetting all the mindless munching that is so easy to do. A few pieces of candy from the dish at work, a beer with dinner, 8 oz. of steak instead of 6 oz., 4 tablespoons of mayo on a turkey sandwich....when you are trying to lose weight these details count, and usually people who do eat pretty healthy but can't lose weight are in that position because they aren't paying attention to the details.

"My whole family is overweight. It's just genetics and there isn't anything I can do about it." Yeah, I get this. My family is heavy. I used to be overweight. Apparently Jessica Alba's whole family is overweight too. Generally speaking, nature has selected for fat storage as a positive trait. Yes, some people are naturally thin and will be no matter what they do, but most people have to work pretty hard for their lean bodies. So what? If you need glasses, you don't whine about how unfair it is that some people have 20/20 vision and you don't and that's just genetics and you're stuck with it, right? No, you get a proper prescription, get glasses or contacts and get on with your life. Well, your caloric deficit roadmap is like your weight prescription. Get it, follow it, get lean and get on with your life.

"I don't have time to get to the gym / I don't have time to cook." Do you have time to watch American Idol? America's Next Top Model? House? Heroes? Lost? Then guess what, you have time to cook some real food and stick it in the fridge, and you have time to do a 15 minute at-home workout. Almost everyone does have time if they make their weight loss and health a real priority.

"I don't want to exercise because I want to have some way to break a [future] weight-loss plateau." I actually heard this once, from a friend who had a 100 different excuses for the 100 extra pounds she was carrying on her body. She had it backwards: calorie restriction without weight-bearing exercise is an excellent way to lose lean muscle mass, decrease metabolic rate, and create a weight loss plateau. More about weight loss plateaus and breaking though them in a future blog.

"But I have to buy (insert crap food here: cookies, chips, soda, etc.) for the kids." I get really upset about this kind of attitude. Parents, offering up your kid's health for the dubious honor of being a tool to the marketing agenda's of multi-billion dollar food processors is stupid. Don't kid yourself. Every time you put those high-fructose corn syrup fruit shaped snacks in your kid's lunch, the only one really getting a treat is the General Mills corporation. Do your kids a favor: don't straddle them with the burden of childhood obesity. Teach yourself the value of proper nutrition, then teach them. Giving your kids an unending supply of crap to pacify them instead of standing up for your families health doesn't make you a good parent. At the end of the day, if it's not real food, you shouldn't eat it and neither should they.

"My husband eats a lot. I was never fat until I married him. He's a bad influence." Yeah, generally speaking guys have a higher metabolic rate than women. This is a function of height and muscle mass in addition to gender. If you want to level the playing field a little bit, build up your own lean muscle mass with consistent weight training. Trust me, the most lean, ripped girls you know eat a lot of food. They have to to maintain that muscle. In the meantime, he's not spoon feeding you in a high-chair, so take control of your own fork.

"I haven't been able to lose the baby weight." Having a kid changes your body. Some things will never go back exactly the way they were. That's reality. But I know moms to three kids who look amazing, because they work for it. If your youngest child is older than 3, this excuse no longer cuts it, ok?

"It's just so hard for me to lose weight." It's hard for everyone. Weight loss is hard. It involves delayed gratification, behavior changes and sometimes some pretty uncomfortable self-reflection. So it's hard - what's your point? Have you really never done anything hard before? If you truly believe you can't do something because it's hard, you are probably right. On the other hand, if you truly believe you can do something despite the fact that it's hard, you are also probably right.

Next time I'm feeling rant-y: ways to make the journey easier, stay accountable, change your habits and maintain once you've reached your goal.