Losing weight is simple.
You just need to eat less than you’re eating to create a caloric deficit, right?
Yes and no.
I agree you need to create a caloric deficit to lose weight (that’s literally the only way)… and you can do this either by eating less or exercising more.
The thing is…
as “simple” as this concept is, it doesn’t mean people don’t make mistakes along the way.
Otherwise, everyone who diets would lose all the weight they want and not gain it back.
The most common mistake I see is that we tend to underestimate how much we eat.
Plus, we tend to overestimate how much we exercise.
Sounds like a good combination to not make any progress…
Studies have shown that people can underreport their food intake by 50 to 70%.
That can be from 100 kcal to 500 kcal (maybe more)…
enough to not make any progress.
Because whether you lower your calories or exercise more, if you’re doing this mistake you can falsely believe you’re on a deficit when you’re not.
It’s no wonder why many people can make the assumption “I was on a deficit and didn’t lose weight”.
This leads me to the 2nd mistake most people make…
which is that they have to be aggressive in their fat loss phase.
I mean… “That’s the only way to do it”, right?
Let me share something with you.
Yes, you need to create a considerate deficit at the beginning to get out of your range of maintenance calories (because they are not a set number, but a range), yet…
when you plateau, you don’t need to keep cutting food that aggressively.
Sometimes a 5-10% decrease from your current calories is enough.
So let’s say you went from 2,300kcal down to 1,700kcal as your initial deficit.
After 3-4 weeks, you start to plateau…
at that moment, you would only need to lower your calories by 5-10% (be more conservative at first… until you get to know your body)…
which would give you a deficit of 85kcal… so now you would have to eat 1615 kcal to keep losing weight.
Plain and “simple”.
Lastly, but definitely not least…
is that most people make the mistake of assuming that following “common sense” advice is not only helpful but necessary.
That couldn’t be further from the truth.
I talked about this before, but here you’d be following the myths that people tend to believe like “cut carbs – or fats – out of your diet”… or “eat a lot of vegetables”… or “you need to do tons of cardio. If it’s HIIT, even better”.
I don’t want to talk about those myths right now as I’ve done it before.
The point is…
don’t follow any of that “advice” as you’d only be making it harder on yourself for no real reason.
In fact, if you were to follow these myths you’ll end up making no real progress whatsoever… especially if you don’t want to get rid of your favorite food (like pizza, ice cream, cookies…).
And you don’t have to eliminate the food you love from your diet to lose weight.
If you’d like to know not only how this is possible but how by using what I call the 3-quick “tweaks” in your diet… you’ll see how enjoyable it is to lose those pounds for good.
All you have to do is sign up below:
Ivan @ Fitnessthetic
