My guide to weight-loss

It's simple. Tough, but simple.

Layman’s guide to losing weight and keeping it that way

 

Firstly let me clarify that I am not a personal trainer or an athlete, nor am I an expert in nutrition and exercise, however, if you are reading this I assume you don’t care.

I am a student, an active one, with friends who want me to go out and drink a lot. I want those things too, they make me happy. I like smoking as well. This means that I am not a health expert and will not act as if I am going to change your life in that sense, you can do that yourself. I only want to publish the methods I use to keep off weight.

So yeah if you were afraid that I was going to dissuade those two, objectively nasty, habits, don’t stress. I won’t make things worse though, so nothing weird like drug use or scrubbing out your toilet after each meal. Just common sense solutions to the overweight issue.

I am going to keep it very simple, allowing you to do further research of your own once you have tried and tested my method or something similar. A method which I will present in point format. Kind of like a tips and tricks thing but with a solid foundation in basic biochemistry. (I think)

1.       Calculate the amount of calories (please don’t go yet) that your body needs during the day. Get a calorie counting app, (a free one obviously) and get your total resting caloric intake amount. The app (EasyFit in my case) is going to ask you if you exercise, how many hours per week, what type of exercise etc. Don’t lie to yourself, be honest and harsh. If you think you train 3 hours per week, say you do 2. Then say that you want to maintain your weight and tap the calculate button. Now my daily caloric intake amount is about 2500 calories per day to maintain my weight. This is because I'm rather tall and have some muscles as a result of going to the gym. I work out for 6 hours a week on average, but I told my app I only do 3 because I’m not going for complete accuracy. I want results and undershooting will ensure them.

2.       Take off some calories off of your total maintenance calories. Between 200 and 400 should do nicely. Even if the calorie calculation is fucked, this should get it to a calorie deficit amount per day.

3.       Count your bloody calories and be brutal. We will get to the lenience soon, but for this stuff you need to be a twat to yourself. Google the amount of calories in the food you eat. All of it. Overestimate the amount of grams (or weigh it if you have a scale) of food and google the amount of calories. Sugar, oil, milk, everything. Your app might help you here as well, but remember, always overestimate the amount of food, because if you’re anything like me you might end up bullshitting yourself out of results by saying that you only ate a teaspoon of mayo and you only ate a cup of cooked rice. Don’t lie to yourself. Once again this is where we must be brutal to ourselves.

4.       It really doesn’t matter what you eat. If the calories are counted correctly and you are in a deficit over a long period of time you will lose weight. So go ahead and eat Doritos, but remember, if you eat a bag and its 800 calories the rest of your day will suck.

5.       Now once you have done this long enough you will inevitably become familiar with the amounts of calories in certain sauces, foods and entire meals, this will simplify the tracking process and you won’t want to destroy your phone anymore. It will become second nature and you will have fun eating new things and bragging to your friends about how much weight you are losing, speaking of…

6.       Weigh yourself every morning after you’ve taken a s**t and a piss. And don’t drink water beforehand. Then keep track of these numbers as they are the only thing that will keep you going.

Now if you want to maintain your weight things will change slightly and overestimating your food may not be the way to go. If you want to bulk up and build muscle, things will change significantly. Then the type of foods you eat will need to be considered as well as their macro nutrient composition. There are a multitude of factors that are at play in the body, macro- and micro nutrients, sodium levels etc. I am only trying to reach those who simply want to lose weight for now and worry about the specifics later.

I am now going to give advice on how to not lose all of that progress you have made when you decide to go out and have some litres of alcohol.

1.       Don’t go out all the time. Once or twice a week max. You will undo all of the clever body maths if you do this, because there is no way in hell that you are going to track the amount of calories in alcohol on a big night out. Therefore we are relying on the brutality during the rest of the week to make up for the loss of progress.

2.       Don’t eat after you go out. I know you’re drunk, but try your hardest to stay away from KFC.

3.       Sleep in. You ate KFC you b*****d, fine. Track those calories for the next day and sleep in. You are not having breakfast. If you go way over (not a few beers over. I mean way the f**k over) your calories, they need to be made up, and sleeping in will make it easier to eat less the next day.

4.       Don’t eat too much before you go out, try and leave some in the tank so you don’t completely blow the amount of calories you usually have per day.

5.       Don’t drink and drive.

Now these are just some tips to help decrease the calories that need counting, which will mean you get to eat more during the day and not feel hungry all the bloody time.

1.       Keep your tea and coffee clear of milk and sugar, or at least decrease the amounts. It just sucks to have to count the 30ml of milk you throw in your tea as calories.

2.       Swop to sugar free drinks. I know they give you cancer, but you smoke a pack a day and diabetes will kill you first. If you can, avoid the cancer as well, but if you like sodas, go for the “lite” stuff.

3.       Drink more water. It makes you think you’re full and it’s good for you. Don’t drink a stupid amount, just a bit more. Google the specifics I guess.

4.       Try and save up for big meals. For example if you know you eat a big meal every night, save up some extra calories just in case you want some extra on your plate. I still get dinner every night which means I try to eat conservatively during the day so that I get to enjoy the big meal before bed.

I hope this was reasonably coherent, and I hope you can use this, if not as a guide, as a reference to help with your weight-loss attempt. I lost 19 Kilos in 9 months-ish using this method and I don’t hate myself or eat green beans.