Although the fitness industry, especially online and virtual training becoming a trend in last decades, many social media ads talking about magical pill to meltdown fat, obesity rate is still climbing and it is over 40% in the U.S. (2020). There are so many articles talking about "muscle weighs more than fat" and "80% of effort is in your diet". It seems like all of the messages are not wrong but inaccurate.
In this article, I will share what you need to know about weight loss and how it may work in your lifestyle.
For purpose of this article, weight loss will be defined as fat loss. You may agree that losing muscle mass plays negative role and weight loss should be focusing primarily on fat loss. There is a chance that some muscle may be lost in the process but my main goal in this topic is to lose body fat.
Know Your Body
First step to weight loss is to know your body. Understand that weight loss is a byproduct of correcting your current hormonal imbalance. Your weight gain did not just happened. Something did happened that cause your fat mass to increase. Poor diet, lack of physical activity, poor sleeping habit, some type of diseases, to name the few.
To know what physiologically is happening in your body, you will need to get complete blood panel by your physician. When taking this test, you will need to follow their protocols or the testing will be just a waste.
Once the test result is out, sit with someone who understands it to learn what is not in optimal (not normal) range. Remember that normal range or suggested range is for people who does not want to be sick. For fat loss and performance enhancement, you want yourself in optimal range.
Dietary Adjustment
Once you learn about your body, you will need to start adjusting your eating habits. Eating habits includes, eating frequency, type of food you consume, and amount of food you consume.
One of the major contribution to weight gain is constant elevation of insulin. Because of that it is important to manage your eating habits to eat fewer food that are processed, avoid high carbohydrates (especially sugar and flour), and eat less frequently. All of these are focusing on keeping your insulin level low as long as possible.
Would it be surprise you to hear that the U.S. population consume over 150 pounds of sugar in a year? It is not just from food but also from beverages. The U.S. population also consume food on average of 6 times a day, including snacks.
So, start off with removing all none natural food and beverages out of the house. Keep it away from you at all cost. Don't worry, your kids don't need them either. Then only consume 3 meals a day, including snacks. If you have been snacking a lot, you may feel hungry more frequently but will start subsiding in about 14 days. You can worry about what diet to follow after this process has been completed. Without this adjustment, most likely you will not see weight loss that you are looking for, even if you are working out on regular basis.
Type of diet you should be following is one that will work for you. My ethnic background is Japanese and my main nutrition is what Japanese would eat. Soup, fish, vegetables, rice, meat, chicken, eggs and so on. I enjoy other ethnic foods such as Korean, Chinese, Italian, American, Mexican and so on but what suits my body the most is Japanese diet. I've tried Paleo, South Beach, Carnivore, Keto, Vegan, but always came back to Japanese diet because it feeds my body well without bloating, lack of energy, and any digestive issues.
What diet works for you? If any of the popular diet is working for you then keep it, regardless of what other people say. If you are feeling sluggish, bloated, weight gaining and having a digestive issues then that diet may not be for you.
Exercise to Build Muscles Not Just to Burn Calories
You do need to exercise and physically active to lose weight. Good diet alone cannot bring you the weight loss that you are looking for.
So why do some experts say 80% of weight loss is coming from diet? Well you cannot out train your bad nutrition. That much is true. However, the issue that I see is most experts who say "all you need to do is fix your nutrition" is already doing exercise 3-7 days a week. So only thing that they needed to improve their physique was to fix their nutrition. From what I've seen over few decades in fitness industry is those who work on improving their nutrition and exercise will have success in weight loss and most of them can keep the weight off.
Type of the exercise you choose need to be well rounded. You should be stimulating your muscles and burning calories at the same time. Workout such as HIIT (high intensity interval training), Tabata method (20 seconds on/10 seconds off), boot camp format are all great place to start. Even without these program, if you combine bodyweight exercises such as squat, push up, sit ups, lunges, etc. with 8-12 reps each for 3-4 sets, you can have decent workout to stimulate muscles and burn calories.
By stimulating your muscles and having a proper nutrition, you can build muscular strength and muscle mass. By building muscles, your metabolic rate increases because muscle requires more energy to maintain. This will allow the body to use body fat as energy more easier than just cutting calories and do cardio because now you have more chance of losing muscles mass. Ask any experienced weightlifters. It is not easy to rebuild a lost muscle mass.
If you have access to the gym, learn to use machines, which can help you get the results faster. It is ok to lift weights, as long as you know the technique. If you need guidance hire a trainer to help you for few month.
Initially, go easy. If you have not exercised in several months or years or never, getting into boot camp on your first day is not a smart idea. Start with what you can do. If you can only do 10 minutes? Great! Can you only do 2 times per week? Awesome! You can only do 3 exercises in 10 minutes? Wonderful! But start from somewhere. Baby does not know how to walk and start from rolling over, crawling, hanging on to the couch and eventually learn to stand before they walk. It is ok to start slow, but you will need to start.
How Frequent Should You Weigh?
It is vital to understand how the body changes everyday. You may have heard an advice like you should weigh-in only once or 3 times per week to avoid disappointment. That is fine too but you may not able to see the trend of how your body is changing every single day.
To understand your body properly, you should weigh yourself everyday and record it. After 2-3 weeks of data (14-21 days of data) you will see the trend of how you are doing and whether what plan your following is working or not working.
When weighing, you should monitor your body weight and body fat (% and lb.). Stick with one scale and have a set schedule for you to weigh-in. Weigh-in should be done in same condition every time. Best timing is first thing in the morning, after using a restroom, if necessary, then weigh yourself without a cloth. Use the app, excel or notebook to log in the numbers.
1 LB a Week Challenge
Here is a challenge. Until you hit your goal weight, see if you can challenge yourself to lose 1 pound a week. This 1 pound could be your overall bodyweight or body fat mass. What does this mean? Sometimes when you are eating properly and exercising on regular basis, although your overall weight may not change, however, you could be losing fat mass and gaining muscle mass. That is why you should monitor your body fat when weighing so you know what is actually going on inside of your body.
So 1 pound a week. Yes, it's not 5 or 10lbs per week but it definitely do able. That's 4lbs per month and around 50lb per year, 100lb in 2 years. 1lb a week will allow you to create attainable goal and healthy habits week at a time. Even if you were not able to do your exercise and follow the nutrition for a day, you can still make up for it with remainder of the week.
May not sound like appealing like some pill or fad diet that promise you to lose 50lbs per month, but give it a try.
So here is 4 things you need to do to work on 1lb weight loss per week.
Eat 3 meals a day (including snacks) with natural food.
Exercise 2-3 times a week excluding hiking, yard work and other physical activities.
Choice of exercises should be both muscle stimulating and calorie burning.
Weigh-in and record everyday at same condition.
If the 4 things does not show progress in 3 weeks, you should consider getting your blood panel done and find the underlying issue.
Focusing on weight loss alone will be challenging. But focusing on correcting your hormonal imbalance by changing your eating and exercising habit can help you start managing your weight easier. It does take some work. It is not 20% exercise and 80% nutrition. Both needs to be 100%. Once you can make this happen, you can see a real results.
Kota Shimada
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