If you asked anyone on the street about the best way to lose weight, they would likely say “Eat less food.”
A popular belief is that in order to lose weight, one must consume fewer calories. This idea is not true If you want to lose weight, you might need to eat more food.
This statement, though it may sound radical, is true–especially if the accompanying plan is easy to implement and just as easy to stick to. If you want to construct a diet plan that works for you, take a look at these eight tips. You'll be able to find ways to eat more food while still losing weight and enjoying your diet!
1. Pump Up The Volume
Your stomach cannot count calories. High-calorie foods that contain a lot of oil or sugar, for example, won't make you feel full, even though they are very high in calories. The amount of food you eat is more important than the type of food.
When I say “food volume,” I mean eating a lot of food, regardless of the number of calories. Not only is it important to focus on how much weight you're losing, but also the quality of that weight. If you want to lose weight, you should eat the right types of food and eat a lot of them.
This is not difficult for some people to do. You can tell if a food is something you should be eating by how it makes you feel and whether it helps you achieve your goals.
Take a doughnut for example. Can a doughnut fit into your diet and still lead to weight loss? You can eat cake for breakfast, but it's not the wisest choice because it contains no nutrients, is not filling, and is high in calories. After you eat it, you'll get a brief burst of energy from the sugar, but then you'll feel tired and irritable. Then you'll crave more sugar. That's not a fun cycle.
This means that you should focus on finding foods that are high in nutrients, but that you can eat a lot of without feeling full. This will help you to feel better and more satisfied. The foods that are mentioned will help with weight loss goals.
2. Don't Go Cut Crazy
Many people still believe that the best way to lose weight is to cut a ton of calories or eliminate food groups, even though this is not a great strategy. Do you know why? Because at the end of the day, it works! You cut carbs, and guess what happens? You become more conscious of the foods you're consuming. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat less food. This will create a calorie deficit and lead to initial weight loss. Great, right? Well not really. If you continue down this path, you will establish an unhealthy relationship with food.
You need to learn balance and portion control if you want to maintain weight loss. At some point, you will overindulge, stop following your plan, and be back where you started.
It is not bad to count calories. In fact, I do it myself. (S)he is saying that anything that makes you aware of what you are eating is a good thing. However, relying solely on calorie counting will not give you the results you want. To reach your weight- and fat-loss goals, you need to count your macros as well.
3. Master Your Macros
Macros are macronutrients, which are protein, carbs, and fats. You can't just rely on counting calories to tell you if you're getting the right mix of nutrients. You need to make sure you're getting enough protein to build muscle, enough carbs to stay satisfied, and enough fats to stay healthy.
Macro counting allows you to track the specific foods and food groups that you need to eat in order to meet your goals. Figuring out macros removes the need to guess about dieting, and gives you an eating plan that will produce long-term results.
Because people are so different, it's hard to make generalizations about what macros they should eat. In order to determine your macros, first use a total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) calculator to determine your current caloric needs, or multiply your body weight in pounds by 15 for an easy estimate.
Macronutrients are nutrients that the body needs in large amounts. They include carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. A recommended daily intake of protein is 1.2 grams per pound of body weight, with 0.5 to 0.7 grams of fat per pound. The rest of your calories should come from carbohydrates.
If you learn to think about the big picture, the smaller details will fall into place. To achieve your fitness goals, you need to determine the right balance of macros for your body. You should divide your macros into three meals and 2-3 snacks consumed throughout the day. It may seem like a lot of work, but it's really no more work than counting calories.
Instead of just adding up the number of calories you're eating in a meal, add the grams of protein, carbs, and fats separately to ensure you're hitting your macro targets. This will help you hit your fitness goals.
4. Get Smart About Swaps
You might find that you don't have a lot of food on your plate once you break up your meals into smaller portions. Now we're back to the topic of volume. Replacing some foods with others is a good way to keep the amount of food you're eating constant, and cut out extra, unnecessary calories.
For example, look at this comparison:
- 1 cup of basmati rice = 192 calories, 40 grams of carbs
- 1 cup of cauliflower rice = 25 calories, 5.3 grams of carbs
I could make a healthy curry using either of these rices, and you wouldn't be able to taste much of a difference. A serving of the healthier food has 167 fewer calories. You can have a snack later on without sacrificing food volume in your meal right now! It will still make you feel full and be satisfying while helping you reach your macro targets and getting you results.
Here are a few more substitutions to add volume to your food without adding calories:
- Trade this: Pasta | For this: Spiralized zucchini or spaghetti squash
- Trade this: Mashed potatoes | For this: Mashed butternut squash or cauliflower and turnips
- Trade this: Mayonnaise | For this: Mashed avocado or hummus
- Trade this: Sour cream | For this: Greek yogurt
- Trade this: Bread | For this: Whole-wheat tortilla
- Trade this: Sugar | For this: Maple syrup or stevia
5. Now Consider Cardio
I hear this a lot: “I can eat that big hunk of cheesecake because I am doing cardio later.” Now, I'm all for doing cardio to be able to eat more food. I usually walk for an hour in the morning, which burns around 500 calories. I can eat more food as long as it is the right type of food to get amazing results!
You can't out-train—or, in my case, out-walk—a bad diet. Cheesecake is not a good option if you're trying to lose weight. At the end of the day, if you eat more calories than you burn, you're going to gain body fat. If you only consume a small amount of food and make sure it is nutritious, you can stay thin by exercising regularly.
6. Balance Your Life
After taking everything into consideration, you still need to live your life. It's not possible to always be strict, and who would want to be anyways? Especially during the holidays and special occassions. This is a time to celebrate with family and friends, and that often means eating high-calorie foods. There's no need to stress about having the occasional cheat meal.
If you want to be healthy, you should eat healthy food 80 percent of the time and allow yourself to indulge 20 percent of the time. This approach is more sustainable than trying to eat only healthy food all the time. If you don't deprive yourself of food, you won't feel the urge to binge and you'll be happier and more sane.
7. Make Your Diet Pop
It's time to put your dieting skills to the test in the kitchen.
People think that in order to diet, they have to give up all their favorite foods, which isn't the case. This could not be further from the truth. You can have a healthy and delicious diet by finding the right healthy recipes!
I have provided a link to one of my favorite healthy recipes below. This recipe is quick, easy, and packed with nutrients that are essential for bodybuilders. It's a perfect food for bulking up. Plus it tastes great!
8. There really, truly is no one “best diet”
All of the experts that I talked to said that science has now shown us very clearly that all diets will have the same small results if you follow them for a long time, no matter what types of foods they include.
Dr. Mark Eisenberg reviewed the research on the South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, and Zone diets and found that they are all effective. He and his team found that people on any diet tended to lose around five to seven pounds in a year, with some weight gain afterwards.
Other large-scale studies have come to the same conclusion as this latest bit of research. This trial involved 300 women who were randomly assigned to either a low-carb, high-carb, or low-fat diet. According to the researchers, weight loss on a low-carb diet (specifically Atkins) was found to be “likely to be at least as large as for any other dietary pattern.” In other words, no diet was found to be better than any other diet.
The researchers found that individuals have different responses to different lifestyle changes. They are trying to understand how individuals with their varied personalities and preferences respond to these changes. They said that the future is in finding more alternatives that fit better than the current one-size-fits-all approach.
The current literature does not provide a definitive answer as to which diet is best for weight loss. This means that we have been led to believe that if we just follow one particular diet, we will achieve our weight loss goals. However, science (and experience) has proven that this is not correct. Fad diets come in and out of fashion, but you can save your money by tuning them out. There is no need to follow an unreasonable or unsustainable diet plan that is likely to fail. The experts suggested cutting calories in a way that you like and can sustain, instead of focusing on eating more healthfully.
Eat often, and eat small.” As a general rule, Dr. Arya Sharma, director of the Canadian Obesity Network, advises patients to “eat regularly and often, but in small amounts.” You will not make good decisions if you are starving. This does not mean you should snack all the time, but rather make sure you are not hungry when it is time for your next meal. The doctor advises his patients to consume more fruits and vegetables while reducing their intake of sugary drinks and processed snacks.
Fitzgerald approaches the topic similarly to the way the author of the text does. He told me he ranks foods on an evidence-based quality hierarchy, from more healthy to less healthy:
- Vegetables
- Fruits
- Nuts, seeds and healthy oils
- High-quality meat and seafood
- Whole grains
- Dairy
- Refined grains
- Low-quality meat and seafood
- Sweets
- Fried foods
You should eat more of the foods at the top of the list, and fewer of the foods at the bottom of the list.
A simpler guide would be the “half-plate rule” which is to make sure half your lunch and dinner plates are vegetables and fruits while the other half is protein and starch. There are some simple ways to eat more filling and fibrous foods, without adding a lot of calories. This is what all the experts I spoke with recommended.
