“There are no shortcuts to any place worth going” – Beverly Sills

This isn’t an article that will help you lose weight fast. Neither is it going to provide you with tips on how to lose weight in some specific way. Instead, I am taking a different approach than the myriad of detailed articles out there on the interwebs. I am going to give you the cold hard truth.

Losing weight is HARD F**KING WORK.

Many people who have known me for some time now know that I have fluctuated quite drastically in appearance over the years. Upon arriving home recently I realized I needed to take control of my life, now or never. In the past 2 months I have renewed my spirit and eagerness to do so and I am happy to report that I am now back on track to winning the war once and for all. I have dropped 8kg (18lbs) in 8 weeks. Throughout my short adult life I have lost, gained, lost again, and re-gained approximately my entire ideal weight. That’s 75kg (165lbs) in total. I’m not a nutritionist, I’m not a scientist, I’m just very experienced with doing and trying it all (almost).

In life we must strive to seek for what we want in three key areas: emotionally, intellectually and physically. Here, I am going to aim to do my best and help you understand how to get the most out of what YOU want physically, and for a lot of people, that means losing weight.

Still interested?

Here is what I have learned…

1) Understand the Math

I hate math. But, with your body, it’s important to understand where you fit in the ‘benchmark’, a benchmark that a bunch of dudes with PhD’s invented.

Thankfully these PhD types out there have figured out the formulas for you. All you gotta do is google them, and you can get a quick overview of your situation. I’m not going to spend time going over this in detail, you can look them up to get a better idea of what they mean.

The indexes you should pay most attention to are the following:

BMI – This is just an indicator, and if you’re overly muscular you can have a high BMI, it’s not a true reflection, but a crucial guide.

BMR – Your Basal Metabolic rate is the minimum level of energy  your body needs when at rest to function effectively. Essentially, if you consume the amount of calories that equal your BMR, you will remain at a constant weight. It’s affected by your age, weight, height and sex. The level of daily activity also influences your BMR.

Lean Body Mass – Your lean body mass is the amount of weight you carry on your body that isn’t fat. Basically, the weight you would be if you had 0% fat. But 0% fat is impossible and low percentages are extremely unhealthy. Bruce Lee had 2%, but that’s Bruce Lee.

Body Fat % – This is crucial to know. When we talk about losing weight, we’re really talking about losing Fat %. Everything you do revolves around this. So here is a basic approach.

I got myself a smart scale that calculates all of this for you. Highly recommended.

Let’s say you are 80kg, and you figure out you have 20% body fat. 0.20 * 80 = 16kg. That means you have 16kg of fat! Now you know you want to get down to 10% body fat, which means you need to lose 8kg of just fat. 1kg of fat = 7,700 calories, this means you have to burn off 7,700 * 8 = 61,600 calories.

So, losing 8kg of fat in 1 month is quite radical. Think about it:

61,600 / 30 = 2,053 calories burned / day. Of pure fat. This means if your BMR is 2053, you’d have to either not eat at all OR eat your 2,053 calories and run approx. 20km. Every day.

Not realistic. You’re going to injure yourself or just lose muscle mass and not fat. So, understand the math, and apply a proper diet. Give yourself a realistic goal!

2) Calories mean nothing

So then comes the question, if I monitor all these ratios / numbers carefully, and I apply Calories In < Calories Out, I will definitely lose weight, right?

In other words, Calories Out (Exercise + BMR) > Calorie In (Diet) = Weight Loss. Quite simple really. In fact, some people have proven this with crazy experiments, but it simply doesn’t work like that!!

Ok, you ought to burn more calories than you consume, that is a sure way of losing weight. But, there are instances when the food you take in actually requires more calories by your body to digest them, and this is a fundamental thing to understand. Whole grains, raw foods like nuts and seeds as well as leafy green vegetables make your body work harder to process and digest them. Calcium rich foods are a good example.

Everyone is unique and there is no cookie cutter mold or diet that works best for everyone. You have to spend time understanding what foods you love, what you can work with. Heck, I love sweet stuff, I love cooking. It’s no fun downing a green shake if you absolutely hate the taste, you will never enjoy it and you will always associate the negative feelings and emotions with that experience when it comes to ‘dieting’, it shouldn’t feel like a chore, you need to enjoy it. Calorie counting is stressful, I’ve been there. It sucks. You spend more time figuring it out and measuring portions than actually enjoying your food. Eat smart, in moderation, and stay AWAY from sugar. If you’re going to replace any calories, it should be calories from sugar. Watch this movie and learn.

What I found useful is downloading some sort of calorie app, after a few uses you start to realize what types of calories your favorite foods actually contain and from there, you can make smarter judgements. Instead of measuring out a tea spoon of ice cream or always logging your intake, you will just instinctively know that a few bites is quite enough, or sharing a dessert with a friend is enough.

Live to eat, don’t eat to live. Seems counterintuitive, but you will be happier in the process.

3) Listen to what your body is telling you

Understand that your body is a system:

system

Got it? Ok good. Your body is your vessel. Think of it as a sinking ship. In life we go through ups and downs,  and so does our body. Stormy weather, calm seas, Ebola….

Unfortunately, we can’t just buy a new vessel, we are stuck with a ship that was manufactured on your D.O.B and as we go through life this vessel of ours continuously breaks down bit by bit. It is our job and our job alone to prevent these breakdowns rather than finding patch up solutions.

Fad diets that asks you to starve yourself are wrong. Skipping breakfast, lunch OR dinner, is wrong. Ironically, it works. I did this 3-day diet once and I lost 7lbs, amazing. But who cares? I put it all back on the next week…do you see where I’m going? There are so many studies, there are so many doctors and nutritionists saying this is wrong. I’m just a somewhat regular guy, and I’m telling you, this is wrong!!

When your body tells you it is hungry, it’s probably right. Unless you’re drunk or whatever…but if you’re hungry, eat something. There are so many healthy snack options I don’t need to get into that. For heavens sake if you want a small piece of chocolate, have it. But don’t eat the whole damn bag. If you’re tired and you feel like you’re going to die, then maybe go to sleep! Rest! If your knee hurts, your ass hurts, rest it, ice it, put on a brace (not an ass brace).

The trick here is to not over do it. There really is NO short cut. Slow and steady is the best way and the only way for long term benefits and real results. There is a specific reason why even professional athletes take sufficient rest days. Your body is a vessel, and even the most well travelled vessels need to dock at port and resupply.

4) Find the right motivation

This is perhaps the most important factor of them all, and I hardly see anyone talking about this. Your motivation has to be realistic, and most importantly, it has to be driven by you and you alone.

You see, we have two types of motivations: internal and external.

External motivations are based around validation we receive from any and all external sources. It’s powerful.

The way our clothes fit, the compliments we get, the suggestions we get from media, family, friends, the way we feel good because our spouse or loved one suddenly feels more attracted to us. I’m no stranger to this feeling, it’s addictive, and it’s very useful to help you keep on track and give you the initial boost. But it cannot be the only motivation. You may have a wedding to go to, you need to squeeze into that dress. Perhaps your trying to hook up with that guy/chick and you think that losing a couple of pounds will help you gain confidence and make them want you more. I have news for you friend, sure it helps, but it’s actually the confidence you gained that makes them like you more, not so much your new pack of abs. If they’re only looking for abs then, once you get said person in bed and the abs are gone, guess who else is gone?

On the flip side, there is severe external de-motivation. “I’m embarrassed to go to the gym”, “I hate the way I look, people will laugh at me”. Ok, maybe. But you know what? 90% of people will actually respect you for doing something about it. Which leads me into internal motivation.

Internal motivation is necessary, it is everything. Until you can learn to accept that you are doing this for you and you alone, for your health and your happiness, only then will it stick. It’s a eureka moment. This type of motivation doesn’t come easy, and this is what I mean by losing weight is hard work. It’s hard, physically and mentally. My girlfriend once told me the most reassuring words when I realized I wasn’t taking care of myself properly, it made me realize how important internal motivation truly is. She said: “I don’t care that you you don’t have a six pack, but you need to exercise, I want you to be healthy, YOU need to want to be healthy.” And I realized, shit, she’s right…I do want to be healthy, who doesn’t? She could’ve just as easily said, “you’re fat..”, but that’s just negative external motivation that doesn’t help.

Who am I kidding, I know she’d love it if I had a six pack, but if I am happy and healthy, she still loves my Keg.

5) Diet. Exercise. Isn’t it obvious?

So we come to the final point, but I don’t want to just reiterate what everyone else says. You know what healthy food is, and if you don’t I suggest you start here.

You see the key is knowing and applying. Let’s be real, it’s so easy to say stay away from alcohol, but alcohol is fun (sometimes). And if you’re serious about your career ambitions then you know you can’t avoid it time to time. Just replace soda based mixed drinks, stay away from fancy cocktails and stick to natures best like wine, beer and whiskey. The truth is however, the diet is 70%, exercise is 30%. Tried and tested, just believe me.

The real deal on exercise for losing weight? 6 days a week, no more, no less. I’ve tried so many combinations, but ultimately what works best for you is different to your neighbor, cousin or aunt. You can find so many sources of different types of exercise, the real deal is keeping your body confused. Mix it up, combine different exercises. Personally I love to run. I have Nike+ data points dating back to 2008 and I can clearly see the months that I stopped running correlate directly to my waistline. It’s fascinating.

4-5 times a week of pure cardio for 45-60 mins is a great way to burn good amounts of calories, but strength training is the most important. Your body needs muscles too, and your skeletal muscles that hold your joints together burn the most calories. Combine strength based and interval based exercises like martial arts, weight training & circuit training with cardio and lower intense exercises such as yoga and swimming and you have a good winning combination. Again, 6 times a week, this is it. My current routine consists of 4 (5-7km) runs a week, 1 Muay thai session and 1 strength session. Sometimes I switch a run with a swim session. But I find swimming boring.

Drink water, please. Water is life, your body is composed of almost 70% water. On a daily basis we are supposed to drink approx. 2L of water, but if you are regularly exercising and losing weight, you HAVE to bump this up to at least 3-4L of water a day. When I was in the Army I realized that I was losing so much weight because we were forced to start our day by downing 1L of water. You literally sweat out the fat. There is enough proof about empty calories in juices, sodas and other sugary drinks. Just add lemon or lime to your water.

Remember, have fun. Nobody ever said  “Exercise is so much fun!”. What’s fun is the process, not the chore. You can make it more enjoyable. Join a class, do stuff with friends and let yourself get off track from time to time. But if you have that last cookie, make sure you set your alarm early the next day and pay for it. Strive to validate your intentions internally and be happy with the little wins. It takes time, effort, and hard work.

If you do nothing else important in life but you manage to win the battle of ridding the unhealthy version of you. You win.

Good luck.