If you are under weight and are a hard-gainer look into the GOMAD diet. Since gaining weight has never been a problem for me I
won’t pretend to have anything to say in that area.
If you’re still with me then you’re in the camp that wants to lose fat and retain or increase lean muscle. It’s important to strip away all the noise and get down to how you lose weight. Whatever your genetics, glandular issues, high-school injury, occupation or family life situation weight loss comes down to two things you can control.
Losing weight has obvious implications for preparedness. You can go further and move yourself more easily. It’s also good to become aware of your dietary requirements. You’ll learn what it means to restrict calories. You’ll get more of an understanding of what your nutritional requirements will be in adverse situations.
You control how many calories you burn
Burning calories is about exercise. Right now we’re just going to talk about diet. From personal experience I can say that you can get very far into weight loss without spending a lot of time on exercise.
You control how many calories you consume
Track food intake
The most important first step is tracking exactly what you eat. From every meal you need to know 4 things.
- Total calories
- Calories from protein
- Calories from carbohydrates
- Calories from fat
Calories are the most important thing to track when losing weight. We’d all like there to be other tricks to losing weight but it really just comes down to calories. There are plenty of services and calculators online that will tell you how many calories you should consume if you want to lose a given amount of weight in an amount of time.
Macronutrients (protein, carbohydrates and fat) are important to track as well. If you are going to restrict calories and you want to keep or gain muscle then you need to have adequate protein. A big part of the game becomes finding sources of lean protein. Limited calories made up of carbohydrates and fat aren’t going to get you where you want to be. Carbohydrates aren’t absolutely evil, favor fewer carbohydrates, favor complex carbohydrates. Favor fewer fat, fat isn’t evil either.
With those general guidelines it’s fair to say there are foods to entirely be avoided
- refined sugar
- bread
- cheese
- butter
These are the types of food you should look for
- lean protein (chicken, less often beef)
- any vegetable
- fruit in moderation
- small amounts of good fat like olive oil
Keep track of your weight
Your weight will fluctuate daily. It’s best to weigh yourself daily and average your weight throughout the week. This way you won’t be overly discouraged when your weight is up for one day. Tracking weight obviously lets you know what is working and what is not. Losing two pounds a week should be realistic.
