For those of you doing the 32K Weight Loss Contest in Basic Training (and those of you who aren’t but still would like to lose a few pounds), this first post lays the groundwork by explaining exactly how weight loss works. You may already be clear on this, but given that millions of people are drawn to pop diet trends, it’s good to be sure.
What I am about to tell you is simple, and absolutely foolproof unless there is a medical reason that prevents you from losing weight normally. So here it is: you will lose fat when you burn more calories than you consume. Weight loss doesn’t happen because you eat a special combination of foods, avoid carbohydrates, consume excessive amounts of protein, eat mythical foods that burn more calories in digestion than are present in the food itself, eat according to your blood type, do a lot of sit-ups, or take “thermogenic” supplements/herbs/etc. If you have lost weight by doing any of these things, the reason you lost weight was because you burned more calories than you consumed.
Your body requires fuel in the form of food, and whether you consume protein, carbs, or fat- a calorie is a calorie. As long as you keep your daily caloric intake below the amount your body burns each day, you will lose weight…even if your diet consists of chocolate chip cookies and ice cream sundaes. That’s a fact that’s been well-documented (see attached article: http://tinyurl.com/2422p2g). I’m not saying that it is healthy in the long-term to eat a diet high in sugar and fat, I’m just saying that weight loss is all about calories, regardless of their source.
If you’re trying to lose weight, this information doesn’t come without serious ramifications for you and your goals. On the positive side, it means that losing weight doesn’t depend on having to figure out what works, and it means that you can and absolutely will arrive at a healthy body weight if you consistently consume fewer calories than you burn each day. On the challenging side, it also means that weight loss is about personal discipline, not gimmickry. That means that most of your focus will need to be on learning self-control, and creating strategies to deal with your circumstances and your weaknesses. But be encouraged- you probably don’t have to eat as few calories as you might imagine, and you don’t have to be perfect; you just need to be reasonably consistent.
In the next post we’ll talk numbers: how can you calculate the number of calories you should be eating each day to lose weight, and what’s a reasonable weekly goal for weight loss?
Congratulations in completing Week #1, and I’ll see you next week…when we start turning up the heat!
This is great! Looking forward to more info. Hurry! BTW, you look exactly the same as you did in the video!