4 Simple Ways To Drop An Extra Pound or Two
On Tuesday I was training a married couple who have been with me at least a year and half…maybe more.
Any way, the young lady was talking about how she is stuck at a certain weight and the scale just doesn’t seem to budge and she asked what she could be going to drop an extra few pounds.
Now, before I tell you the different things she could be doing it is important to understand that this young lady is really close to her ideal body weight. The closer you are to your ideal body weight the hard losing weight becomes.
In addition, if you weigh 150 lbs and you want to lose 15 lbs, you are saying you want to lose 10% of your total weight. Cool right, seems easy. It’s only 15 lbs. That is hardly anything. Right? Wrong! You want to know why your husband can lose 15 lbs without trying? That is generally because your husband is well over 200 lbs and 15 lbs only represents 5% – 3% of his total weight. In short, it is much easier to lose 3% of your total weight, then to lose 10% of your total weight.
That was a bit of a tangent, sorry. The point being, if you are close to your ideal body weight it will be harder to lose additional weight. Here were the options I gave her.
- Lower you calories. Pros, it is super simple to understand. Cons, it is hard to implement, especially if you are already restricting your calories.
- Burn more calories. Pros, you get to be more active. Cons, most people don’t have that kind of time nor do they desire to spend an extra 30 plus minutes a day on a treadmill.
- Change your macros and keep your calories the same (I have a lot of clients who are very successful with this strategy, especially those who are close to their ideal body weight). So, if your calories are set at 1400 a day, in phase 1 you would adjust your macros to 40% of your calories coming from protein, 40% from carbs, and 20% from fat. For most people in today’s society, their macros look nothing like this. They get maybe 10 – 15% from protein, and the rest from fat and carbs. So what right!? They are still getting the same number of calories…?! Yes, but no. Huh? It is harder for your body to break down protein. If you consume a 100 calorie chicken breast your body only gets 80 calories. Now, if you consume a 100 calorie little debbie, your body gets the whole 100 calories. That is an extra 20 calories, which is 20% more. If you do that repeatedly, it is all more calories. If you simply eat more protein and eat less fats and carbs your body will take it less calories while eating the same amount of calories. I hope that makes sense lol. Maybe that should have been a separate post…
- Moving on, Intermediate fasting…sigh…I know….it is what all the kids are doing now lol. It works, but it is not magical, for most people I do not think it is sustainable, so I rarely recommend it. This is how it works…briefly, you only get a 6 to 8 hour window to eat your calories (1400). So if you starting eating at 12:00 PM your last bite can’t be past 6pm or 8pm, depends on which time frame you choose. This works because when you are fasted and hungry your body is using up your fat stores to fuel it self. Now a warning, if you starve all day and then eat a whole bunch of calories, more than your body needs, you won’t lose weight ;-). But if you stay at the same number of calories as before, most often you will a little more. However, never forget caloric deficit is still the name of the game.
Alrighty, those were the 4 options I presented. The young lady choose door number 4 and ironically enough…I just got a text from her as I wrote this and she is down a pound and all she did was increase her water intake lol! I will right about why that works tomorrow ;-). I will try and update you with her progress.
Go be awesome!
Kellen Lake – Caloric deficit is the name of the game ;-).
PS – I stay in a caloric deficit by eating portioned controlled and macro nutrient balanced meals from Just 4 You Meals, visit www.just4youmeals.com to order yours today. Orders close at 2pm on Thursdays.
