What You Need To Know About Simple Weight Loss

In this article I’m going to cover everything you need to know about weight loss. But first I’m going to bust some myths about weight loss that you may not know.

1. You don’t need to go low carb. The reason being is that when you’re losing weight you need to get stronger or at least maintain your strength. Carbohydrates convert to glucose and are the primary energy source that you use to lift weights. Without carbs an intense workout session is extremely difficult.
2. You don’t have to use the ketogenic diet. For you guys and gals who don’t know what the ketogenic diet is. It basically eliminates carbohydrates from your diet. Because of the reduction in carbs you retain less water in your body. This is because for every gram of carbohydrate you store 2-3 grams of water. This gives the impression that your losing weight quickly but it’s not what happens its just water weight. Because of the below 30 grams of carbs that the ketogenic diet advocates for you to do you actually lose strength while losing weight. This means that you lose more muscle over the duration of the diet.
3. You don’t need to go high reps to get the muscles to be ripped or to “pop out”. You need to focus on moderate reps 4-12 reps and focusing on improving your strength as the diet begins. Even if you maintain your strength at a lower bodyweight that is still progress. Anything over 12 reps can be hard to maintain form especially on the core exercises I’m talking about the bench press, deadlift , squat and overhead press.

The most important fat loss principles. Here I’m going to list the most important fat loss principles from my experience with myself and others. Always remember when talking fat loss a calorie deficit is king.

1. Find your maintenance calories and use a moderate deficit of 25%. To give you an example if your calorie maintenance is 2000 then you would reduce your calories by 500. So you will need to consume 1500 calories to lose weight.

What I’ve just told you is the law of energy balance. “Law” means that it is an essential truth that cannot be debated. Just like the law of gravity you throw something up in the air and it comes down. You reduce your calories below maintenance and you lose weight. If you’re unsure about you maintenance calories. Track your intake for a couple of weeks and weigh yourself. If your weight is going up by a pound in the second week then your eating to much. If your weight is reducing by a pound that’s extremely good going. Another option is to use a good maintenance calorie calculator like the one below. This calculator is from Mike Matthews website. I highly reccomend you read his articles and books.

This Is the Best Macronutrient Calculator on the Net (Updated 2021)

2. Protein intake

To stay full when dieting an essential macronutrient is protein. There are 3 macronutrients in food which are carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. Carbs and protein have 4 grams each whereas fat has 9 calories. To retain muscle while losing weight you want to have at least 1 gram per pound of bodyweight. For me a 180 pound guy that is 180 grams of protein. I’d recommend getting this through lean sources such as greek yogurt, lean meat such as turkey, lean beef mince, chicken, and low fat cottage cheese. And plenty of whole foods. Protein not only retains muscle mass but keeps you full when dieting.

3. Carbs and fats

unless your a competitive bodybuilder who has to track every gram of food. Sufficient protein intake and a good healthy mix of carbs and fats will be adequate. I recommend 20% of your calories should be fat and the remainder of your calories carbohydrates. The reason I have a specific percentage for fat is because fat is actually an essential nutrient for your health and plays many important roles for your hormonal functions, your production of hair and healthy skin. And believe it or not although carbs are essential for lean body mass gain and retention they aren’t actually essential to the human diet. Lean body mass is what’s left in your body when you take away the fat. For example if you weigh 200 pounds and have a body fat percentage of 10% your LBM would be 180 pounds.

4. Resistance training and cardio

I recommend that you get started on a good resistance training program for example:

Barbell Squat 3x 4- 6 reps when you reach 6 reps for all sets increase weight by 5 to 10 pounds

Bench Press or overhead press- 3×4-6 reps put weight up by 5 pounds when you hit all 6 reps.

deadlift or any type of row preferably a free weight row

1x 4-6 reps put weight up by 5-10 pounds when you reach your reps.

as far as form goes on the exercises I recommend Alan thrall’s YouTube channel untamed strength.

https://www.youtube.com/user/athrall7

perform this routine 2×3 times a week. This type of routine is very similar to the routine in the book starting strength by Mark Rippetoe which I recommend everyone reads.

I like to do at least one brisk walk every week. I like to do a long 10,000 step walk every weekend. This slightly extends your calorie deficit for more fat loss benefits. It’s also great for your cardiovascular health.

5.

Weighing yourself on the scale

Weigh yourself on the scale at least once a week. if you can do more great. For example if you weighed yourself twice a week you would add the two weigh ins and divide them by 2 to get the average. The more you weigh in a week the more accurate your weekly is. It’s best to do this at the same Time every day. I like to do it on a morning.

Summary

So losing weight and in particular losing fat doesn’t have to be hard. The 20% that gives you 80% of the results is the calorie deficit. Always remember this and if your weight isn’t going down your eating too much and you’ll just have to reduce your intake through either carbs or fat but I recommend you don’t go below 15% of your intake from fat as it is an essential nutrient that we previously discussed.

If you have any questions or have any other topics you’d like me to discuss just send me an email – henrypaget976@gmail.com my instagram is Henry.paget

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