The secret to weight loss - Part One

When did weight loss become so complicated? Why do we seem to struggle with losing weight or keeping it off?

The answer is that it’s not that complicated and I have the secret so many people in the weight loss industry don’t want you to know.

So the secret to weight loss is…..

Eat less and move more

BOOM! Mind blown! Move your body and put less in your mouth. 

So why do we struggle? Because human beings love to take advantage of others desperation and sense of urgency by complicating things and keeping the general population away from the answer.

Detox teas, Paleo, keto, fasting and everything else takes the above principle and wraps it up in a weird confusing restricting package for consumers to get sucked into. And we do. A lot. In 2018 the weight loss industry was worth 70.8 billion dollars. Yet the world is getting fatter. Mis-education as well as societies demand for wanting everything now (who would want to wait for anything ever) has made people desperate to lose weight easy targets for money hungry con artists.

Ok, back on track, so the principle sounds easy enough but how do we do it? The method is where we tend to fall down. This week we will take a look at the eating side of it and I’ll explain how it works.

1. You need to work out your calories – you can do this via a calorie calculator ( I use www.tdeecalculator.net ) this will give you maintenance calories. To lose weight take 5 – 20% from that number depending on how rigid you would like to be. For weight gain add 5-15%.

2. Once you have your calories you then work out your protein goals – this can be done by taking your body weight and x it by 1.5 to 2 depending on how easily you can fit protein into your diet. But 1.5 is a good beginning. Eg. 60kg person would go 60 x 1.5 = 90grams 

3. Once you have your protein there is still plenty of calories left over for your fats and carbohydrates so you need to split them between these. For general population my advice would be to split it how you like to eat or what makes you feel good. Some people prefer more fat in their diet, others love carbs. It’s a personal preference, but if you like to do things by the book I have put below the recommendations for the macros.

1 gram of protein = 4 cals

1.5g – 2.5g per kg

1 gram of fat = 9 cals

0.5g to 1g per kg

1 gram of carbohydrates = 4 cals

When working out macros, carbs are generally the amount left over from proteins and fats

I’ll do an example here;

I am 60kg and need 2000 calories a day therefore…

Protein 60x1.5 = 90g – 90x4 = 360cals

Fat 60x 0.8 =48g – 48x9 = 432cals

So together that equals 792 cals leaving 1208 calories left.

1208 divided by 4 = 302g of carbs.

Remember this is just an example to show the working out and amounts can vary depending on goals, lifestyle and individual likes.

It may seem complicated and a bit of effort, but you only need to do this at the start to get your beginning calories and macro split and then once you have those numbers you can log them into a food tracking app (my fitness pal is a good one) and then they are set.

So I can’t promise you amazing results in a couple of weeks with this method but I can promise you that by slowing down, taking into account your lifestyle and level of compliance and educating yourself around what it is you are doing rather than being told what to do, you will have long term results that will last and a better relationship with your body and food.

My name is Olivia and I am a personal trainer and nutrition coach with 7 years experience. If you want to follow the simple principle of move more eat less, educate yourself around food and calories and do it on your terms, contact me now for customised meal plans involving real food based around meals you like to eat and your lifestyle.

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