WEIGHT LOSS | NUTRITION | HACKS | ADVICE
10 Weight Loss Hacks from a Former Fatty
Convenience foods will make you fat without some intervention.
I was a certified personal trainer and primal health coach with my own studio for seven years. Before that, I was obese. I wrote about that in my post Losing 100 Pounds was Simple.
Now, I work at a gym and was recently talking with some members about their journeys. In this post, I wanted to share some hacks that made losing weight and keeping it off easier for me.
I wasn’t fat because I had cravings. I was fat because I wanted convenience. If you have cravings that you seem unable to overcome, do some research on carbohydrate addiction. It’s real, and there’s no point in hating yourself for “being weak.”
Macronutrients Matter
First, we don’t want weight loss, exactly. We want fat loss. You can get skinny by dropping lean muscle mass, and some lifestyles lead to that. We call that “skinny-fat.” It’s terrible for you. Lean mass is the main predictor of longevity, not to mention important for brain health.
For that reason, you need to be aware of macronutrients. There are four, but most concentrate on three. Protein, fats, carbohydrates, and alcohol. We don’t need to get into counting calories per gram or examining hormonal effects. Those things will be part of your journey if you’re on track to lose significant weight, but they belong in a different post.
The reason macronutrients matter here is that the main hack I’ve used for years is to emphasize meat (protein), and I mean animal parts including cows, pigs, fowl, fish, insects & larvae, eggs, organs, offal, etc.
There are a few reasons for this:
1. It’s hard for your body to turn protein into fat. It pretty much doesn’t happen. Now, don’t get me wrong. If you eat fatty meat (bacon, sausage, whole eggs, 80/2o ground beef, etc.), the fat will get you. Not that fat is bad. I encourage you to consume lots of saturated fat, but that’s another post. Just realize that eating a lot of fat will keep those extra pounds on you. You will not get obese from fat, but you won’t have the leanness you may crave. Therefore, focus on leaner meats for weight loss.
2. Meat is a free food. You know point-type diets will give you free foods like celery? Ridiculous. The free foods these programs suggest are foods with no nutritional value. They neither satisfy hunger nor provide what your body needs.
3. Protein satisfies hunger and nutritional needs. It may not stop cravings (that’s a different issue), but it will satisfy your body and your stomach. Most meats offer complete nutrition — you don’t even need to add vegetable and fruits or supplements and vitamins. Meat is the most nutrient-dense food on earth.
4. Almost all of us need more protein. Unless you track your grams, I guarantee you are not getting enough. I aim for at least 100g of protein a day. I’m 61 inches tall, 125 pounds, and in my 50s. As we age, we need more protein because we are not as efficient at assimilating it. Protein builds everything in your body. EVERYTHING. Your bones are made of protein (not calcium which is a matrix added to the protein). Many hormones are themselves proteins. Repairs of organs and muscles require protein.
5. Plant protein is a last resort. We don’t assimilate incomplete plant proteins as well as complete animal proteins, so if the product says you’re getting 20g per serving, you’re getting more like 15g. You’re also likely not getting enough heme iron. You’re also adding fiber that can cause gastric distress (and incidentally doesn’t help much with constipation — fat does) and maybe carbohydrates you don’t need. Soy comes close to the value of animal protein, but it’s problematic for its estrogenic effects.
My Favorite 10 Weight Loss Hacks
1. Add meat to everything. Can of chili? Add a pound of cooked ground beef and eat a serving. Can of soup? Add a pound of cooked ground beef or chicken or fish. Any recipe, add more meat. You get the idea. More meat, more protein, more full.
2. Buy a sandwich from a gas station, remove the cheese, and add a full serving of turkey slices to it. Then cut it in half and eat half that sandwich for a meal.
3. Still hungry after a meal? Eat more meat. Eat as much as you want or can to fill up. It’s the best choice among all macronutrients for the reasons I listed above. Avoid making foods high in carbohydrates, fats, or alcohol the bulk of any meal.
4. Fast food should be a chicken roaster, cans of tuna (yes cans — 30g per meal), hardboiled eggs, premade sandwich (with added meat, see above). Avoid those Protein Packs with nuts and cheese because they have more fat or carbohydrates than protein. Don’t believe “protein” on any label. Read the nutrition label.
5. If you insist on eating from a fast-food drive through, buy only the sandwich not a meal. Remove the sauce, cheese, and maybe one of the buns. You won’t be full but, you know, too bad. I admit, we all do sooner-or-later because it’s convenient, so eat some turkey or chicken slices when you get home.
6. Drink coffee with added protein drink. If you use cream, choose a better version — protein drink. I’ll finish half a pot of coffee and a 30g shake by 10am. If you require sugar, use a sugar substitute instead.
7. Give up any food or drink that has sugar in it or to which you add sugar to make palatable. Feeding yourself sugar by any name (corn syrup, sucrose, dextrose, agave — basically anything that has only carbohydrate calories) will make it difficult to ever be satisfied with whole foods. If you eat sugar every day, you will fail at weight loss. Sugar substitutes have some detractors, but the science says it’s safe, and it works better for most people than sugars.
8. Don’t waste your time on any protein source that has less than 25g of protein. It’s a gimmick. Target 30g protein per meal/snack.
9. If you exercise (and you should) don’t waste your time on moderate exercise or aerobic/cardio based. Walking is a good thing to do, but don’t call it exercise in this context. Regular bouts of moderate exercise (things like hour-long aerobic classes, cycling, jogging) reduce lean muscle and makes you hungrier. High intensity exercise will reduce hunger. Don’t believe me? Besides the very good science, just recall the construction workers you see. They are working all day and often in the heat, yet most are as fat as the rest of us. Their very physical all-day moderate intensity exercise does nothing for their weight loss and only stimulates them to eat gobs of fast food. Incidentally, aerobic exercise can improve lean mass but only if you’re doing it at high intensities that very few of your classes are doing.
10. Go to bed early. Seriously. Besides the fact that sleep helps your metabolism in every way, you will avoid the insulin spike. Around 7pm is a natural insulin release time for most of us. Insulin is a good and important hormone, despite all the bad press. It’s necessary to build anything in your body, whether fat or muscle. When it’s highest, it’s building. That means if you eat fats and carbohydrates at night, you’re more likely to build fat. But this is also why athletes often consume a slow-release protein (casein) at night to have their bodies constantly adding and not losing muscle.
There you go.
These are ten hacks I have used for over a decade to lose almost 100 pounds and keep it off. I’ve been sharing them with clients and friends, and I hope you find them helpful.