5 Healthy Habits to Maintain a Lean Body for Life

Don’t just get into shape… STAY IN GREAT SHAPE!

Weight loss is difficult for many people because it usually requires us to change life-long habits and follow a strict diet.

If you do manage to lose weight (most people fail diets), research indicates that keeping that weight off is the hardest part.

A big problem with diets is that they don’t tend to change our long-term behaviors. Dieting is designed as a short-term fix to solve a problem rather than shape behaviors for long-term success.

Our lifestyle should incorporate habits that can be sustained for a lifetime. For our health, not just our jeans size.

Do you struggle to lose weight?

If you are sick of yo-yo dieting, here are five tips to help you shape and maintain a lean physique for the rest of your life!

1. Restrict your eating window

A daily period when we fast (do not eat) can help reduce our daily calorie intake by minimising our eating opportunities.

Aim for at least 12 hours, but it could be up to 18 hours.

This period of cycling between fasting and eating is called intermittent fasting.

The most common approach to intermittent fasting is the 16/8 method (or Leangains), referred to as time-restricted feeding by the scientific literature. This technique involves restricting our eating window to 8 hours and fasting for 16 hours a day.

This approach often means skipping breakfast. For example, your last meal is at 8 p.m., and your next meal is from noon to 2 p.m. the following day.

To extend your fast, you might eat your last meal at 7 p.m. and fast until 1 p.m.

I don’t eat until 12–2 p.m., but I snack until late at night.

Depending on your work or general life routine, you might prefer to eat a big breakfast early (say 5 a.m.) and not eat again until dinner at 7 p.m., continuing to eat until you sleep. That is still a 14-hour fast. If you work a late shift, 7 p.m. might be your “breakfast”. There are no set rules here.

Another approach to intermittent fasting is alternate-day fasting, involving a 24-hour fasting period alternated with a 24-hour feeding period.

This is the most extensively studied intermittent fasting variation.

Much of the scientific evidence for intermittent fasting has been demonstrated in rats. We lack evidence on humans — which is problematic! However, we do have a small number of human-based studies suggesting that time-restricted eating can help us reduce our total calorie intake.

A 2016 study compared a group of people eating all their calories during an 8-hour window (1 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m.) with another group eating over a 12-hour window (8 a.m., 1 p.m., and 8 p.m.).

During the eight weeks, the group intermittent fasting lost about 1.5kg (approximately 3.5 lbs) more body fat than the other group. However, they ate around 200 fewer calories daily than the other group. And we know a caloric deficit leads to weight loss! Neither group experienced a change in basal metabolic rate.

“An intermittent fasting program in which all calories are consumed in an 8-h window each day, in conjunction with resistance training, could improve some health-related biomarkers, decrease fat mass, and maintain muscle mass in resistance-trained males.” — Moro et al., 2016

It does not look like there is any magical benefit to intermittent fasting. But that is not the point. Instead, the real advantage is the reduced eating window that should help most of us to help us reduce our daily caloric intake by reducing opportunities for meals or snacks.

For example, for a time after exercise, our hunger is reduced. So, if you do cardio in the morning, you buy yourself more time before you get hungry. There are negligible benefits (if any) to fasted cardio (read more here), but it can help you to extend your fasting period without feeling hungry.

Thus, you have a smaller eating window to consume your daily calories.

This strategy also means you are well-fed before and after your workout if you lift weights in the afternoon or early evening.

2. Decrease your fat intake

Over the past decade, much of the media and marketing on health and fitness has focused on demonising sugar. Hence, low-carb diets have become increasingly popular.

However, sugar is not inherently bad for us. Overconsuming calories, in general, is what causes fat gain. [Bear in mind that this is not a conversation about diabetes — it is about managing our calorie intake.]

Over the past decade, the amount of research comparing low-fat and low-carb diets has acclimated (here and here, for example) to the point where we have a decent body of research on the topic.

The consensus seems to be that our body doesn’t treat the calorie content of fat any differently than carbs. A calorie is a calorie. We either immediately use it for energy or store it for later use as body fat.

“Significant weight loss was observed with any low-carbohydrate or low-fat diet. Weight loss differences between individual named diets were small. This supports the practice of recommending any diet that a patient will adhere to in order to lose weight.” — Johnston et al., 2014

When it comes to calories, it is a simple mathematic equation. One gram of carbs has four calories, but one gram of fat has seven calories.

Pound for pound, carbohydrates make it easier to manage our caloric intake than fats. Because fat has nearly twice as many calories as carbs, choosing low-fat foods means we can typically eat a higher volume of food — for example, a big bowl of salad versus about ten almonds.

We shouldn’t eliminate fat from our meals entirely. Foods like red meat, eggs, dairy, salmon, avocado, and many nuts all contain moderate to high fat but also provide nutritional benefits from the fat itself (omega fatty acids), protein, and micronutrients. However, we should moderate our consumption.

Minimizing our intake of moderate-to-high-fat meals to once or twice a day will reduce our total fat intake and, therefore, calories but still provide adequate dietary fat for our general health. The rest of the time, we should try to eat lower-fat foods such as fruit and vegetables, lean protein sources, and grains.

When we snack, choosing low-fat options like popcorn and rice crackers will also help to moderate our calorie intake. Snacking is a way of life for many of us, so we shouldn’t eliminate it because it will help us to maintain our sanity and keep on track with a diet.

3. Eat fruit daily

We need to stop thinking avoiding sugar will magically solve our dietary problems. Sugar is not inherently bad for us.

Eating sugar will contribute to the number of calories we eat, but it’s not the reason for being overweight. Moreover, the calorie content of some healthy food is made up entirely of sugar, such as fruit.

Fruit sometimes gets a bad rap by some in the health and fitness industry for the sugar content, yet fruit has many other nutritional benefits and is low in calories compared to other foods.

A little bit of sugar is not going straight to the waistline. It is the long-term overconsumption of calories that leads to obesity.

As we just discussed, our bodies treat 100 calories like 100 calories, regardless of whether they come from fat or carbohydrates. For more evidence, this 2013 systematic review and meta-analysis of dietary sugars and body weight found that replacing sugar with an equal number of calories from another macronutrient source did not affect weight gain. They concluded that the total number of calories consumed dictates weight gain or loss — not the macronutrient that the calories come from.

“We observed that isoenergetic replacement of dietary sugars with other macronutrients resulted in no change in weight. This finding strongly suggested that energy imbalance is a major determinant of the potential for dietary sugars to influence measures of body fatness.” — Te Morenga et al., 2013

As well as being a sweet and refreshing snack, fruit is super-nutritious!

It is crucial to prioritise nutrition for our general health and well-being, which has a lasting impact on our fitness. And fruit is laden with micronutrients. Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals — the good stuff.

Each fruit type has a unique micronutrient profile, meaning some fruit will be higher in one or two vitamins or minerals than others. Therefore, by eating a variety of fruit, we consume a variety of micronutrients.

“Body-weight loss and weight-maintenance depends on the high-protein, but not on the ‘low-carb’ component of the diet, while it is unrelated to the concomitant fat-content of the diet.” — Soenen et al., 2012

4. Consume a high-protein diet

There is a high probability you have heard that protein is beneficial for muscle growth. Protein provides the nutritional foundation for muscle gain through repairing and maintaining muscle tissue. It is critical to recovery.

Protein contains amino acids. Some of these amino acids are essential because our bodies do not produce them naturally. Therefore, these nutrients must be obtained through diet.

High-protein foods are also satiating, meaning they reduce your hunger. Moreover, higher levels of lean muscle mass mean you tend to burn more calories due to its higher thermic effect (diet-induced thermogenesis), resulting in a short-term increase in energy expenditure.

“There is convincing evidence that a higher protein intake increases thermogenesis and satiety compared to diets of lower protein content.” (Halton & Hu, 2004)

Beware, not all protein sources are made equal. Amino acid combinations vary, contributing to how complete a protein source is. A complete protein contains all the essential amino acids in adequate doses.

The quality of a protein is measured by the Protein Digestibility Corrected Amino Acid Score (PDCAAS). This score reflects the amino acid composition of a protein, its bioavailability and digestibility. Scores range from zero to 100.

Animal-based products like dairy, whey protein, meat, fish, and eggs are all high-quality protein sources. On the other hand, plant-based foods have low-quality protein due to not having a complete profile of essential amino acids.

Therefore, we must consume higher amounts of plant proteins to receive the same benefit of these higher-quality proteins. Thus, we need to consume more food and, therefore, more protein. This is problematic if we are trying to manage our weight!

Research indicates approximately 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight (1.6 g per kg) is the optimal protein intake for muscle growth and recovery. Above this amount does not have an additional benefit for recovery.

If fat loss/maintaining a lean physique is your key goal, avoid overconsuming protein — it is just more calories!

For more help with the best protein sources, the below article explores fifteen high-protein foods to help you increase your protein intake

5. Walk more often

One low-impact way to enhance our activity levels is walking. By increasing our activity output, we burn more calories.

We consume calories through foods and beverages, including alcohol!

Food adds energy to our bodies through the process of energy transfer. The laws of thermodynamics dictate that this energy cannot disappear and must be transformed from one form to another.

We all have a unique ‘energy budget’ governed by our energy intake, activity level, and metabolism.

A calorie deficit (or caloric) is when we consume fewer calories than we expend (burn). Our bodies then require body fat stores for energy, and we lose weight.

Conversely, we have a calorie surplus if we consume more calories than our body requires. We store this excess energy as body fat for later use, gaining weight.

The more calories we consume, the more activity we require to burn off the additional excess energy.

Take this example — a person consumes a daily average of 2500 calories for a month. For the first two weeks, they do not do any additional walking. Then, they add a 30-minute walk at medium intensity for the second two weeks, burning around two hundred calories a day. This extra energy expenditure reduces their net daily caloric intake by two hundred to 2300 calories. Over the two weeks, their total net caloric intake is 2800 fewer calories. That is a full day of eating!

See how much of a difference a small amount of walking can make?

It can be tough to exercise into our day, but most of us should be able to walk most days for 20-30 minutes. Set the alarm 40 minutes earlier or walk the dog after dinner. I like to take walks on my work breaks to increase my activity, adding around five to six thousand steps to total an additional two hundred minutes of walking.

You may enjoy walking around a local scenic outdoor area such as a park, lake, river, or beach.

Other benefits to walking, according to an article from the Victorian State Government, include increased cardiovascular and pulmonary (heart and lung) fitness, reduced risk of heart disease and strokes, the improvement of conditions such as high blood pressure) or cholesterol and diabetes, stronger bones, and improved balance.

Concluding Thoughts

Most people fail diets. It’s a sad statistic.

For those who manage to lose some weight, chances are they’ll put it right back on anyway.

Worldwide, over a billion people are obese, and this number is only growing.

One reason that such a high proportion of people are overweight is that we are programmed to think of weight management in the short term. We follow a crash diet and then revert to the old unhealthy habits that made us overweight in the first place!

This article explored five tips to help you lose weight and keep it off long-term. These fat-burning tips are — restricting our eating window, decreasing our fat intake, eating fruit daily, consuming a high-protein diet, and walking more often.

Thank you for reading.

If you enjoyed the content, you might be interested in the article below about 16 foods to help you maximise your fat loss.

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