I Tried Losing Weight For 3 months. Here’s What I’ve Learned
“I’ve gained too much weight… I need to stop eating bread.”
My mother says this whenever she talks about weight loss.
5 years ago I’d lose my sh*t.
Because no matter how many times you tell someone that bread and rice don’t make you fat, it never registers in their brain.
And you can tell Dr. Garth David is also pissed about this misconception. In his book Proteinaholic he says:
Let me make this abundantly clear: carbs do not make you fat, unless you are eating too many calories. In fact, the body is very resistant to turning carbs to fat. We are designed to burn carbs. Every cell in our body utilizes energy from glucose.
I eat a boatload of carbs (because what else would I eat on a plant-based diet?)
So imagine trying to lose weight by cutting carbs…. I’d starve.
I had to do something else to lose weight.
I knew a little bit about it already.
Eat less than you burn
But I discovered it’s not that easy.
And during this period, I’ve learned a few things along the way.
Quick disclaimer: I’m generally fit. I was a little overweight, but I always stayed active. My diet was already generally healthy. So there was no huge lifestyle change on my side. Still, it has been an interesting journey so far.
Don’t wait around for a miracle.
I waited a loooong time to start eating healthier.
Months.
I looked myself in the mirror. I could see there was some excess in the waist. Whenever I went out, I was always tucking my belly in, afraid people were gonna think I was fat (it gets tiring after a few hours, especially after eating too much Thai food)
I knew I had to do something. But I kept delaying it. Just like people keep delaying paying their debt thinking “I’ll pay it when I get a raise”, I kept telling myself “I can lose this belly in no time.”
And that’s the issue. People delay taking care of their health until they’re at the doctor getting prescribed statin for ultra-high cholesterol.
I’m glad it only took me a few months. And not years.
Speed of implementation. This is key to doing anything in life. And weight loss is no different. Don’t postpone the inevitable. One step at a time.
Don’t keep doing the same thing expecting a different result
“I’ve been dieting for the past 12 months and I don’t see any results.”
As an old wise guy said “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result.”
For some reason, that’s how people treat dieting.
They eat the same way for months (even years). Then complain about the lack of results. They blame:
- Their metabolism
- Their nutritionist
- Their genes
If something is not working for you, pivot.
Don’t f*ck around waiting for it a miracle.
The way I think about it is “Did I improve my results over the past month?”
If the answer is no, this means I’ve been naughty with my diet. And need to eat better.
If you’re not getting to where you want to go, pivot. No point in trying the same thing over and over.
Instead of starving myself, I decided to eat more.
The first step I took to lose weight was to cut down portions.
“If I eat less, then it’s less calories… I’ll lose weight in no time!”
The problem?
Our brain doesn’t count calories. It counts volume.
There’s a thing called energy density. It’s the amount of calories per gram of food.
For example, if you drink water, you’re ingesting loads of volume with no calories. Fruits and vegetables are low in calories because they’re mostly water:
- Watermelon — 91% water
- Strawberries — 91% water
- Oranges — 86% water
This is why you don’t really need to stop eating. You can lose weight by choosing foods high in volume and low in calories.
Because it’s hard to stay motivated when you’re starving on a Tuesday night and you realize your next meal is 10+ hours away.
That’s where fruits and vegetables come in. You can eat loads of it, feel satisfied, and still lose weight due to the small amount of calories you’re eating.
That’s why I decided to give up on starving myself. I love eating too much.
And why I went back to eating the way I was before.
Well… Almost.
I was eating way too much:
- 300g of rice
- Another 300g of beans
- Then another 200g of vegetables.
I felt like my stomach would explode at every meal.
So I reduced my portions a little bit. They’re still large and satisfying. But now I avoid eating just for the sake of eating until I feel sick.
And even though I’m eating almost the same volume of food as before, our lifestyle at home got much better.
For example, instead of an entire vegan Ben and Jerry’s after dinner, we changed to strawberries.
- 465g of Ben and Jerry’s — 1,200+ kcal
- 465g of strawberries — 149kcal
Yeah… I know… Not the same thing.
But strawberries are the closest fruit I’ve found that could be eaten as dessert. And they have volume, which helps to keep hunger away for very (very) few calories.
Another 3 changes I made that helped me the most were:
- Less hummus. I’d eat half a package every meal. That’s 200+ kcal I’m not eating anymore. I’m now eating more vegetables and lemon and other spices. And if we buy hummus, it’s only the reduced fat. 160kcal in 1/2 a package
- Less peanut butter. As a pre-workout meal, I’d eat 3 rice cakes with peanut butter and jam. But I wouldn’t spread it like a normal person. No. I’d put a huge blob of it. I ended up eating 600+ kcal of peanut butter as a “light” snack before the gym. Cutting this helped me the most.
- Less cashew nuts. I eat stir-fry and poke bowls every week. And I like putting a lot of cashew nuts on those. I think it goes well together. But same as peanut butter above, I’d put too much. I was easily putting around 50g of cashew nuts on these dishes. That adds 300kcal for very little food. I’m not saying that nuts are bad. But if I’m trying to lose weight, a little bit less helps a lot.
I am biased towards a plant-based diet. Either way, what’s important here is that processed food packs too many calories per gram than anything else in nature. The fat + carb combo we can’t resist. That’s why they’re so addictive.
Eat more volume with fruits and vegetables, feel fuller, and avoid adding extra calories to your diet.
Exercising helps, but it’s not the silver bullet you think it is
Besides eating less, everyone recommends exercising.
10k steps. Weight lifting. Run a marathon.
I agree. You should spend less time lying on your couch looking for the next cooking TV show to watch on Netflix and more time moving.
But when people hear this, they think it’ll solve all their problems.
They think 10k steps will burn 1,629kcal.
Sorry to break it to you… It won’t.
Here’s a great post from Dr. Nadolsky about this:
As Dr. Nadolsky says in the post:
You’ll see the exercise thermogenesis is a small component. This partly explains why exercise isn’t that great by itself for weight loss. There’s only so much you can do of it and our bodies have interesting ways of compensating for it anyway.
You can exercise all you want. But unless you’re David Goggins, you’ll reach your limit before you can burn a significant amount of calories. Most of the calories you burn are just your body keeping you alive.
I also like resistance training for weight loss. As you gain muscle, you increase your basal metabolic rate. Which means you burn more calories when you rest. It’s not a magical fix… But it will compound over time.
Exercising is good. But it’s not a magical fix. It will help you burn a few extra calories. But eating too much is the main factor for weight gain.
Bottom line
People always look for that magical hidden truth to unlock weight loss.
Sorry… it doesn’t exist.
It’s only about doing the basics consistently:
- Eat your veggies
- Lift weights
- Walk a lot
There’s not much else you can do.
