If you are serious about losing weight, you should consider counting your calories.
How fast you will lose weight will depend on your caloric deficit.
One pound of fat contains 3500 calories.
To lose 1 pound of fat, you will need to accumulate a total of 3500 calorie deficit.
For example, if you burn 2500 calories a day and you eat a daily average of 1500 calories, you will accumulate a 1000 calorie deficit in one day.
That means a weekly 7000 calorie deficit.
A total deficit of 7000 calories equals 2 pounds of fat.
So you will lose 2 pounds of fat in a week.
This is more or less what you can expect.
There are some other variables we will discuss later.
How To Calculate Your Daily Calorie Expenditure
The best way to calculate your daily calorie expenditure is by counting your calories over a 3-week period.
Write down how many calories you eat every day.
If you are not building muscle, hop on the bathroom scale every morning and measure how much you weigh. (If you are building muscle, use a caliper to measure your body fat.)
At the end of 3 weeks compare your total calorie intake with your weight.
Calculate your weight difference in pounds and multiply that by 3500 to add to or subtract from your total calorie intake.
Divide that number by 21 and that’s your daily average calorie expenditure.
If you want an estimate now, fill out the form here.
How To Make The Most Out Of Your Diet
Dieting sucks.
So, you want to be done with it as fast as possible.
Here are my suggestions to make the most out of your diet:
Eat your protein first
Protein is your most important nutrient. Not only your muscles but also your internal organs need protein to survive.
When you are dieting, you need even more protein.
You don’t want to lose your muscles when you are in a caloric deficit.
Besides, protein is the most filling nutrient.
Hunger will be a pain in the ass during your diet.
The best way to fight hunger is to eat animal protein.
You should be eating at least 0.7 grams of protein daily per pound of your body weight during your diet.
If you are building muscle, up that to 1 gram per pound.
1 average size egg has 6 grams of protein.
100 grams of lean beef, chicken breast or tuna have 25-30 grams of protein.
Vegetable proteins lack crucial amino acids so it’s best to eat animal protein.
You may add other lean animal protein sources such as turkey breast, lean cuts of pork, all kinds of fish, cottage cheese etc.
Eat some fat but not too much
Fat is an essential nutrient. You have to eat fat every day.
But, fat being essential doesn’t mean you have to eat truckloads of it.
1 egg yolk contains 5 grams of fat. 100 grams of %10 lean ground beef contains 10 grams of fat.
In addition to the fat that comes with the animal protein you eat, you may supplement with 1-3 grams of fish oil per day and these should do the trick.
Eat daily 0.15-0.20 grams of fat per pound of your body weight during your diet.
Adjust your carbs
Technically you don’t need carbs to survive.
If you eat less than an estimated 100 grams of carbs a day, your body will enter ketosis and start producing ketones.
Ketones will make your body survive without carbs.
I suggest eating 150 grams of carbs a day if you are lifting weights or doing another kind of strength training such as bodyweight or high-intensity training.
If you are inactive, eat at least 100 grams of carbs per day to avoid ketosis.
Potatoes, rice, pasta, bread, oats, and fruits are all good sources of carbs.
I eat potatoes and fruits during my diets.
You may choose to skip carbs altogether to speed up your weight loss but I don’t recommend doing this for extended periods of time. Just because you can get away with not eating carbs doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be eating them at all. Nobody knows the long-term consequences of eating zero carbs, so it’s better to be safe than sorry.
What to do about metabolic slowdown
Since your body evolved to survive famines, there will be an inevitable metabolic slowdown when you are in a caloric deficit.
Metabolic slowdown sucks big time because it will slow down your weight loss.
This is annoying, frustrating and fucking brutal when you are dieting. It’s almost unfair.
But, the reality is the reality so you have to deal with it like a boss.
The most effective way to deal with metabolic slowdown is averaging your daily calorie intake.
Let’s say you aim to eat 2000 calories a day during your diet.
Eat 2500 calories one day, 1500 calories the next day instead of eating 2000 calories every day.
You will still be averaging 2000 calories per day but your metabolism will work faster since it has to speed up on higher calorie days.
Now get to work
Physical fitness is a must for every man.
Being fat is unacceptable.
Make sure that you are not making these mistakes when you are dieting, then get to work.
Start your diet, take it seriously and never give up.
Get rid of that extra fat in your body as fast as possible.