Losing weight is a matter of eating fewer calories than you burn.
Any other strategy you hear about weight loss is bullshit.
My approach to diet is simple.
Complicating things will always confuse you. Always remember to K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple, Stupid).
Focusing on unnecessary bullshit will distract you and hurt your weight loss efforts.
Make sure you don’t make these mistakes when you are trying to lose weight.
Your goal is to reduce your calorie intake without losing your health.
Here are my 10 tips for reducing your calorie intake to lose weight faster. I use these tips successfully and I hope that they help you too.
Tip #1: Count Your Calories
When calories are the most important component of losing weight, it’s a good idea to count them.
Counting your calories also has a surprising benefit. You will learn where exactly you are getting your unnecessary calories.
For example, I discovered that I was eating way too much olive oil and butter than I thought after I started to count my calories.
Get a kitchen scale. Learn to read labels. These will be crucial to your weight loss success.
Tip #2: Eat Lean Protein
Before, I explained the importance of protein and how much protein you should eat for your diet.
Trust me, when you are in a caloric deficit there will be a lot of times when you will feel hungry. Your inner voice will keep telling you to quit dieting and eat whatever the fuck you want.
Since protein is the most filling nutrient, it will help you to quiet that inner voice.
The best way to fight hunger is to eat animal protein.
I eat lean ground beef, chicken breast without skin, canned tuna in water and eggs during my cutting diets.
You may eat other lean animal protein sources such as turkey breast, lean cuts of pork, all kinds of fish, cottage cheese etc.
Tip #3: Make Your Food Delicious
Lean cuts of meat don’t taste as good as fatty cuts.
Even though they are filling, they will taste dull.
When you are losing weight you are already eating less than you want. When it’s time to eat, you want to have a delicious meal.
Here are my tricks to make my dull food taste better:
- I use my oven to cook my chicken breast and meatballs.
Cooking lean meat in the oven is a good idea. This way it will be juicier and more delicious. Low-calorie condiments like salsa sauce make it even more delicious.
- I use my slow cooker to cook beef and vegetables.
The slow cooker allows you to cook delicious meals without using oil.
Put your lean meat in the slow cooker, add some vegetables and forget about it for 3-6 hours.
It’s easy to use and helps you cook delicious meals. I use my slow cooker a lot.
The additional benefit of learning to cook your food in the oven and slow cooker is you will discover some delicious dishes that will help you maintain your fitness after you successfully complete your diet.
Tip #4: Skip Breakfast
Diet gurus love to tell you that breakfast is the most important meal of the day but that’s a lie.
When you are losing weight you will already have a small calorie budget. Eating more than 2 meals will mean that you will eat small and unsatisfying meals.
If you eat only 2 meals a day, you will have a larger calorie budget per meal. If you are a big eater like me, you may give skipping breakfast a shot.
I also have trouble sleeping when I’m hungry. I have to eat a bigger dinner so hunger will not wake me up from my sleep. (Yes, I wake up when I’m hungry).
If I skip breakfast I save precious calories to eat for dinner. That’s the biggest benefit for me.
Besides, I start to work one hour earlier. Morning is my most productive time of the day so it’s a win-win for me.
Tip #5: Minimize Cheat Meals
Cheat meals get a lot of undeserved credit.
People happily oblige to this “eat a cheat meal” advice and end up screwing their diets.
I bought into this advice before. It doesn’t work as it’s advertised. It sets you back from your weight loss goals.
After I decided not to eat cheat meals at all, I succeeded in my weight loss goals.
Maintaining your weight is 1000 times easier than losing weight.
Get done with your diet as quickly as possible and go back to maintenance.
There’s little value in delaying your goals.
Try to eat as few cheat meals as possible.
Warning: If you succumb and eat a cheat meal don’t quit your diet.
Tip #6: Eat Vegetables
Vegetables are low calorie and they add flavor to your meals.
My approach to eating vegetables is simple. I eat the vegetables I enjoy and skip the rest.
I like tomatoes, cucumbers, eggplant, onions, radish, spinach, and mushrooms to name a few. I hate broccoli, kale, asparagus etc. so I don’t eat them.
You can cook delicious low-calorie meat and vegetable meals in your slow cooker.
Tip #7: Weigh Yourself Every Day
Weighing yourself every day may sound obsessive but I find obsession an important part of success.
Doing something every day is a sign of commitment. If you do something every single day, you are signaling your brain that you mean business.
Tip #8: Keep A Daily Weight Graph
I carried weighing myself every day to another level and started recording the day’s weight on an Excel sheet.
This way I could watch where my weight loss efforts are going.
Recording your weight every day and watching on a graph has another advantage.
Due to temporary changes in water weight, some days you will see that your weight has gone up even though you ate your target calories during the previous day.
As long as the trend is downwards, you can be sure that you are on the right track.
Here’s an example of the weight graph from my last cut:
Each black spot is a day’s weight. As you can see, there are ups and downs but the trend is downwards. That way I know that my diet is going all good even though I have many days I weigh more than the day before.
Tip #9: Take Fish Oil
Fat is an essential nutrient. You need to eat fat for survival.
When you are dieting, the last thing you want is to screw up your hormones.
To cut down calories, you will need to reduce your fat intake. Get some fish oil to make sure your hormones remain intact during your diet.
Tip #10: Avoid Foods That Kill Testosterone and Take Vitamin D
Testosterone builds muscle and burns fat.
Foods that kill testosterone are not only high in calorie content but also negatively affect your body composition by decreasing the muscle mass in your body.
Speaking of testosterone, Vitamin D is also known to increase testosterone.
There’s no way to get enough Vitamin D from the sun. You have to supplement it.
I take 5000 Iu Vitamin D a day.