Weight Loss is 24/7

When it comes to weight loss, people often ask me one of three questions:

1. What can I eat?
2. What can I do to lose my belly?
3. How long will it take me to los x number of pounds?

As a starting point; neither of these questions are intrinsically bad. The problem lies within the idea or notion that the answer to any single one of them is the magic bullet or the cure-all that will take a person from overweight to lean. I am sorry to be the one to inform you, but weight loss doesn’t work like that.

Take question 1: What can I eat?

First and foremost the intent of the question is to find out what the asker can get away with and still lose weight. Or, in other cases, the asker of the question is assuming that the list of foods a person can eat when they are on a weight loss journey is so restrictive that I can provide it to them right there on the spot. A better question would be “What SHOULD I eat?” This is because weight loss is a personal optimization of each individual’s metabolism, caloric intake and daily cardiovascular activity. As such, what a person SHOULD eat will be directly affected by all of these factors combined with a whole host of other outlying factors. Additional factors would include the person’s current weight and fitness levels as it relates to their desired weight and fitness goals, health problems, home much time they have to commit to their goals, etc.

Using my example; even if the right question was asked and answered; this information still would be incomplete. Why? Because eating is only one component of a weight loss journey; and a diet overview or even an extensive eating plan will not work alone. These things have to be combined with, at minimum, a physical activity component. These two components work together to fuel your workouts, improve your metabolic rate, properly nourish your body and create the daily caloric deficit necessary to burn fat and lose weight.

For these reasons, I stress to the people that I coach that a weight loss journey is NOT a diet. A weight loss journey is a 24/7 ongoing assimilation into a new culture of daily diet and fitness activities. Going on a weight loss journey with Big Strong U requires 24/7 commitment to discipline, responsibility and activity.

24/7 Discipline:

The issue of discipline is simple: You can undo 23 hours and 50 minutes of healthy eating with one 10-minute snack. I know that doesn’t seem fair; but it’s a fact. Compare it to how 23 years of faithfulness in a marriage can be undone with a 5-minute romp with the office secretary. How is this possible? This is possible because again; losing weight requires a caloric deficit. That is; to lose weight you have to burn more calories in a day than you consume, thus forcing your body to burn through stored fat to fuel your activities.

Although the science on this is debatable, it is widely believed that everytime you burn 3500 more calories than you consume you will have burned through a pound of fat for fuel. While we can’t know with absolute certainty with the exact caloric deficit burn is to the exact pound; the mathematical concept is simple enough to understand. Burn through the calories in your body so that you can begin burning stored fat for fuel, and as you burn fat for fuel you lose weight. THAT in a nutshell is the daily goal of your weight loss journey.

So what happens when you spend all day eating celery and iceberg lettuce to put yourself in a caloric deficit, and then you end the day by consuming 1,050 calories with a 20-piece Chicken Rings from White Castles? You have effectively wasted the other hours in the day because you did not achieve a daily caloric deficit. Modern foods are EXTREMELY calorically dense. So much so that having two 20 oz Mountain Dews will add 720 calories to your daily caloric intake. That is 720 calories without even satiating your hunger or a single nutritional need. Therefore, before even eating a single meal you’ve added more than 700 calories into your body. Now get on a treadmill and see how long and how hard you have to work to burn 720 calories. Seriously, try it. I won’t spoil it for you; you really need to see that for yourself for maximum effect.

This brings me to my second point about discipline. If you are going to lose weight; every moment of everyday you need to make disciplined decisions about what you will eat, whether you will complete a workout, whether you will give maximum effort to a workout and whether or not you will put your devices away and get a good night’s sleep. No coach, friend or family member will follow you 24/7 as you take your weight loss journey; so self discipline to not ruin the good you do when people are watching with the things you do when people are not watching is an absolute must.

24/7 Responsibility

Everybody involved in your weightloss journey from your coach or trainer, to your friends, family and other loved-ones provide one service to you… HELP. We are all here to ASSIST YOU do something that you need or want to do for yourself. We are not RESPONSIBLE for getting you up to do cardio or making sure you eat healthy meals. Even if we offer to assist with those responsibilities; we are still THE HELP and the RESPONSIBILITY is ultimately YOURS.

I can guarantee you that despite our best intentions; every single person involved in your weight loss journey will either not be available to you at some point or just flat out drop the ball on occasion. When we do, that is not an excuse for you to stray away from your plan. Meals still have to be made, workouts still need to be done, bedtimes still need to be adhered to, etc. At the end of the day; if you do not conduct yourself responsibly on a 24/7 basis in all the areas of your weight loss journey, you achievements will look more like shifting sands than a progressive series of victories. You have to be responsible to make sure that you are hitting your benchmarks and that you keep your support group in line around you to provide that support that you need. The best diet and fitness plans are useless in the hands of someone who lacks the discipline to adhere to them. So it is up to you to actually follow the plans that are created for you whether there is anyone around to monitor you or not.

24/7 Activity

I am not suggesting that you need to be active for 24 hours of everyday… or maybe I am. The average lifestyle in developed countries can be very sedentary. Many of us go from our beds to our cars to our office chairs. Then we go from our office chairs to our cars to to our couch and back to our beds. We do this taking every single shortcut or “easy” route possible in between by doing things like using elevators and escalators, parking as close to the building, store or house as possible and STILL cutting across the grass to make our route from the car to the door even shorter. We have been conditioned almost since birth to take advantage of every single opportunity to trade activity for inactivity by people who sell us the very short-cuts that are causing us to live these sedentary lifestyles.

A 30-minute walk on your lunch break could do wonders for your daily caloric burn. The same can be said of taking the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator; and could also be said of parking further from the entrance to our place of employment. We have to CHOOSE to be less sedentary. We have to chose to do things throughout the day that use MORE energy and stop “rewarding” ourselves with the “gift” of inactivity. That is, unless you are going to try to consume less than the daily 1,000-1,4000 calories that our bodies burn just keeping us alive. That is sarcasm, not a recommendation. SERIOUSLY; don’t try that. Simply put, if you aren’t active you aren’t burning calories; and if you aren’t burning calories; you aren’t losing weight. FACT.

So, the bottom line is that losing weight is not a simple meal plan that you whip out 3 times each day. Neither is losing weight a killer workout program that you do for one hour, 3 days per week. Losing weight is a 24/7 commitment to being disciplined, responsible and active.