Modest Fitness

The points outlined in the previous section apply to any person who wants to eat healthy and fuel their body well, however, while these same principles apply when weight loss is our goal, there is one caveat. When we are intentionally trying to lose weight, we will need to ensure we are in a calorie deficit. Creating a calorie deficit means burning more energy each day than you are taking in. This forces our body to tap into our stored energy, aka body fat, and burn that instead. Thus, the one difference between eating for general health and eating for weight loss is how MUCH you eat. We saw in the previous section that when we are okay with maintaining our current weight, or current level of body fat, we can eat at maintenance calories. However, If your current diet is more on the unhealthy side, then you might find you naturally lose excess body weight from just making better choices even if you are not creating an intentional calorie deficit. This is very common. However, here I am speaking about very intentional weight loss or achieving a large weight loss goal. The typical calorie deficit needed for consistent weight loss is anywhere from 250 calories to 500 calories per day. That means to determine your calorie deficit you would establish your maintenance calories by factoring in your height, weight, activity level and any other relevant metabolic factors, and then aim to consume anywhere from 250-500 calories less daily. It is okay to aim for a smaller calorie deficit if that is more sustainable for you.

The tough love or harsh truth of weight loss…

One thing to note is that weight loss is a science of numbers and hormones. While our emotions, thoughts, desires and other factors influence our ability to play by the numbers, the numbers themselves are provable, repeatable and objective. Additionally, while we may not initially enjoy the food choices or lifestyle changes that healthy, balanced hormones require, their necessity can not be ignored. While a vast amount of people are under the impression that it is impossible for them personally to lose weight through holistic means, that is not reality. The percentage of the population with a diagnosable medical disorder that makes it impossible to lose weight is extremely small and rare. For the vast, overwhelming majority of people, If you are in a caloric deficit, you will lose weight. Yes, metabolic factors like certain illnesses or hormonal factors can make determining what the right caloric deficit is for you more difficult, and can make weight loss a slower process, but none of them negate the principle of energy balances. I am not denying that it may be much more difficult for some people to lose weight compared to others, and that there are many nuances to consider, but the facts remain the same. You can lose weight with the right approach and consistent effort.

This is very important to remember, because our mind loves to play tricks on us when things get difficult, and it is also often fueled by misleading advice, even often from professionals who mean well. Weight loss can be a sensitive subject, as it is tied into our emotions and personal beliefs about ourselves, so it should be handled with care. However, I can only best empower you by telling you the scientific truth, even if it is not always easy to hear, and that is that most people do not need a major medical intervention and can lose weight by changing their lifestyle and eating habits if they are willing to put in the effort required. In fact, the most common weight loss medicines and surgeries all work in varied ways to make it easier to eat less or alter your gut mobility which results in your body absorbing less calories (and vital nutrients). They all work on the principle of energy balances, which you can achieve naturally.

But don’t let that discourage you…

Now don’t worry, that doesn’t mean losing weight has to be a miserable experience, or that we need to starve ourselves or eat less and less forever. There are many ways to work WITH your body instead of fighting it to lose excess weight. We will discuss this in the following sections.

Let’s talk about Crash-Diets…

If you’re someone who has tried to lose weight before, or find yourself browsing weight loss or fitness circles, I’m sure you have heard about, and maybe even tried, one viral crash-diet or another. It is estimated some women will try up to 15 different diet plans in their lifetime, and spend a whopping 35% or more of their life desiring or actively trying to lose weight. I understand just how exhausting and demoralizing it can be to try diet after diet and still feel like you are back at square one with nothing to show for it. This is because of a few major problems with how we approach weight loss and dieting in general.

The first problem is how we tend to use the word “diet” in itself. When I use the term diet in this program or on this website, I am referring to the way someone eats as a whole. I’m referring to the food someone eats in a general way. However, when most people hear the word “diet” they automatically associate it with a strict, specific eating plan designed to be followed for a short amount of time for the sole or main purpose of weight loss. This is why some health professionals have moved away from using the word diet at all. I will not do that, as it has a legitimate use in describing how one eats on a consistent basis, and I believe we should alter our associated meaning of the word, thus I will continue to use it in this capacity. However, I will distinguish between the two meanings by using the term “crash-diets” when describing the more typical weight loss diet plans I described in the previous sentences. 

Crash-diets are just that, diets set up for an inevitable crash. That’s because they focus on isolating a time period and changing your habits for only that time period. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard people exclaim their intent to immediately return to their former habits with excitement and anticipation once they hit their weight loss goals at the end of some fancy crash-diet. What inevitably happens is they regain the weight and lose their progress. Then, as this cycle continues over time, they find themselves developing a worsening, often toxic, relationship to food, fitness and their body. This cycle can continue for years, until the person inevitably gives up on their health altogether, or turns to more extreme medical interventions. Unfortunately, it’s also common that they will find themselves in the same place even after a “successful” medical intervention, meaning medication or surgery allowed them to lose weight,  but they now still must learn how to maintain the weight loss or regain the pounds and associated health problems in years to come. 

Now it’s not entirely their fault. Crash-diets do not set people up for success. They often involve unnatural and unrealistic eating patterns, lead those following them to feel deprived and depleted, or involve some fancy trick or product that keeps you reliant on another person or company. It’s understandable that those following them would want to jump off at the nearest exit. They also tend to make the companies, organizations or sellers promoting them tons of money. Monetary gain plays a huge hand in the health and fitness world, from the everyday professionals all the way up to major medical corporations and medical journals. This is something to be aware of and mindful of. If any person or entity is trying to entice you with a method that they claim can help you escape the God ordained realities of how our bodies are designed, meaning they want you to believe there is a way you will be able to eat as much as your want or whatever you want and never really have to put effort into maintaining your health or weight again, exercise extreme skepticism and caution. Unfortunately, crash-diets often float on these ideas to draw people in. They often claim they have a secret, new or exciting way to help you quickly and easily lose lots of weight with no focus on teaching enduring concepts of nutrition, energy balances and habit change. Some things we can not escape in this life. The way God designed our bodies is one of them.

However, as we’ve covered, God designed your body to heal.

God designed your body with the ability to heal with the right habits. The same goes for losing excess weight. If we want to lose weight for good, in a healthy and sustainable way, that improves our relationship to food, fitness and ultimately, ourselves and our Creator, we have to take a different approach than crash-diets. We have to move away from the idea of temporary diets altogether, and focus on eating well every single day, not just for eight weeks before a vacation or just until we can bring ourselves back from the brink of disease. We need to eat a diet of mostly whole, unprocessed food year round. I know It may not seem like anything new or special, but that is the point. You would be shocked by how few people actually approach food this way. It is much more common for people to alternate between periods of crash-dieting and periods of eating whatever looks and sounds good. This is, again, how we ruin our relationship to food, and how we often see large accumulations of weight gain over several years. This cycle also wreaks havoc on your metabolism and nutrient stores.

This means your approach to eating for weight loss should also be one of healthy, moderate choices year-round, just with a bit more focus on ensuring you’re in a calorie deficit. While there may be days that are inevitably more indulgent than others, like say Thanksgiving or Christmas, generally the way you eat should not vary much from day to day. The exact foods you eat can and should vary over time, but your general eating pattern should consistently be one of whole, unprocessed foods closest to the way God created them, with more indulgent options consumed in limited moderation. 

This approach has several benefits…

First, you will not be living a life of crash-diets, learning unnecessary rules to follow for a few weeks and then just waiting for the day you can stop the plan. This is a commitment to eating well for life, so there is plenty of time to master what it looks like for you and figure out how to make it enjoyable. Second, it will be aligned with how God created us to eat, and thus you will be supplying yourself with the vital nutrients you need year-round. It will also allow you to keep eating the foods you already love now, while adjusting over time to eating them less frequently if they are not the healthiest. There is no immediately cutting them out for the foreseeable future, which makes it more likely that we will binge on them later. You can practice making better choices as your gut microbiome and psyche changes in tandem.

This approach will also allow you to stop panicking about losing weight in a pinch. Once you hit your weight loss goals, and can transition from a caloric deficit to maintenance calories, you will continue the same eating patterns. This will make it possible for you to maintain your new weight for years to come, and in the event you do encounter a tough season of life that leads to some additional weight being put back on, you will know exactly what to do to get back to your healthier place.

Finally, there is what is in my opinion the most important benefit to approaching eating this way. It will force you to identify the core, underlying reasons behind why you are struggling with your diet and weight. When we try one fancy crash-diet after another, what it often really allows us to do is try to find a magic trick to overcome whatever has kept us from being able to practice moderation with food up until this point. Maybe we use food for comfort, and we need to confront that habit and the uncomfortable feelings behind it. Maybe we use food for stress-relief, and actually need to confront the stressors in our life that we are trying to numb ourselves of. Maybe we simply were never exposed to that much information about nutrition, and thus need to dedicate some time to learning and practicing what healthy options actually are. Maybe we seek out food for feelings of excitement and have to learn to achieve those feelings by other means. Maybe, and this one can be especially difficult, we just tend to avoid things that bring us shame, and acknowledging that we make poor choices with food can be shameful for some of us. However, once you are willing to identify this core reason and dedicate yourself to overcoming it, you will no longer need the next fancy diet plan or next nutrition guru to achieve peace and happiness in your health and body. You will be taking back the control and dependence we so often place in the hands of others and putting it back where it belongs, in the trust of enduring, proven principles rooted in God’s design and ways. 

Habits for Maintaining a Healthy Diet and Calorie Deficit…

Food Quality and Volume

• Eating whole, unprocessed foods is especially important when trying to hit your weight loss goal. As we saw in the last section, whole foods provide more nutrients for less calories. They also make it easier to feel full and satisfied while in a calorie deficit, and help manage your blood sugar. The steadier your blood sugar, the fewer energy dips, cravings and insulin surges your body will experience. Plan your diet around lean proteins, fruit, vegetables and high quality carbohydrates for the easiest, quickest results. (Remember, foods closest to the way God created them!)

Planning Ahead

• Keeping your goals top of mind and planning ahead for what you will eat and when is one of the best ways to ensure you will hit your goals and make the process easier. When we don’t plan ahead, we will often turn to what is quickest and most convenient at that moment. This typically doesn’t offer us the best choices that will support our weight loss or health goals. For instance, if you find yourself flying out of the door in the morning without breakfast, relying on cafeteria or vending machine options while at work, and then swinging through a drive through on the way home because there are no prepped options or groceries at home, it will be much more difficult for you to maintain the healthiest diet. Consider having a high protein breakfast before leaving the house or when you arrive at work, packing healthy and filling snacks and a lunch from home, and planning ahead for what you will have for dinner at night. 

Home Cooked Meals

• Preparing the majority of your meals and snacks at home is one of the best habits you can practice for weight loss and long term health. When we prepare our own meals we are able to see exactly what is going into our body. This gives us greater control and helps us to make better choices. It also makes us more connected to our diet and is a great way to get your family and kids involved in healthy habits. (Bonus, it is also much cheaper financially in the long run!)
• Obviously, it will not always be possible to avoid eating out. When you are eating take out, or eating food you did not prepare, try to make the best choices possible and pay attention to your hunger cues in order to stop eating before you are overly full. If you do have a meal or day that goes way off track, acknowledge it, and simply get back on track with your next meal. It can really be that simple!

Exercise 

• Exercise is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle and should definitely be part of your weight loss plan. Regular exercise not only helps us burn calories, but it also improves cardiovascular fitness, strengthens our bones, increases blood circulation, improves neuroplasticity in the brain, and supports mental health. We will dive deeper into exercise in the following pages.

Fasting

• Fasting is a powerful tool to utilize on your weight loss and healthy living journey. We will also cover it more extensively in the coming pages. 

Tracking food intake 

• Tracking what you eat, whether in a journal or a food app, is one of the most reliable ways to ensure you are in a calorie deficit and on track to hitting your weight loss goals. While learning to track what you eat can require some getting used to in the beginning, it is a powerful and effective way to monitor your diet and hold yourself accountable. Generally, I recommend most people with an intentional weight loss goal track their diet at least for a short period of time. This will give you great insight into your current eating habits and where you may need to make changes. Whether or not clients track long term is a choice they can make for themselves. However, if a client finds themselves not making progress while feeling as though they are doing everything right, I will recommend they start tracking again to get some concrete data on what and how much they are eating. As with the rest of this process, tracking your food requires diligence and honesty. It can be tempting at times to leave off meals we wished we hadn’t eaten or that we know weren’t the best choice. This only sabotages us in the end. An accurate and honest, but imperfect, food log will be much more beneficial to you than a perfect, inaccurate one. For tracking apps, MyFitnessPal is the most universal and widely available. Their free version should be adequate for most people. There are also numerous other apps available to track food intake and you can pick whatever one appeals to you and works best for you.

Sleep

• Getting enough sleep is essential to losing weight and our overall health. When we don’t sleep, inflammation and cortisol rises in the body. This can make it much more difficult to lose weight, increases our chances of developing metabolic diseases and can lead to hormonal imbalances. It is also more likely that you will have an increased appetite and cravings when overtired. Sometimes we think our body is calling out for more energy in the form of food, but really it is calling out for rest. If you are a parent or someone who works night shifts or long hours, you know that getting more sleep is usually much easier said than done. Try to increase sleep where you can, whether it’s going to bed a bit earlier, taking a quick nap when possible or making up for a few hours on days off. Note that it’s been shown that the hours before midnight are often more beneficial for restful sleep than after. Meaning, if you have to choose between going to bed earlier or sleeping in later, you’ll want to opt for going to bed earlier whenever possible. Sometimes, it is even more beneficial to sleep an extra hour or two than get in another work out. If you are working out consistently but feel your body wearing out, it may be the best choice to make one day, depending on what your body is telling you. 

Water

• Water works very similarly to sleep when it comes to our weight loss and health goals. Drinking enough water helps lower inflammation, improves digestion and is essential for cellular health. It also helps us avoid excess hunger and cravings. Generally, a good goal to aim for is between half a gallon and a full gallon per day, depending on your lifestyle. If you are more active or consume caffeine, you will want to aim on the higher end. 

Measuring Weight Loss Results…

A sustainable rate of weight loss is typically around .5 lbs to 2 lbs per week, depending on your starting weight. The higher your starting weight, the quicker the weight tends to come off. Some weeks there may be more loss than others, and you will likely still see fluctuations of 2lbs – 5lbs if you weigh yourself every day or nearly every day. These fluctuations are normal, and typically due to changes in water retention. We want to pay attention to the overall trend over the course of at least three months, preferably more. It is not uncommon for me to recommend a six month timeframe for someone to lose twenty or more pounds. While there are many methods that promise quick results, and there are times people do lose weight quicker, orienting yourself around a longer time commitment puts you in a long term mindset and drives home the idea that slow and steady wins this race. It is better to lose weight slowly and keep it off, than to try to crash-diet to your goal in a couple of weeks and then rebounding. Focus on sustainable change and see just how much more progress you have achieved in six months or a year!

Also, don’t forget there are other signs you are making progress besides seeing a lower number on the scale. You may see changes in the mirror or in how your clothes fit. You may feel a difference in your ability to support your body weight, an improvement in sleep or an improvement in energy and mental clarity. These results should not be dismissed! Make sure to acknowledge and celebrate every form of progress as you work towards your ultimate weight loss goal.