lose weight Archives - The Baby Carrot Thug

You clicked, I baited. Sorry guys, this headline is a total click bait and what you’re about to read about fast weight loss might not be the truth you want to hear, but probably somewhere already kinda know. In this post we will talk about how to actually lose weight fast (and sustainable), how out body uses energy, and put an end to fad diets.

Fitspo, gym bros, and eating disorders.

If the fitspo culture has thought us anything about weight loss is that we’re willing to do anything besides working out and eating healthy. Fat burners, keto diets, calorie restriction, and juice cleanses are just a few examples of this. The fact that our favorite gym bros on Instagram are promoting these diets is not making it any better. Maintaining a healthy weight is important and there is nothing wrong with wanting to shred a few pounds (as long as it’s within a healthy range for you). It becomes a problem when social media profiles (who first of all lives in a bikini-fitness prep all year around) starts giving unrealistic advice to the everyday public on how to achieve these goals. Not to mention how normalized it is for young people do have full blown eating disorders and getting praised for it!?

The different ways your body burns calories.

Before we start talking about the right approach to sustainable weigh loss we have to understand how our body burns calories. When we talk about energy expenditure we tend to lump them into four categories.

BMR.

Your BMR, or basal metabolic rate is the amount of energy you exceed by literally living. You can lay in bed all day, binge watch Netflix and your body would simply just burn these calories. By breathing, keeping our heart beating, and thinking. Clutch or what? What most of us don’t realize is that 70%, aka the majority of our daily energy expenditure comes from our BMR. How much you burn is completely individual. Factors such as age, sex, height, weight, and muscles mass will determine your. You can get a rough estimate by using a BMR calculator. Emphasize on rough estimates!

TEF.

TEF, or thermic effect of food is the calories you burn while digesting the food you eat. Yes you heard me, you actually burn calories by eating food! Different types of food require more or less energy to digest where protein and fiber require slightly more calories than sugar and fat. TEF stands for around 10% of our daily energy expenditure. It’s like having your cake and eating it too. Almost.

NEAT.

NEAT – non exercise activity thermogenesis, or in simple English all the movements you do throughout the day which doesn’t include a “scheduled workout”. This includes literally every movement you do. From walking, to typing on your laptop, or doing the little pee dance when you need to pee but someone is occupying the bathroom. Pretty neat, huh? (major pun intended).

Exercise/physical activity.

And last but not least we have exercise, which actually only accounts for around 5% of your daily energy. Like what!? This tells us that the line “you can’t out-train a bad diet” makes a lot of sense. I mean, maybe not if you’re a pro athlete and exercise like 4 hours daily. Those guys play in a different league! Your focus when exercising should be to build strength and to feel good. It should not be a tool to “burn off as many calories as possible”.

How to achieve sustainable weight loss.

Turtles don’t live until 150 years for nothing. Slow and steady wins the race and the same principle should be applied to weight loss. You have to approach your weight loss as a lifelong change. Yes, it’s cliche but it truly is a lifestyle and your focus should be on building sustainable habits. So let’s get into it. How do you do this?

Throw the scale away.

First things first, the scale does more harm than good. Your weight will fluctuate on a daily basis depending on if you had a saltier meal last night, if you’ve slept poorly, if you’re a female on your period, or if you have more muscle mass – just to name a few reasons. Daily scale check-ins will destroy you mentally and your focus should always be on how your clothes fit, body composition, getting stronger, and feeling amazeballs.

Weight loss vs fat loss.

Losing weight is easy. All you need to do is excessive cardio and cut your calories super low. The weight will drop for sure. Is it sustainable? No. Not at all, and you’re more likely to gain all the weight back – and more. Or you’ll develop an eating disorder which is even worse. Fat loss is the goal and the way to achieve this is by hitting up those heavy weights and staying in a slight, emphasis on slight calorie deficit. Resistance training should be your main focus and cardio just a tool (and also to keep your precious heart healthy). By increasing your muscle mass your BMR will also increase, meaning you can eat more food.

Volume eating.

When dieting or trying to lose weight you need to consume less calories than you need. Slight calorie deficit is the key here and you want o aim for a 300-500 calorie deficit each day. Within your daily caloric intake you can literally eat whatever you want but it’s smart to think about the type of foods you eat to make your journey sustainable.

You want to eat as much as you possibly can within your calorie range. Remember, we are not starving ourselves here! The key is volume eating which means eating bigger volumes of foods low in calories. As you can see by the image below we want to want to eat more food for the same amount of calories. This will increase your satiety, make you feel fuller for longer, and actually not make you hate your life. Not to mention all the vitamins and nutrients you’ll get. Good foods for volume eating include: fruit and vegetables, lean protein, protein yogurts, diet sodas and candy (aspartame is not the devil, I promise), potatoes, and berries (to name a few).

Don’t eliminate food groups.

For the love of God, do not, I repeat, DO NOT restrict yourself! If you’re craving a brownie so bad you’re literally climbing the walls – eat a brownie. Eat it, enjoy it, and get on with your life. It’s better to have a piece of your craving rather than trying to “satisfy” your craving with a bunch of low calorie alternatives or a piece of fruit. You’ll just end up bingeing on a whole plate of brownies instead. Food is not only about calories in and calories out. It’s about pleasure, emotions, and social experiences.

Your mantra should be: “overtime”

What’s important to understand is that weight loss happens over time. It won’t happen in a week, or even a month. 1 kg fat is about 7,000 calories which means that you’re not going to lose it in one day. On the flip side it also mean that you won’t gain 1kg in one day either. So what if you go over your calories for a day, or two, or maybe even a week? It’s alright! As long as you get back on track again you will be fine.

It’s a lifestyle.

If yo didn’t get anything of value from this blog post I want you to leave with this one thing: It’s a lifestyle. You are working on creating the best version of yourself and create habits to keep for the rest of your life. If you’re currently following a fitness plan which you hate down to your core I want you to stop and ask yourself “is this sustainable? Can I do this for the rest of my life?” If the answer is no, then maybe it’s time to have a proper think. And finally, please don’t compare yourself to the fitness models and gym bros you see on social media. A huge chunk of it is not even real (editing, Photoshop etc) and some of these people literally don’t do anything else than workout and eat super clean all year around. As a “normal” person with a 9-5 job this isn’t sustainable. Once again, you want to create a healthy, sustainable life. And yea by the way, you’re super cute and sexy. Good bye.

It’s a 1, and a 2, and a double zero! 1200. This number is glued into our brains as the magical number for weight loss. Eating 1200 calories a day will guarantee a slim body. For years we have, or more or less, women have been slaves under the 1200 calorie diet.

1200. Where did this random number come from you might ask yourself. If you’re not, I’m still going to answer it for you. 1200 calories have gotten this exclusive repp that it’s the perfect amount of calories you should consume just to be above that starvation line. But to be more exact, the 1200 calorie champ has got some history in its baggage. It all started with Lulu Hunt Peters. A female author who published a diet book for woman called Diet & Health: With Key to the Calories in the early 1900. What this book emphasized on was that starvation would keep you skinny. To be able to control your hunger and your appetite was a way to be in control, (hey early signs of eating disorders, but whatever…). To put the icing on the cake, (or maybe we should skip the icing to stay under our calorie limit) Lulu Hunt Peters was born in the 1800’s. Her book published in the early 1900’s. Guys, this is more than a 100 years ago. Yet, we are still clinging on to this 1200 calorie diet like it’s the holy scripture for magical weight loss. I mean, weight will drop since 1200 calories will put most people into starvation. The bottom line – this “diet” is not a healthy one for the majority of people. A one size fits all diet doesn’t work for everyone, just like anything in life.

Whats wrong with 1200 calories?

Basic Metabolic Rate – Fact, we are all different. Fact 2, we all have different caloric needs to simply stay alive. Research has showed that the basic caloric need for an average woman to simply keep her alive, this means without any hard core exercise, is around 2100 calories. For men around 2800 calories a day. Imagine that you stick to your 1200 calories. You won’t even have the proper energy for you body to function the way it’s supposed to, and you’re most likely not getting enough of the vitamins and minerals you need.

Fact 3, we are again different. We are different heights, different weights, ages, we’re more or less active, are digestion works differently, some of us might be aliens, we’re just different! We all have our own specific needs to be healthy and this includes our caloric intake as well. Gertrud from across the street might actually be healthy on 1200 calories, Doris might need at least 2300 calories and Magnus the hard core kick boxer might need up to 4000 calories a day. When we talk about the basic caloric need for every individual we refer to it as Basic Metabolic Rate (BMR). This is how much calories our body will burn by simply staying alive. Meaning that you can sit on your couch a whole day, be indecisive about what to watch on Netflix, eat some snacks, and your body will burn these calories automatically. When we add activity to that mixture in some shape or form, our caloric intake goes up.

Metabolic adaptation – Going on a 1200 calorie diet when you actually need 3000 for the long haul will cause your body to go into metabolic adaptation. We have all heard of this in some shape or form and it’s usually called “starvation mode” or something in that ball park. This simply means that after a while your body will adjust to the fact that “Hey, I guess we’re just have to start surviving on these 1200 calories a day now! Let’s slow down our metabolism so we can use this energy for the major shit to stay alive!”. When our body has adjusted to this new calorie limit we’ll stop losing weight because now we have to store as much of these calories we can. Simply, to not frikkin die. Losing weight will not become the priority. What will happen though is that when you do eat more than those calories again, you’ll gain all the weight back if not even more. If you’re lucky you can get back on track pretty quickly, but if you’ve been doing this for a while your metabolism can go into the “metabolic damage” state.

Metabolic damage – When worst gets to worse is when our metabolism get damaged. Or actually, to call it a damage is pretty extreme. Our metabolism will become normal after some adjustments, but it might take some time because of the adaptation it has adopted. This happens when we’ve stayed under calories for a long time. We might have went on a little binge here and there and over time our body doesn’t know what’s going on at all. Are we starving? Do we have all this food? What the fudge brownie is going on!? If you add heavy exercise on top of that cocktail our metabolism goes even more crazy. When our metabolism is stressed out, he checks out and takes a vacay to the Bahamas. What usually happens in this state is that no matter how healthy you eat, or how hard you exercise you’ll keep gaining weight or just stop losing anymore. This can be very frustrating for a lot of people, especially those who have started off on a weight loss plan with great results to suddenly come to a halt or even gain weight. So what can we do about this bullshit?

Eat more to loose more – This can be provocative for some people who swears by the calorie deficit method. It is the opposite of what we have been told about weight loss since our young ears first heard about it. When you start to eat well and enough your body will slowly start to go “Oh, okay, we’re safe again. I don’t need to stress myself out to keep us alive anymore. Nutrition is coming in, and we have plenty of it!”. This is where you want to be all the time. You should always focus to get the proper amount of calories that you need everyday – at least. When we have the proper calorie needs, it’s easier for the body to let go of the stored fat. I know, it’s all just the opposite of what we’ve been told. Don’t believe the lies!!!! #FakeNews

Strength training – If you spice it up even more you should add some strength and resistance training into your life. Building muscles while your body has all the nutrients and calories it needs will make your metabolism fire up and burn fat like its never burnt anything before! You will keep burning calories even at rest which means that you can eat even more food now and still lose weight. I mean, how can we hate this!? This lifestyle will make sure that you lose weight and keep it off.

We live in a world that is terrified of eating. Especially woman. Bullshit since more than a 100 years ago as an addition to social media has caused this bad food cycle.We need to eat. It’s a basic survival mechanism. Food is fuel, not the enemy! I promise you, that when you’re feeding yourself the right amount of food (healthy of course, I’m not talking three meals a day from McDonalds) with an addition to some resistance training, you will magically drop all the weight your body needs to drop, to maintain the perfect healthy weight for you.

“One size fits all” does not apply to anything in life. Remember to never compare your body to somebody else. We all have different weights and shapes that are healthy and ideal for us. The best thing you can do is to rock out and knock out the world with your uniqueness, while eating a proper dinner. Maybe even two. Bon Apple Tea!

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