In part one of this article series on weight loss, we talked about how your body burns calories. In part two, we talked about how to calculate your caloric maintenance so you know how many calories you need to eat in order to lose weight.
However, just because you know how many calories you should eat does not mean it is an easy process nor does it mean you are eating healthy foods.
After all, I like to approach nutrition from a way that promotes health and longevity, not just “weight loss.” Luckily, the two go hand-in-hand.
In general, it’s about finding what works for you and sticking to a plan that works for a lifetime, not just finding the next two week diet.
So in this article, I will give my top 10 strategies for making weight loss simple.
Strategy #1: Eat More Whole Plant Foods
If you take away one strategy from this article, eat more whole plant foods.
Incorporating more whole foods (fruits, vegetables, legumes, grains, nuts, seeds) is going to be one of the most effective way to lose weight.
If you look at different “Blue Zones” (places in the world where people are the healthiest and live the longest), they all share one thing in common: their diet is primarily based around whole plant foods.
Why do whole plant foods help with weight loss?
Whole foods not only tend to have fewer calories per volume of food, they are also very high in fiber, which takes longer to digest and makes you feel full longer. As a result, not only can you eat more food, but you don’t feel the need to eat as often because the food you eat makes you feel satiated.
While I do think it’s important everyone tracks their food at some point, the reason why I don’t love the idea of tracking calories long term (which I mentioned in my last article) is because it takes the focus off eating to optimize your health.
When you eat more whole plant foods, however, your caloric intake will naturally be lower and that is why this is my number one strategy for losing weight. In fact, this study is one of the best to demonstrate that most people can achieve significant weight loss while not limiting their intake of food (“dieting”) as long as they adopt a primarily whole foods plant-based diet.
Strategy #2: Count Your Calories
There are many benefits of tracking your food intake for a short period of time.
I briefly discussed this in the previous article on how many calories you should eat to lose weight, but in case you missed it, I will review it now.
While tracking your calories isn’t “required” for weight loss, it is a good starting point for many people who need a better understanding of the amount of food they are actually eating. After all, research shows that individuals consistently underreport how many calories they believe they are eating.
For this reason, I recommend tracking your calories for a short period of time to ensure progress. You will learn so much in the process about the foods you put into your body. And once you get a better sense of how much you are actually eating, you no longer need to track your caloric intake if you don’t want to.
While there are many ways you can track the number of calories you eat, I suggest using a simple free app like My Fitness Pal. This is an easy to use app where you input the foods you eat and it tracks your daily caloric intake for you.
Keep in mind that when you are tracking your food, you need to track everything you eat and drink. The butter on your toast, the oil on your food, the alcohol you drink. These foods/drinks are often overlooked, but it all adds up and needs to be counted.
Again, while this process seems tedious right now, I promise if you do this for a few weeks, you will benefit incredibly and not only you will become much more conscious of your eating habits, but you will be right on your way to achieving your weight loss goals!
Strategy 3: Switch From Olive Oil/Coconut Oil/Butter To Spray Olive Oil For Cooking
Instead of using olive oil, coconut oil, or butter for cooking, I suggest you use spray olive oil. Two tablespoons of olive oil contains 240 calories. If you have this everyday for 30 days, that would be 7,200 calories. This is the same number of calories in over 2 pounds of fat (1 pound of fat is around 3500 calories).
If you used 3 seconds of spray olive oil, that is roughly 24 calories. If you did that every day for 30 days, that would be 720 calories.
So by switching from regular olive oil to spray olive oil, in 30 days, you would save 6480 calories (7200-720), which is close to two pounds worth of calories.
The significance of this simple switch shows the power of little switches in your diet and how they can massively influence your weight loss progress.
Strategy #4: Be Aware of Salad Dressings and Sauces
Many people pour 200+ calories of dressing on their salad (which might be more than the entire salad itself!) and have no clue they are doing this.
In general, many people forget about the dressings and sauces they put on their food.
Instead of pouring calorie rich dressings on a salad, some alternatives would be to use lemon or lime juice, vinegar, or a 0 calorie dressing. Or, if you choose to use regular dressing, just limit the amount you put on your salad (and measure it out a couple times to know how much you’re actually using!)
In terms of sauces, just be aware of how much you are eating. Sauces add up in calories and need to be accounted for.
Strategy #5: Avoid Drinking Your Calories
On the topic of liquids, due to the fact that it is very easy to “drink your calories,” you should avoid drinking your calories altogether (except lower calorie smoothies).
In general, if you are trying to lose weight, I suggest really try to avoid drinking your calories because it won’t fill you up and you could be using those calories to eat food that will both fill you up and properly fuel your body.
For example, a grande caramel macchiato at Starbucks has 240 calories. For someone eating 1500 calories trying to lose weight, that one coffee you’ve had before you’ve even had a bite to eat is already 16% of your total daily calories.
This isn’t to say that you can’t ever drink that coffee, but understand that it has 240 calories so you can keep track accordingly.
Likewise, a medium chocolate shake at Mcdonald’s has 620 calories. Anyone could drink that in 5 minutes.
Lastly, make sure you consider the calories in alcohol too.
- Beer: 8oz ≈ 120 calories
- Wine: 5oz ≈ 120 calories
- Hard alcohol: 1.5oz ≈ 100 calories
While a drink every once in a while isn’t very significant, drinking more often can definitely contribute to a significant number of calories consumed.
For example, 5oz of wine is hardly anything. You could easily have 10-15 ounces (240-360 calories), which is a significant amount of calories.
Bottom line: it is very easy to quickly drink calories, so avoid it when possible and use those calories to fuel your body with foods that will fill you up.
Strategy #6: Drink More Water
While the evidence of staying hydrated has been well established for many aspects of health, it is also true for weight loss.
One of the main benefits of drinking enough water with the goal of losing weight is that it helps to increase satiety.
This study showed that participants who drank 16.9 ounces of water before their meals showed a 44% reduction in weight loss after 12 weeks compared to those who did not drink water before their meals.
While there is no specific amount of water you need to drink, most people can benefit from increasing their water intake.
My challenge to you is to drink at least half your bodyweight in ounces of water each day.
Find out how many ounces your water bottle is and then find out how many of those you need per day.
If you need some motivation, try this: if you want to drink 3 water bottles worth of water per day, place 3 rubber bands around your water bottle and then take one off as you finish each bottle. Once you are left with none, you’ve had enough water for the day.
Strategy #7: Take More Steps
Walking is by far and away the most underrated form of exercise.
It’s incredibly low impact, doesn’t increase appetite much, and is a great way to burn more calories, but more importantly, stay healthy and active.
Whether you’re working out with me or on your own a few days per week, it’s incredibly important to move every day and get your steps in.
Going to the gym 3 days per week and living an otherwise sedentary lifestyle isn’t beneficial.
So as a start, unless you are getting 10,000 steps per day, I recommend adding 2000 steps to the amount you currently take and try to hit that goal each day.
Strategy #8: Stop Doing Exercise “To Lose Weight”
Exercise, whether it’s more cardio or weightlifting oriented, is extremely important for many different reasons.
That being said, many people have the wrong mindset when it comes to exercise.
While exercise can obviously contribute to burning more calories and as a result, potentially creating a larger calorie deficit, there are a few issues with the mindset around exercising “to lose weight.”
For one, research shows that people consistently overestimate the number of calories they burn during exercise.
It is very well established that people think they burn more calories than they do during exercise. For example, this study showed that participants overestimated the number of calories they burned during exercise by 3-4 times. What’s potentially even more significant is that when they were asked to eat back the number of calories they thought they burned, they ended up eating back 2-3 times the number of calories that they thought they had burned from exercise.
In short, people tend to overestimate the number of calories they burn during exercise and underestimate the calories they eat.
This is the issue with doing exercise “to lose weight” because you will oftentimes think that because you exercised, you can now afford to eat more.
This is not to say that exercise doesn’t matter. It does and you should definitely still do it for both weight loss and health. But I find it more helpful to think of cardio and weight lifting as a means to supplement a diet that already puts you in a calorie deficit.
In fact, research shows that cardio alone is not very effective in regards to weight loss. Only doing cardio as a means to create a calorie deficit is not sufficient. However, doing cardio in addition to eating a diet that puts you in a caloric deficit is when it becomes effective.
Additionally, if you are trying to lose weight, it’s really important to lift weights as that will help you not only prevent muscle loss, but also gain lean muscle. Research demonstrates the benefit of lifting weights on preserving lean mass when in a calorie deficit.
Strategy #9: Don’t Buy Foods You Can’t Control
I think you all know what I mean. You buy a bag of chips or ice cream and they don’t last more than a day in the pantry/fridge.
I know this sounds obvious, but it actually works. The easiest way to avoid over consuming high fatty, calorically dense foods is to avoid buying them. While this seems easier said than done, if you know you will eat an entire sleeve of Oreos if you open them, then it’s better to simply leave them out of your pantry.
After all, if they are in the house, they are going to get eaten. And with foods like those, it’s hard to portion control.
This isn’t to say that you should never eat foods like these – it’s fine to enjoy them in moderation.
But if your goal is weight loss and you are actually serious about reaching your goal, then you need to take responsibility for doing what is best for you.
If you are the type of person to open up a package of Oreos and eat the entire sleeve, then you’re better off leaving them out of the house.
Strategy #10: Intermittent Fasting
I put this strategy last because I’m less of a fan of it for the same reasons I’m not a fan of calorie tracking for the rest of your life – it takes away from the focus of nutrition being to eat for health. When people intermittent fast, they typically eat the same way they have always eaten, but simply restrict the amount they eat and because of that, they might lose weight. But this does not mean they are eating healthier.
Intermittent fasting is where you limit the food you eat to a certain “window” of time throughout the day.
While there are many different ways to do this, in practice, it typically is done by not eating for several hours (typically 3-5 hours) after waking up.
So if you wake up at 8am, you might hold off your first meal until 11am or 1pm. This allows you to have large meals throughout the rest of the day and feel full and satisfied.
This strategy allows you to eat 1-2 large meals each day, lowering your daily caloric intake, but also satisfying your cravings.
If you choose to intermittent fast, it is common to feel hungry in the mornings at first. For this reason, I’d recommend drinking plenty of water and black coffee (contains 0 calories) if you want. Over time, you will probably notice it becoming easier to fast in the morning as your body will have adjusted.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is that there are many strategies you can employ in order to lose weight. But at the end of the day, you need to find what works best for you.
If you want my top 5 practical takeaways, do this:
- Eat more whole, plant-based foods
- Track your calories
- Take more steps (2,000 more than you currently do)
- Drink half your bodyweight in ounces of water each day
- Stop eating by 8pm or earlier
That concludes this three part series on weight loss, so if you have any questions about your weight loss journey, feel free to reach out to me and I will get back to you as soon as possible!