How to Lose Weight Without Giving Up Your Favourite Foods

If you want to master weight loss, you need to stop listening to the fitness gurus.

They want to sell you tea.

They want to sell you pills.

They want to sell you complex plans.

Why do they do this?

They need to make money.

But the truth is free.

And the truth is very simple.

I used to weigh a lot more than I do now.

I tried every fad diet under the sun.

I ate cabbage soup for a week.

I felt terrible.

I lost three kilos.

Then I ate a normal meal.

I gained four kilos back.

Have you done this too?

It is a bad cycle.

You feel like you have no willpower.

But the diet was the problem, not you.

Let us look at how you can fix this.

The Big Lie About Your Metabolism

Many people think they have a slow metabolism.

They think their body is broken.

They believe they cannot lose fat.

This is almost never true.

Your body follows the laws of physics.

If you feed it less energy than it burns, it must burn fat.

There is no way around this.

The fitness industry wants you to believe it is about hormones.

They want you to think it is about carbs.

They want you to think gluten is the enemy.

None of this is true.

Carbs do not make you fat.

Fat does not make you fat.

Too much food makes you fat.

That is the only truth.

To get a better grip on your fitness path, you can read more about healthy living ideas to build good habits.

The Simple Math of Fat Loss

Let us talk about calories.

A calorie is just a unit of heat.

It is how we measure energy.

Your body burns a set number of calories every day.

Just staying alive takes energy.

Your heart beating takes energy.

Your brain thinking takes energy.

This is your base rate.

Then you add movement.

Walking to your car.

Cleaning your room.

Lifting weights.

All of this burns energy.

Let us say your total daily burn is 2,200 calories.

If you eat 2,200 calories, your weight stays the same.

If you eat 2,700 calories, you store 500 calories as fat.

If you eat 1,700 calories, your body must find 500 calories of energy.

Where does it get it?

It burns your stored body fat.

This is simple math.

It works every single time.

You do not need a degree to understand this.

You do not need to buy special food.

You just need to eat less than you burn.

Why Hard Diets Always Fail

Most diets tell you to cut out your favourite foods.

No more bread.

No more chocolate.

No more beer.

No more fun.

This works for a week.

Maybe it works for a month.

But what happens when you go to a party?

What happens when you have a bad day at work?

You break.

You eat a slice of cake.

Then you think, "I ruined my diet."

So you eat the whole cake.

Then you eat pizza.

Then you stop trying.

This is the restriction trap.

When you ban foods, you want them more.

It is human nature.

If I tell you not to think of a blue tree, what do you think of?

A blue tree.

If you ban bread, you will dream of bread.

You must stop banning foods.

Instead, you should learn how to fit them into your day.

To learn how to plan your meals without stress, check out our guide on meal planning.

How to Eat Your Favourite Foods and Still Lose Weight

You can eat pizza and lose weight.

You can eat chocolate and lose weight.

How do you do this?

By using the eighty-twenty rule.

Eighty per cent of your food should come from whole sources.

Think meat, vegetables, fruit, potatoes, and rice.

These foods have lots of vitamins.

They keep you full.

They keep you healthy.

The other twenty per cent can be anything you want.

It can be a chocolate bar.

It can be a bag of crisps.

It can be a glass of wine.

This twenty per cent keeps you happy.

It stops you from feeling trapped.

It lets you live a normal life.

If you can live a normal life, you can stay on your plan forever.

Consistency is the only thing that matters.

A good plan you can stick to for a year is better than a perfect plan you can only stick to for a week.

Let us look at an example.

Say you have 1,800 calories a day.

You eat three healthy meals of 500 calories each.

That is 1,500 calories.

You have 300 calories left.

You can use those 300 calories for a treat.

You still lose weight.

You do not feel sad.

You do not feel left out.

This is how you win the long game.

The Power of Protein

If there is one food you should eat more of, it is protein.

Protein is the king of food.

It does two things that help you lose weight.

First, it keeps you full.

Protein takes a long time to digest.

It stays in your stomach longer than carbs.

This means you do not feel hungry an hour after eating.

Second, it burns calories just by eating it.

This is the thermic effect of food.

Your body has to work hard to break down protein.

It burns about thirty per cent of the calories in protein just to digest it.

If you eat 100 calories of chicken breast, your body only keeps about 70 calories.

If you eat 100 calories of sugar, your body keeps about 95 calories.

See the difference?

Protein protects your muscles.

When you lose weight, you want to lose fat, not muscle.

If you lose muscle, your metabolism drops.

If you eat enough protein and lift some weights, you keep your muscle.

Your body looks better.

You burn more calories even when you rest.

Where do you get protein?

Chicken breast.

Turkey.

Lean beef.

Fish.

Eggs.

Greek yoghurt.

Tofu.

Try to have some protein with every meal.

Why You Must Drink More Water

Water is your secret weapon.

Many times when you think you are hungry, you are just thirsty.

The brain uses the same signal for both.

Next time you want a snack, drink a big glass of water first.

Wait ten minutes.

You might find the hunger goes away.

Water fills up your stomach.

If you drink a glass of water before a meal, you will eat less food.

It is a simple trick that works.

Water has zero calories.

Replace all your sugary drinks with water.

Soda, juice, and sweet tea are full of empty calories.

They do not make you full.

They just make you fat.

If you drink two cans of soda a day, that is about 300 calories.

Cut those out and you can lose over a kilo of fat a month without changing anything else.

That is an easy win.

How to Stay on Track When You Mess Up

You will mess up.

Let us accept this now.

You will have a day where you eat too much.

You will go to a birthday party and eat three slices of cake.

You will have a stressful day and order a takeaway.

This is normal.

It happens to everyone.

The difference between people who succeed and people who fail is how they react.

People who fail say, "I ruined it. I might as well give up."

They turn one bad meal into a bad week.

Then a bad month.

People who succeed say, "That was a good meal. Now back to my plan."

One bad meal does not make you fat.

Just like one good meal does not make you thin.

It is what you do most of the time that counts.

If you eat 21 meals a week, and 18 of them are good, you will lose weight.

Do not let perfect be the enemy of good.

Just get back on track with your next meal.

Do not try to starve yourself the next day to pay for it.

That just starts the bad cycle again.

Just eat your normal healthy meal and carry on.

Simple Habits for Daily Success

Do not try to change your whole life in one day.

That is too hard.

Instead, build small habits.

Start with one habit.

When that habit is easy, add another.

Here are some good habits to start with.

Walk ten thousand steps a day.

This burns more calories than most people think.

It is low stress.

It does not make you super hungry like running does.

Use smaller plates.

This is a mind trick.

A small plate full of food looks like a lot.

A big plate with the same food looks empty.

Your brain eats with its eyes first.

Sleep seven to eight hours a night.

When you are tired, your body wants quick energy.

Quick energy means sugar and fat.

You will crave bad foods if you do not sleep.

Track your food.

You do not have to do this forever.

But do it for a week or two.

You will be shocked at how many calories are in some foods.

A tablespoon of oil has 120 calories.

That is a lot of energy for a tiny amount of food.

If you do not track, you are just guessing.

And humans are very bad at guessing.

The Truth About the Scales

The scales can lie to you.

You need to know this.

Weight loss is not a straight line.

You will not lose weight every single day.

Some days the scales will go up.

This does not mean you gained fat.

Your weight can change for many reasons.

Maybe you ate a salty meal last night.

Salt makes your body hold water.

Maybe you are stressed.

Stress makes your body hold water.

Maybe you have not been to the toilet yet.

All of these things change your weight.

But none of them are fat.

Fat loss takes time.

You should weigh yourself every day at the same time.

Do it in the morning before you eat.

Then take the average of those seven days.

Compare the weekly averages, not the daily numbers.

If the weekly average is going down, you are winning.

Do not let a single high number ruin your mood.

It is just water.

Why You Need to Use a Food Scale

A food scale is the best tool you can buy.

It costs very little money.

But it will save you so much pain.

When we guess food sizes, we are almost always wrong.

We think we are eating a small portion.

But we are eating a huge portion.

Take peanut butter as an example.

A serving is two tablespoons.

That is about 190 calories.

But if you use a normal spoon, you will scoop a big heap.

That big heap can easily be 400 calories.

You think you ate 190 calories.

But you ate 400 calories.

Do this with three foods a day, and you have wiped out your calorie deficit.

This is why people say, "I eat healthy but I cannot lose weight."

They are eating healthy foods, but too much of them.

Weigh your food for just two weeks.

It will open your eyes.

You will learn what a real portion size looks like.

Once you know, you can stop weighing if you want.

But start with the scale to get the facts.

How to Handle Eating Out with Friends

You do not need to stay home to lose weight.

You can still go to restaurants.

You just need a plan.

Look at the menu before you go.

Pick what you want to eat when you are not hungry.

This stops you from making bad choices when you get there.

Look for lean protein on the menu.

Grilled chicken, fish, or steak are great options.

Ask for sauces on the side.

Restaurants love to put butter and oil on everything.

It makes the food taste good, but it adds lots of calories.

If you get the sauce on the side, you control how much you eat.

Skip the bread basket.

It is easy to eat 500 calories of bread before your meal even arrives.

Save those calories for your main plate.

If you want a dessert, share it with a friend.

You get the taste without all the calories.

This lets you enjoy your night without guilt.

The Power of NEAT

What is NEAT?

It stands for non-exercise activity thermogenesis.

That is a big phrase for a simple thing.

It is the energy you burn doing normal things.

Fidgeting.

Standing.

Pacing while on the phone.

Carrying groceries.

This burns more calories than your workout.

Think about it.

A gym workout lasts one hour.

You burn maybe 300 calories.

But what do you do for the other 23 hours?

If you sit on the couch all day, your NEAT is very low.

If you stay active throughout the day, your NEAT is high.

This can make a difference of 500 calories a day.

That is the same as a gym session.

How do you increase your NEAT?

Take the stairs instead of the lift.

Park further away from the shop.

Stand up every hour and stretch.

Clean your house more often.

These small things add up to big results.

My Friend Dave's Success Story

Let me share a story about my friend Dave.

Dave wanted to lose ten kilos.

He thought he had to stop eating after six in the evening.

He thought he had to stop eating bread.

He was hungry and tired all the time.

He could not sleep since his stomach was growling.

I told him to change his approach.

I told him to eat a sandwich for lunch.

I told him to have a small bowl of ice cream at eight at night.

He did not believe me.

He thought he would gain weight.

But he tracked his calories and stayed in his target.

He slept better.

He had more energy.

He felt like a normal person again.

And he lost the ten kilos.

He realized that food is not the enemy.

The clock is not the enemy.

Portion size is the only thing that matters.

You can eat whenever you want.

You can eat whatever you want.

As long as you stay within your daily budget, you will see progress.

How to Plan for the Long Term

You need to think about the long term.

Weight loss is not a sprint.

It is a marathon.

If you lose weight slowly, you will keep it off.

If you lose it fast, you will gain it back.

This is the truth.

Do not try to be perfect.

Just try to be better than you were yesterday.

If you used to drink three sodas, drink one.

If you used to walk zero steps, walk two thousand.

These small steps build up over time.

You will wake up in a year and not recognize yourself.

That is how you win.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I lose weight without exercise?

Yes. You can lose weight by just eating less food. Exercise helps you burn more calories, but food control is the main tool. It is much easier to not eat 500 calories than it is to burn 500 calories on a treadmill.

Do carbs make me gain fat?

No. Carbs do not make you fat. Eating too many total calories makes you fat. You can eat bread and potatoes and still lose weight if you stay in a calorie deficit.

How fast should I expect to lose weight?

A safe and steady rate is half a kilo to one kilo per week. Losing weight faster often means you are losing water and muscle, which can lead to gaining it back quickly.

Start small today and build your way to lasting weight loss.