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Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 17/5/23 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 17/5/23

Creative Ways To Increase Your Steps Each Day

Steps are very important for your fitness journey - and sorry but I don’t mean the 90s pop band with whom I have a great affination - and yes that is a “tragedy”.

Sorry for the awful joke.

I mean walking. Or rather, I almost view it as physical meditation.

Steps are one of the single most important pillars to pin any fitness journey to for anyone. Simply because in terms of exercise especially, they are so easily accessible to everyone.

Although having said that, I have certainly noticed how much harder it is to get my steps in regularly since moving to Australia compared to living in the UK. Its a lot easier to walk in the rain than it is in the sun!

This is me most days here in Queensland.

Steps are a golden tool to help you in your fitness journey - especially if it is weight loss orientated - and so I am going to take you through as many ways as I can think of to help you increase those steps each and every day to help you conquer your goals.

The idea for this Blog Post came from a BBC article [1] I saw titled:

“Walking can boost your fitness and Mental Health says PHA (Public Health Agency)”

The article highlighted that in Northern Ireland two-thirds of adults are overweight or obese and that the average step count in Northern Ireland was 3000-4000 steps a day.

It also goes on to say that walking is often overlooked as a form of effective exercise, despite its ability to build stamina, burn excess calories and improve heart health.

The section that stood out to me the most was the comment by the NHS that said:

“walking is often overlooked as a form of effective exercise”

And I know this to be true. The number of times I have had to convince a client on the Strong & Confident Program that their daily steps are more important than their workouts, especially if they are wanting to lose weight is far too great. This is because the fitness industry and society will make you think that a workout burns more calories than it actually does compared to the daily habit of hitting that step target.

One thing the BBC article does miss out on is actually helping you figure out how to increase your steps so that you can improve your overall health and fitness. Which is exactly why I wanted to sit down and write this for you.

Now I am sure you have a million and one questions all about this topic - but don’t worry - I will of course take you through it all in the rest of this article.

Table of Contents for Creative Ways To Increase Your Steps Each Day:

Why Should You Increase Your Steps?
How Many Steps A Day To Lose Weight?
Can Walking Help Your Mental Health?
How To Increase Your Step Count at Home
How To Increase Your Step Count at Work

Why Should You Increase Your Steps?

I wanted to start by answering this question because without showing you the value of your steps each day it is far less likely you are going to nail the target you have set for yourself.

Let us start with your metabolism and how it is broken down.

Metabolism basically means the “amount of calories you burn each day” and it is a very hard thing to “break”. If you think that your metabolism is broken, and you don’t have hypothyroidism or another diagnosed metabolic condition by a doctor, then I come with good news.

Your Metabolism isn’t broken. It is more than likely you just aren’t understanding what goes into it and therefore what you can get out of it.

Our metabolism is a pretty static thing throughout our whole lives, even when as a woman, you go through pregnancy and menopause. Your Metabolism just doesn’t change.

As a study called Daily Energy Expenditure Through the Human Life Course [2] found out.

It looked at a cohort of people over their lifetime and analysed their metabolism from 8 days old to 95 years old and it found between the ages of 20 and 60 metabolism was stable.

You can see the trends in the graphs above. It should also be noted, there are some outliers from the trend, and if this is your lived experience then that needs to be noted.

READ MY BLOG THAT OUTLINES EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR METABOLISM:

IS YOUR METABOLISM BROKEN?

Now that you know your Metabolism is pretty stable from the age of 20 years old, what goes into it and how can you get the most out of it.

The two sections I really want you to take note of in the above image are:

EAT and NEAT

EAT: This is your Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and it is simply how many calories you burn when doing a prescribed movement. HIIT, a Group Fitness Session, a Monthly Issue Workout, a jog, a bike ride - anything that is “fitness”.

And it is worth just 5% of your Metabolism or “the number of calories you burn each day”.

NEAT: This is all other movements you do in your day. Standing on the tube to go to work, doing your grocery shop, cleaning the house, brushing your teeth, fidgeting at your desk, and yes, your daily steps.

This is worth a whopping 15% of your Metabolism or “the number of calories you burn each day”.

And is also the biggest portion of your Metabolism that is directly under your control.

In a weight loss scenario, this is crucially important to know and is a huge reason one of my 5 Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life is 10,000 steps a day.

Not that you NEED to do 10,000 steps a day - but more on that later.

Understanding your Metabolism in this way is also why I frame movement for all of my clients and have called my online coaching program the Strong & Confident Program. You won’t lose weight by doing some workouts in the Gym. Workouts are designed to get a human strong, not smaller, and your Metabolism would agree with me.

There are many other reasons you should increase your step count each day which will be sprinkled in the rest of this article.

How Many Steps A Day To Lose Weight?

No.

It really isn’t.

And here is the good news: you don’t have to do Ultra Marathons to lose weight.

Earlier in this article, I mentioned the dreaded: 10,000 steps a day.

There are studies that back this up, but with a kicker, seldom spoken about when setting step targets.

A study called: Pattern of Daily Steps is Associated with Weight Loss: Secondary Analysis from the Step-Up Randomized Trial [3] found the following from 363 participants in this 18-month study:

“Results support the recommendation of accumulating 10,000 steps·day, with approximately 3,500 of these steps per day being performed at a moderate-to-vigorous intensity in bouts of at least 10 minutes, to enhance weight loss in response to a behavioural weight loss intervention. While these results have implications that inform public health recommendations for physical activity.”

Key things to highlight here are:

Firstly the participants were in a Calorie Deficit.

The second is they completed 3,500 steps at a vigorous intensity.

Third is that it took 18 months for the participants to achieve a greater than 10% of body weight loss and only 263 of them managed to stick with it.

The origins of 10,000 steps a day are quite odd really, it was invented as a target by a Japanese company that wanted to sell their pedometers - and then the figure just stuck - and it was popularised by FitBit.

Essentially there is no magic number of steps a day to lose weight - and all weight loss efforts are futile if you aren’t in a Calorie Deficit.

But increasing your NEAT is always going to help you burn more calories and increase your weight loss efforts - all else being equal.

For some of you, this would be 10,000 steps a day.

For others, an increase in your step count could simply be increasing to 5,000 or 8,000.

What I tell all my clients who are working on a Fat Loss phase is, to work on creative ways to increase their steps over the day, and then still target a walk at vigorous intensity - and the best way to judge that is to challenge yourself to walk fast enough to struggle to hold a conversation, or if you are outside in a colder climate, to a point where you don’t need to wear a jacket.

Let me tell you about my client Jason who lives in Wisconsin and is on the Strong and Confident Program.

Jason is a truck driver. He gets up at 2am and drives from Wisconsin all the way to Ohio to deliver bricks and other materials for buildings, and then he drives back.

His ability to get steps in is really tough. We are constantly working on his diet to make sure he is in a Calorie Deficit when he is on the road, and we have had to come up with some really creative ways to help him regularly hit his step target. Things like walking around the truck when waiting to load and unload. Doing Truck laps when he is at a rest stop.

He has now lost 10kg in three months. His starting weight was 124kg, or as he is American, 272lbs. And in the last screenshot below you can see he hit 252lbs recently.

Here is a snapshot of the hard work he put into increasing his steps from his feedback forms over the last few months of his training. You can see his increased focus on steps week on week and the outcomes associated with them just from what he is feeding back to me.

It really is an awesome insight.

FOR MORE READING ON THIS TOPIC HEAD HERE:

IS 10,000 STEPS A DAY ENOUGH TO LOSE WEIGHT AND BE HEALTHY?

Can Walking Help Your Mental Health?

It certainly can.

I am of the belief that a walk cures most things.

We know, at this point, that exercise benefits your mood, as it helps reduce stress levels, it increases dopamine in your system, releases endorphins and gives you a sense of productivity.

Walking also fits into this narrative very easily.

There is one other key benefit of walking that you don’t get from being in a gym.

Nature.

Being in nature is a great stress reliever as well. Getting Vitamin D on your skin, looking at trees, fresh air and all the good stuff that outside giving you is worth its weight in gold when it comes to improving your mental health.

Another added benefit to your mental health from walking is the fact you will sleep better. This comes from having increased activity levels, but also from your body being able to tell the difference between night and day. The more sunlight your body gets, the more it will help regulate your circadian rhythm which is responsible for the timing of your internal body clock.

I say to all my clients that a walk cures everything.

Stressed…go for a walk.

Anxious…go for a walk.

Angry…go for a walk.

Depressed…go for a walk (if you can).

Feeling pent up…go for a walk.

Feel like you need to move…go for a walk.

Walking demands you create space and time between whatever it is that is stressing you out, and your response to that stress. It allows you to process things not only mentally but physically too. Going for a walk is simply a way for you to iron out anything snags you have in your life.

And I think thats pretty cool - and something worth valuing in one’s life.

How To Increase Your Step Count at Home

Over the years I have trained many, many people who have office jobs and busy family lives.

Simply telling them to go for a vigorous walk at lunch was not possible.

Or, a walk when the children were in bed at night time, in East London, considering I train mainly women, was not a good idea either.

So we had to get creative - and I also had to educate them on what steps actually meant.

Your Apple Watch doesn’t just pick up steps when you walk, it picks up any intentional movement that also picks up your heart rate just a touch.

This means you can clock up your steps whenever you are doing any sort of task - because remember the goal isn’t to increase actual steps the goal is to increase your NEAT activity,

You can therefore increase your steps at home by:

Cleaning the house
Tidying up after your kids
Mowing the lawn (I have a two-acre yard, its like walking a marathon every time)
Squatting when you brush your teeth
Climbing the stairs in the ad breaks when you are watching Love Island

This reminds me of a very funny post I once did:

When I was working in London I had a couple of clients who refused to train with me if it clashed with Love Island - hence I decided to make them workout whilst they watched it.

As you can tell…I am not a Love Island fan…

Making your bed
Dancing in your living room
Having sex (hopefully lots of it)
Decorating
Doing some building work
Sawing some wood
Chopping some wood
Work upstairs so each time you need to eat you climb the staircase
Gardening
Chase your children
Play with your pets
Do calf raises whilst the kettle boils

Basically, anything goes in your house so long as it increases your activity level.

And yes, it may feel superfluous. It might feel a little weird, and a little forced. But the more you do it, the more normal it will feel, and the more you do it, the more likely you are to see the fruits of your labour, which will likely make you more and more motivated to continue.

And remember, if my fiancee was able to get 10,000 steps in a day when she was in a hotel room isolating as she returned to Australia during the covid-19 pandemic then I am sure there are many ways in which you can explore your entire home to increase your step count.

How To Increase Your Step Count at Work

You could set off a fake fire alarm…

But I don’t personally recommend it as you might get into trouble with the authorities.

This is quite a hard topic to approach because every job has different demands, and a nurse for example, probably won’t need to read this section. However, a lawyer or an administrator might need to. A truck driver has far less opportunity to increase their steps at work compared to a teacher.

What I will do is approach this section from the point of view of a generic “office worker” and hopefully some of it might give you some ideas to then adapt and take into your own professional life.

And remember, its not just about steps on your watch…its’s about increasing NEAT activity.

Park your car further away from the office
Stand on Public Transport during your commute
Offer to the morning coffee run
Make all the tea and coffee in the office all day for your co-workers
Drink lots of water so you have to make more journeys to the toilet (I recommend 2-3 litres a day)
Eat lots of fibrous food and remember Elmo…

Fidget at your desk
Walk on your lunch break
Have walking meetings
Always stand up when you are on the phone
Take the stairs, not the lift
Collect your own printouts
Hand out the days post
Greet your colleagues by saying hello each morning around the office
Go for a walk as opposed to grabbing a snack
Get a walking pad in your office
Get a standing desk
Get a foot cycling thingy like this:

As you can see, there are lots of opportunities in and around your office to help increase your steps at work. One thing I know very well from having worked in corporate and many different office setups, from being a City Banker to working in world-class stadiums, is that the first barrier to some of these changes is your co-worker’s judgement on what you are doing, and the second thing is really what is most important.

Focussed activity equals more productivity. I fully appreciate that the argument to your boss to allow you to work out during your work hours will likely fall on deaf ears - more fool your boss when you look at the science involved with this.

There was a study [3] in Denmark 15 randomized trials took place in the workplace. It totalled 3500 employees across 10-52 weeks and gave the employee one hour of training a week. The training - matched something known as Intelligent Physical Exercise Training (which is a fancy term for a personalised training session with a Personal Trainer) as well as meeting other physical activity guidelines.

Its conclusions are rather epic. So epic in fact, I decided to give you the whole conclusion verbatim:

“Physical exercise training at work as IPET benefits the worker in terms of decreasing health risk indicators, improving physical capacity and functions as well as perceived health. Also, the employer may benefit from allowing the employees work time for such training through decreased sickness absenteeism and presenteeism in terms of improved or maintained productivity and workability. Finally, on the societal level exercise can be “more than medicine” since exercise in a specific manner can maintain the individual's ordinary daily physical functions and ability to move (walk, run). This is becoming more and more important among the ageing workers and in a public health perspective.”

Now because despite the evidence on display, your boss isn’t going to give you a free pass to head to the gym for an hour a week, it still shows that physical exercise, any physical exercise, even to the level of walking more, will make you more productive. It will decrease your sickness, it will improve your mood and it will give you more energy to focus on your tasks at hand.

So despite what your co-workers might think, despite how odd it feels pedalling under your desk, it will all feel better when you have far less stress relating to your job, when you feel more socially included with your co-workers and when you are being more productive.

So if going for a walk at lunch takes you some way towards that…then it can’t be a bad thing, and you are also increasing your steps whilst at work.

What a win-win.

A Final Word…

I truly hope you found this article helpful. I have spent the best part of the last decade of my life helping people reframe and reimagine what fitness means to them and how they view their relationship with fitness.

Whether that is their relationship with food, exercise or themselves, I have helped 1000s of people focus on getting stronger in their mind, body and soul to help them have more increased confidence and self-esteem.

I do this in a variety of ways:

My Blog - www.thegymstarter.com/blog
My Training Program - The Strong and Confident Program
My Books - 27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss

As well as the usual social media channels.

If you would like to find out more about getting stronger then please drop me an email by using the form below:

Have a great day,

Thanks for reading

Coach Adam,

References:

Connolly, M.-L. (2023) Walking more can boost fitness and Mental Health, says Pha, BBC News. BBC. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-65163071 (Accessed: April 10, 2023).
Daily Energy Expenditure Through the Human Life Course | Science (no date). Available at: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abe5017 (Accessed: April 10, 2023).
Author links open overlay panelGisela Sjøgaard and AbstractBackgroundPhysical activity (PA) includes muscle activity during exercise (2016) Exercise is more than medicine: The working age population’s well-being and productivity, Journal of Sport and Health Science. Available at: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2095254616300096 (Accessed: 17 May 2023).

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 14/1/23 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 14/1/23

Easily Lose Weight Without Counting Calories

how to know you are in a calorie deficit without counting calories

In this very website, I have plenty of articles on both sides of the counting calorie conundrum.

(if you want to read those they are at the end of this Blog for your further reading pleasure).

Personally, I am not in favour of counting calories, nor am I against it.

The decision to choose to count calories or not simply comes down to the behaviour patterns and previous dieting history of the person who is trying to figure out whether or not is a good idea to count calories or not.

The list of people who shouldn't be counting calories is:

Anyone who has an eating disorder
Anyone who is a perfectionist
Anyone who suffers with food guilt
Anyone who refuses to eat because it will take them “above their calorie limit”
Anyone who has a history of yo-yo dieting and diet clubs.

If you are in one of those cohorts of people and you are still actively trying to lose weight, then you are in the right place.

If you are not in one of those cohorts of people, but still want to learn more about losing weight…then you are in the right place as well.

Basically…if you are trying to find out more about losing weight…

As always, thank you for being here, and I can’t wait to help you figure this crazy journey out.

Before we progress, you need to be in a calorie deficit to lose weight. This means consuming fewer calories than your metabolism is burning each day, and that can be achieved both through counting calories and without counting calories.

If you need more information on Calorie Deficits then head here.

Table of contents for Easily Lose Weight Without Counting Calories:

Is Calorie Counting the best way to lose weight?
How to be in a Calorie Deficit without counting calories
Signs that you are in a Calorie Deficit
Really Simple Solutions

Is Calorie Counting the Best way to lose weight?

Calorie counting does work.

This study (1) took a cohort of people and found that there was a correlation between consistent trackers and weight loss outcomes:

“Only consistent trackers had significant weight loss (-9.99 pounds), following a linear relationship with consistent loss throughout the year. In addition, the weight loss trend for the rare and inconsistent trackers followed a nonlinear path, with the holidays slowing weight loss and the onset of summer increasing weight loss. These results show the importance of frequent dietary tracking for consistent long-term weight loss success”

But as I mentioned in my introduction if you match any of the cohorts I spoke about, then these results will not be accessible to you.

The other thing I would say is this: calorie counting is the quickest way to know if you are in a calorie deficit. You simply get immediate feedback on what you are eating and provided you have done your calorie calculations correctly, you will know whether or not you are indeed taking the steps to lose weight each day.

If you want to do your calorie calculations then get my calorie calculator sent to your inbox right now.

If you aren’t able to, or just don’t want to count calories, then I will lay out for you exactly how to lose weight within that.

But you will have to meet me half way with regards to the process.

You will need patience.

The only way to know if you are losing weight, for sure, without counting calories, is through consistent work on the process I will outline below, and then comparing month to month at markers that will indicate weight loss - a topic we will get onto later in this blog post.

How to be in a Calorie Deficit without Counting Calories

Over my decade in the fitness industry, I have made many many mistakes. One of those mistakes was asking clients who were contra-indicated to count calories.

In fact, now I am older and wiser, I would argue the vast majority of the people I work with, mainly people just like you, who really want to lose weight, but might also have a very fragile relationship with food, with the scale, with their body image and are low on self-esteem, do not need to count calories.

I am now far less likely to ask a client to count calories when working on their weight loss - and the results I get are just as effective. If not more so, because my clients aren’t reliant on the control that calorie counting gives them, and don’t have to learn to regress.

We go slower to start with, building strong proper foundations, so that they are empowered to be able to stay at a weight that suits them for their whole lives.

In fact, I would also argue, that most people who count calories, lose weight, and then stop counting calories are far more likely to regain their weight, then have to go back to calorie counting to lose it again…and they repeat this process all of their lives.

Also please remember body weight will always fluctuate. It is not a static thing, and in each different phase and aspect of your life different body weights will emerge - and that is ok.

Losing weight without counting calories is possible, but it requires a combination of diet and lifestyle changes to help us make sure that we are getting you into a calorie deficit.

Here are a few tips to help you get started, backed by scientific research.

Let’s start with your dietary changes:

PORTION CONTROL

Portion control is your best friend when it comes to organising your diet into a calorie deficit.

Don't feel like you have to finish everything on your plate: It's okay to leave a little bit of food behind, and it can actually be a good thing to listen to your body's hunger and fullness cues. When your mum told you that you must finish your plate, little did she know that when you grow up, this could have a major impact on your relationship with food? It’s not your mum’s fault, but you must understand that you don’t have to finish your plate as an adult.
Focus on the quality of your food, not just the quantity: Rather than trying to eat less of everything, try to fill your plate with a variety of nutritious foods. Start with Protein, and build your plate around that. One of my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life is to Protein and Veggies at every meal. This will increase fibre and nutrients which will make you feel fuller for longer whilst losing weight.
Be mindful of your snacking: Snacking can add a lot of extra calories to your diet, so it's important to be mindful of what and how much you're eating between meals. The cliche is true, fruits and vegetables are your best friends when it comes to snacking. Try to limit your snacks to two a day between your meals.
Don't be afraid to ask for a to-go box: If you're eating out and the portions are larger than you're used to, don't be afraid to ask for a to-go box and take the rest home for another meal. This is a massive thing in Australia which I had to get used to. In England, you either finish your plate or leave food on there, you hardly ever get a “doggy bag”. But here its quite common practice - and it’s such a good thing to do. It saves on food wastage, it saves you from overeating, and it means you have leftovers for the next day so you are automatically meal prepped.
Don't deprive yourself: It's important to enjoy your food and not feel like you're constantly depriving yourself. If you really want that second serving or dessert, go for it, but try to be mindful of how much you're eating. Remember balance always.
Find what works for you: Everyone is different, so it's important to find what works best for you and your body. Don't be afraid to experiment with different portion sizes and see how you feel.

2. STRUCTURED EATING

The role of structured eating in your diet has astounding benefits from improving your relationship with food as well as helping you get into a calorie deficit.

However, for the purposes of this article, its use is to regulate and stimulate your hunger hormones (2).

By making sure you regulate these hormones (grehlin and leptin) you will be able to avoid the classic “hangry” feeling and therefore not end up eating everything in sight when you get the opportunity to.

By eating in a structured way, your body will no longer guess when it will and will not be fed, and therefore having a much more regular diet will decrease your overall calories not just during the day, but also over the weeks as well.

This study (3) also concluded:

“While no one eating occasion contributes more than any other to excess adiposity, eating more often than three times a day may play a role in overweight and obesity in both younger and older persons”

The structure you need to stick to is:

Breakfast.
Lunch.
Dinner.
Two snacks.
Each meal must fit on one plate.
You should also eat uninterrupted and participate as much as possible in the making and creating of the food.

The other thing to remember with structured eating is that it requires mindful eating as well. This will help you pay attention to your body's hunger and fullness cues, and eat only when you are hungry and stop when you are satisfied. Avoid distractions like TV or phone while eating, as these can cause you to eat more than you need (4). Mindful eating has been shown to be effective for weight loss and the prevention of weight gain (5).

3. WATER INTAKE

Another one of my five awesome rules for fat loss life is the promotion of trying to drink 3 litres of water a day. This can be a shock to the system, to begin with, but build up slowly and you will be on also remember it is a purposefully high target, because if you fall short you are still covered.

Drinking enough water can help you feel full and satisfied, thus helping your hunger cues be quelled, and helping to keep you in a calorie deficit. I always suggest to clients on the Strong and Confident Program to work towards trying to drink 3 litres a day.

A study of 50 adults found that those who drank 375ml or 500 ml of water before a meal lost significantly more weight than those who did not (6).

Now let’s look at some physical changes you might need to make:

SLEEP

The more I write about fitness, the more I am realising that sleep features in every aspect of your fitness journey. Not just for weight loss, but for performance as well.

You have to get enough sleep. However, I am not ignorant of the fact that if you have a young family that simply will not be possible. I appreciate that, and if that is you, then be aware of the impact of sleep, but don’t get stressed about the fact you can’t access enough sleep; just be aware that when things settle down, you should think about addressing this part of your life.

If you are reading this, and you don’t have a young family or a medical reason that you can’t get enough sleep, and you aren’t getting enough sleep then you need to get enough sleep.

Adequate sleep is essential for weight loss and overall health. In fact, it is that important, I would put it as high up on the list of helping you lose weight as being in a Calorie Deficit.

A review of 17 studies found that people who slept 7-9 hours per night had a significantly lower body mass index (BMI) compared to those who slept less (7).

One reason lack of sleep is associated with weight gain is that sleep deprivation can lead to an increase in appetite, particularly for high-calorie, sugary foods. This is because sleep deprivation can lead to an increase in the hunger hormone ghrelin and a decrease in the hormone leptin, which regulate hunger and fullness. As a result, people who don't get enough sleep may feel hungrier and eat more.

In addition to increasing appetite, sleep deprivation can also lead to an increase in the hormone cortisol, which can promote fat storage and weight gain. This is because cortisol is released in response to stress, and sleep deprivation can be a source of stress for the body.

Furthermore, insufficient sleep can lead to a decrease in physical activity and a decrease in the body's ability to burn calories effectively. This is because sleep deprivation can lead to fatigue and decreased energy levels, making it harder for people to be physically active. It is also not uncommon to see a drop in fidgeting and other calorie-burning activities throughout the day, because of tiredness.

Overall, it is important to get enough sleep in order to maintain a healthy weight. The National Sleep Foundation recommends that adults aim for 7-9 hours of sleep per night.

2. STRUCTURED MOVEMENT

As I mentioned above, we need to work on both sides of the energy balance equation to easily create a calorie deficit, especially if you aren’t counting calories.

The most important thing for you to remember when it comes to physical movement, in pursuit of losing weight, is to not view calorie-burning as the reason you are exercising.

Yes. Exercise does burn calories.

No. You don’t have to earn your calories in the gym.

Yes. Exercise is amazing for your overall health.

No. Exercising doesn’t burn as many calories as you would think.

Yes. Exercise is a great tool to help keep you on track dietarily and emotionally with a weight loss goal.

All exercise will help you create a calorie deficit. Notice the word “help”?

The most important aspect of exercise with regards to this is that you chose the exercise you enjoy the most because you will then be far more likely to continue doing it for long enough to see results.

I very recently got this message on Instagram in relation to a workout I give away for free:

how I lost 50 pounds without counting calories

10 steps to lose weight without counting calories

The person who sent me this, was in a phase of not counting calories, although she is quite calorie aware, and she was wanting to begin the journey of feeling her best for her wedding which is in a few weeks (as I write this), and she is about 7 months post-partum.

The results are immense. But for me, the best result isn’t the weight loss she created, its the fact she felt more empowered as a result of exercising, and she is evidently more confident as a result of getting stronger. Its the dream scenario.

The workout she completed was this:

If you want the same strength workout I gave her then just put your email address in here and I will send it to you in a day or two:

Or if you would like a four-week beginner strength training routine for beginners with video tutorials then head here.

Aim for 2-3 workouts a week, which last for about 30-40mins and that make you feel two inches taller when you walk out of the Gym compared to when you walked in, and you will be right where you need to be when it comes to working out.

3. INCREASING YOUR NEAT

You could look up any advice about losing weight across the whole internet, and I promise you that every weight loss plan you find will feature something in relation to your NEAT.

Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

This is the largest portion of your daily caloric burn. It is responsible for burning as many calories as structured movement and how many calories you burn through digestion combined.

Essentially the simplest way it can be measured is by your step count.

But there are other aspects of it as well. When I designed my five awesome rules for fat loss life, I made one of those rules: 10k Steps A Day.

Science has since shown that 10k steps a day are not necessarily needed for improving your health, the figure stands at around 7.5k steps a day if you are only focused on improving your health.

But as you aren’t counting calories, and I am telling you that you can lose weight easily, then we need to put in some targets here.

This is the simplest way to make sure that your step count is right:

Take your previous month’s daily average number.
Multiply it by two.
That is your new step count.
Then after about two weeks, you need to multiply it by two again.
And continue doing this all the way up to 10k steps a day and then keep it there as consistently as possible.

Now if you just don’t have time to fit in that amount of steps a day in, there is another solution. We need you to walk faster. If all you have is the maximum time in your day to do 5k steps a day, then a great way of making that 5k steps as effective as possible for you is that every time you walk, do it with as much purpose and direction as you possibly can.

Don’t dilly-dally. You aren’t strolling, you are walking with the intention to get to your destination as effectively as possible.

Other great ways to increase your NEAT are:

Incorporate more movement into your daily routine by using a standing or adjustable desk.
Take regular stretch breaks throughout the day to loosen up and move your body.
Take the stairs instead of the elevator or escalator whenever possible.
Walk or bike to the store or grocery shop instead of driving or taking public transportation.
Park further away from the grocery shop in the car park.
Every time there is an ad break on TV, climb your stairs three times.
Wear ankle weights when walking.
Take up a new hobby that involves movement such as rock climbing, ice skating or roller skating.
Do some gardening.
Every time there is an ad break on tv, use it as a Dance Break instead.
Never sit down when you are on the phone, always stand or walk.
Take the kids or grandkids to the park and play games or sports with them.
Carry your shopping as opposed to using a trolley.

Walking is your solution to most things. Emotional stress, physical stress, or maybe you just need to find some more energy to help get through the day. You might want to improve the quality of your sleep or even to help you easily lose weight without counting calories, I promise you, walking solves more issues than you will ever thought possible.

How Do You Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit

As I mentioned earlier, counting calories gives you instant feedback on whether or not you are in a calorie deficit.

So if we are taking counting calories away, it is useful to know what other signs you can look for, to get similar feedback on your progress.

Here are the kinds of things I always tell clients to keep aware of to measure their success when they aren’t counting calories:

SCALE WEIGHT

This one is always tricky as many people who aren’t counting calories, likely won’t be the most comfortable with getting on the scales either.

However, if we are directly answering the question of “easily losing weight”, then at some point you will likely check in with your body weight.

Now read this very carefully:

You should only compare your scale weight on a monthly basis, not weekly, to determine if you are in a calorie deficit or not.

You can track daily, or you can track weekly. But from only comparing Day 1 to Day 31 will you know if you are in a Calorie Deficit or not.

This is because scale weight is a fickle fiend and comparing weight loss on a shorter timescale will drive you insane due to all the fluctuations involved.

Please, if you want to look at your scale weight in relation to easily losing weight only compare monthly readings.

2. MEASUREMENTS

These are probably your better friend than scale weight to track your progress. Again, only compare on a monthly basis maybe even a 6-week basis. Another great sign of your measurements changing is feeling different in your clothes - if you feel like they are fitting you better, or you feel like you are wearing them better, then you are probably making an impact on your measurements.

The measurements I ask my clients for, if they are comfortable doing this, are the following:

Neck
Chest
L Bicep
R Bicep
Waist at the Belly Button
Waist 2in below the Belly Button
Waist 2in above the Belly Button
Hips
L Thigh
R Thigh

3. WORK IN PROCESS PICTURES

I don’t call them before or after photos. I don’t call them “progress pictures” either.

Simply because a photo solely looking at your physique, can often cause more issues than it solves. It automatically puts you into a mindset of “the way I look is all that is important”.

And it’s not.

The way you look is one aspect of you, and it is likely one of the last reasons anyone enjoys being with you.

Think of your friends. Are you only friends based on the size of their body? Of course not.

So I like to try to change the narrative of photos. Your work in process pictures are just that, designed to capture your process and the changes you are seeing along your journey.

This could be, photos of you working out, or on walks.

This could be family snaps where you remember not feeling awkward in the photo.

This could be a photo on a night out where you didn’t automatically feel anxious when someone asked for a picture, and you resisted the urge to want to look at it, in case you didn’t like it and wanted it deleted.

These are work in process pictures.

When you engage in a weight loss journey, sure weight loss is the goal, but in truth its the least interesting goal that actually occurs.

Use your photos to celebrate your journey, celebrate your building confidence, celebrate your consistency, celebrate your confidence changing as you progress.

These are all signs of progress too, aside from seeing your belly reduction on two photos that are six weeks apart.

Your physique can and will change. But a photo only focussed on your physique will never capture the internal changes that have occurred to you over time. Get photos that describe your internal monologue as well.

Document that progress.

It’s so much more rewarding.

4. CONSISTENCY

Another incredible sign that you are in a calorie deficit is recording your consistency. Tick off these things:

How regularly you are getting your workouts in
How regularly you are keeping your structure with food
How regularly you feel less guilty about the food you are eating
How regularly you are trying to move away from calling foods “good” and “bad”
How regularly you are getting your steps in
How much water you are drinking
How regularly you are getting 7-8 hours sleep a night

You can do this on a calendar, a tracking app or a journal.

Remember there is a key difference between consistency and perfection. In order to be consistent you need to be hitting your goals and habits 25 days out of 30 in a month.

5. HUNGER

Going to bed and feeling a little hungry is also a good sign that you are in a calorie deficit. At no point in your life do you want to be ravenous, and hunger should be managed relatively well throughout the day, especially if you have a structure with your food.

But going to bed and feeling a little hungry is a good sign that you are in a calorie deficit.

Really Simple Solutions

When I first became a Personal Trainer, one of the firs things my Coach gave me to work on was the concept of KISS.

Keep, It, Simple, Stupid.

And therefore over the years, I have always worked on trying to distil weight loss and fitness into the simplest and most effective messaging I can come up with.

And here is what seems to have stuck:

THE 3, 4, 5 SYSTEM

I remember where I was when I came up with this a few years ago. I was on the Gym Floor with one of my best Australian friends, Ben. I had been training him for nearly a year at this point, and he was aware his life was getting busier again, and it was about to cause havoc on his progress. I could never get Ben to track his food, so I asked him to stick to this.

3 litres of water a day.

4 movement sessions a week; Walking, Workouts and anything else you might enjoy.

5 moments with food every day: 3 meals, two snacks.

Its simplicity gave me so much joy. I then introduced it to one of my online clients in Colorado, doing my Strong & Confident Program and she sent me this as it was her lock screen to keep her on track.

What a beautiful idea.

how to do calorie deficit without counting calories

DAILY AWESOME SALAD

The DAS.

Get your protein source. Add a huge bag of salad and some carby veggies.

Job done.

Do this for lunch each and every day. It’s easy to prep, its cost-effective, and it will do a good job.

BUILD MEALS AROUND PROTEIN

Start with protein.

Then add veggies to your plate.

Then if you look at your meal and still feel like you need something else, add a Carbohydrate source.

Try to aim for 100g of protein a day. This is the equivalent of:

My recommendation to clients is to always start with 100g of protein a day, or if you are vegetarian or vegan then aim for 80g of protein a day.

You can get more complex if you like, but if you don’t want to count calories, then there really isn’t much of a need to past those recommendations.

And always make sure it fits on one plate, as mentioned in the structured eating section of this article.

FIVE AWESOME RULES FOR FAT LOSS LIFE

I have written about these many times.

In a nutshell, they are:

Be in a Calorie Deficit
10k steps a day
7-8 hours sleep a night
Protein and Veggies at every meal
3 litres of water a day

If you want to find out more about how these rules work then head here:

5 Easy Ways To Do A Calorie Deficit Without Working Out

FOLLOW THE DADDY HUMPHREYS PLAN

Here is my Dad and I, out on the Golf Course back in Essex where we used to live together. I since moved to Australia. My Dad was recently diagnosed with Cancer at the age of 67.

He recently went from 80kgs to 75kgs in a matter of about 4 months.

He has never been overweight or really had any body weight concerns. But when he got Cancer, he was told that getting his BMI down a touch would be helpful, and would help him feel better in general.

His Cancer is quite serious, it is Stage 4, and he can only get onto Maintenance drugs to help him, never into full remission or be Cancer free.

But in terms of his treatment, it has all been relatively easy compared to what most people go through with chemotherapy. His side effects have been some hiccoughs, and interrupted sleep and that’s about it. My point is, he didn’t suffer weight loss as a result of his treatment.

He got his bodyweight down through behaviour, none of which was counting calories.

Here is what he did:

how to create a calorie deficit without counting calories

As you can see, it’s a pretty simple, and sensible solution.

The Daddy Humphreys Plan: I wonder if it will sell….

What’s Next…

Well, I am an Online Coach who has helped thousands of people work through the challenges in this article.

And it would be my pleasure to help you too.

My program is personal one-to-one online training called the Strong & Confident Program.

If you have ever wanted to achieve the following:

✅ Escape the constant dread of dieting?

✅ Release the guilt you attach to eating certain types of food?

✅ Learn to stop worrying about “the pesky last few pounds” and focus on all your body can do?

✅ Become truly happy with what your body is and what is capable of?

✅ Enjoy the feeling of being stronger and fitter as opposed to trying to reduce your size all the time?

✅ Achieve all of this and still lose body fat at the same time without huge restrictions and slavery to a fitness regime?

✅ Do it all on your own schedule, in your own way, with a program specifically designed for you?

Then please click on the button below and fill out an application form to start working with me.

Apply To Work Wth Me

If you feel like you need more help learning how to lose weight and release the need for counting calories then you can look through the following articles of mine as well:

Thank you so much for reading my work, and good luck with building a stronger relationship with food.

I cannot wait to see how you go!

Coach Adam

References:

Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Klok, M.D., Jakobsdottir, S. and Drent, M.L. (2007), The role of leptin and ghrelin in the regulation of food intake and body weight in humans: a review. Obesity Reviews, 8: 21-34. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-789X.2006.00270.x
Howarth NC, Huang TT, Roberts SB, McCrory MA, Lin BH. Eating patterns and dietary composition in relation to weight change over 7 y. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2001;73(2):209-218.
Van Walleghen EL, Hogg MM, Bell EA, Rolls BJ. Television viewing increases motivated responding for food and energy intake in adults. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. 2010;91(4):829-835.
Kristeller JL, Hallett CB. An exploratory study of a meditation-based intervention for binge eating disorder. Journal of Health Psychology. 1999;4(3):357-363.
Pre-meal water consumption for weight loss. (2013). Australian Family Physician, 42(7), 478. https://search.informit.org/doi/10.3316/informit.405716872190923

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 12/9/22 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 12/9/22

5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss

This article will be a number of things:

Practical
Easy to implement
Realistic
Balanced

Nutrition is a very complex topic - and within that complexity, someone who is simply searching just to try and make a small change for their health by looking to improve their diet can easily be led off track and left feeling very very confused about all of the conflicting information out there and what it means to “eat healthily” especially when it comes to weight loss.

I will cut through that.

Today, I will tell you easy-to-implement things, to make your diet as simple as possible, and as healthy as possible to help you achieve your goals, leaving you with the knowledge and ability to improve your healthy eating habits.

I would also love to invite you to join my Free Facebook Group:

JOIN NOW

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: 5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss

The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?
Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits
What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits?
- Structured Eating
- No Black or White Thinking
- Increase Protein & Vegetables
- Healthy Snacks
- Plenty of Water

The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?

Habits are the building blocks of change and if losing weight is your goal, then change is what is required.

Changing something so integral to your existence like your diet is also a really hard thing to do - and to make sure that change is long-lasting and effective enough to help you reach your goals comes down to your ability to implement habitual change.

The reason “healthy” eating habits are so important isn’t that you should eat “healthy” all the time - in fact, you really shouldn’t do that - its because if you have habitually created the “healthy” eating if it is an automated process in your life, then when you feel like you have “fallen off the wagon” or “skipped on your diet” then getting back on track is the easiest thing possible.

As you know exactly what to do and how to do it.

Another importance of creating and having “healthy” eating habits is that helps you to stop focussing on only the negative aspects of what you are doing. It is so easy to beat yourself up for eating in an “unhealthy” way when you feel like that is all you do.

This creates a negative spin within you that can constantly feel like you will never be able to turn around, and therefore the cycle goes on and on now not only is your physical health decreasing, but so is your mental health.

By having automation in your day, covering your bases if you will, it makes the more enjoyable foods feel less significant, in the bigger picture of your life, and therefore it reduces any guilt you may have from eating the more “unhealthy” foods.

I want to help make sure that you are doing the best you can, with what you have available to you.

I also want to make sure that you have the ability to keep your diet in a place that dones’t swing from one extreme to the other all of the time, because when that happens you actually make no progress at all - my goal is to help you iron out the creases so that progress is achievable for you - and the habits I lay out in this article are important to make sure that is exactly what happens to you.

And then you will make the progress you desire.

Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits

You may have noticed that in this article so far I have put parenthesis around the words healthy and unhealthy.

This is because I never like being dogmatic when it comes to your nutrition - and to simply say that this is healthy and that is unhealthy, with no further context, could be misleading for someone.

I think we can all agree that vegetables are healthy.

Personally, I happen to know that Fruit is also healthy.

But believe me, there are people out there who would happily tell you otherwise.

I would also put forth an argument that a Pizza, a Donut or a Birthday Cake can be healthy when you view it in the correct context.

For example, if you are at a Birthday Party, and they serve your favourite Red Velvet Cake, everyone around you is enjoying it, and you happen to have said “No” because you view cake as unhealthy food, that is going to have an impact on your enjoyment of the occasion.

Food is community.

Food is family.

Food is nourishment.

Food is emotional.

Food is simply not as simple as healthy or unhealthy.

Food is not one thing or the other.

What might be healthy for the soul, might not be healthy for the body and vice versa. I have known many people in my life who have created extremely unhealthy bodies by only eating healthy food.

There will always be debates and arguments around what is healthy to eat and what is unhealthy to eat - and to be quite frank - I just think these waste peoples time.

Arguing over the effect of Gluten, Fructose or how to control your Insulin is actually nutritionists and personal trainers just trying to show off how big their brain is.

Whenever someone I follow or am engaged in conversation with about nutrition starts talking about having an extreme stance on one aspect of their diet, cutting out sugar or carbohydrates, for example, my respect for them dies away immediately.

And yours should too.

Because these people aren’t trying to help you, they are trying to convert you.

They have never walked a day in your shoes, and to simply say that “sugar is killing you” is not going to actually help you resolve what you need to resolve in your diet, as it will just cause more guilt and frustration within you.

I will now share with you 5 things you can do to really improve your eating habits in a healthy way - they may not be what you was expecting to see, but believe me, if your goal is to improve your health and to lose weight, or if your goal is just one of those options…

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Structured Eating

This is front and centre for a reason.

You probably weren’t expecting the first habit that you need to work on is in fact eating more regularly.

I know I too would be surprised if I Googled “What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits?” then I would not expect to see this as number one. I would expect it to be something simple like “eat less processed foods”.

However, without structure, everything else falls apart. You cannot build a house on sand, and you equally cannot build healthier eating habits on a poor structure.

Not only will a better structure improve your diet overall, but it will also improve your relationship with food as well.

There is a very common denominator with people I work with online and in person, who have a very keen desire to lose weight, and they very often have no structure in place with what and how they are eating.

They are simply winging it.

This has a couple of knock-on effects:

They have absolutely no idea how many calories they are eating - despite saying “I eat really healthy”
They react more emotionally to food.
They aren’t able to see that their overconsumption of food in isolated moments is related to the constant missing of meals.
They end up frustrated and walking down the path of looking for fat burners and other quick fix solutions.

Lets draw a line under it all.

And get you focussed on having a proper structure with your meals.

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - No Black or White Thinking

Call it what you want.

Diachotamus thinking.

Good food.

Bad food.

Black and white thinking.

Basically stop looking at your food in these terms.

Food doesn’t have a moral value. Calling your apple good, and a banana bad is the same as calling your sofa good, or your bed bad. It makes no logical sense.

When you label foods in this way you punch a hole in your ability to find balance and happiness in your diet, and therefore compromise your own happiness.

It also ceases your ability to actually lose weight.

As a study from the Journal of Health Psychology [1] points out:

“Results showed that eating-specific dichotomous thinking (dichotomous beliefs about food and eating) mediates the association between restraint eating and weight regain. We conclude that holding dichotomous beliefs about food and eating may be linked to a rigid dietary restraint, which in turn impedes people’s ability to maintain a healthy weight.”

When you assign morality to food, you are doing a number of things. Firslty you are putting those who eat in a way you view as “good” onto a Moral High Ground that you know you naturally can’t attian. Then when you eat foods you view as “bad” you are not only beneath others in society, you are also putting yourself down and dmagaing your self esteem.

You are also likely to be viewing foods as good and bad through the framing of “Diet Culture”, as in:

“If I eat good foods, I will lose weight”

But as the study above shows, that is actually counter itnuative, as it leads to an over restriction, then an over indulgence - perpetuating binge eating episodes and disorders.

Making the elusive weight loss even more elusive for you.

To help overcome this, there a few things you can do:

View your diet as a whole, don’t just focus on one or two aspects - keep a wide angle lens on and give equal respect and objectivity to everything you eat.
Listen to your hunger and fullness cues, try to tune into your body more, and question the feelings you have.
Ask yourself where your hunger or lack of satisfaction from eating has come from…are you really wanting more food or are you in need of human connection?
Look at all foods as nourishing. Nourishing your health and your body, nourishing your emotions, nourishing your mind. Every food can nourish you, and ask yourself what needs nourishing right now…and seek foods to that end.
Prioritise non weight loss based goals - like getting stronger and more confident (wink wink nudge nudge: The Strong & Confident Program).

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Increase Protein and Vegetables

This is one of my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life.

Well the actual rule is “Protein and Veggies at every meal”

But increasing them from where they are right now will more than likely do you no harm at all, and it will indeed increase your likelihood to lose weight.

This occurs for a number of reasons, the first being, that the extra fibre in your system from the Vegetables will indeed keep you fuller for longer. Secondly, you can eat a lot of Vegetables in terms of volume, and take on relatively few calories compared to other foods.

For example, 100g of Carrots has 41 calories in it, compared to 100g of Chicken Breast which contains 165kcal.

My point here is that you will feel more full, and take on fewer calories, allowing you to adhere to your calorie deficit in a much more sustainable way.

Protein is one of the most satiating macronutrients there is.

As a study published in the BioMed Central Journal [2] states:

“The hierarchy for macronutrient-induced satiating efficiency is similar to that observed for diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT): protein is the most satiating macronutrient followed by CHOs and fat, which is least satiating”

Again this will lead you to feel fuller for longer, and more satisfied after eating as well as helping you recover from your exercise sessions in a much more efficient way.

For my clients on the Strong & Confident Program, I work on them increasing Protein to 100g a day if they are a meat-eater, and 80g a day if they are vegetarian - like me!

One of the best ways to implement this piece of advice is by having a DAS.

A “Daily Awesome Salad”

Just get your protein source, add it to some salad bag of food - and the job is done!

If you do this every day you will soon start reaping the benefits in terms of losing weight and building a more healthy eating habit.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT STAYING FULLER FOR LONGER BY READING MY BLOG POST THAT HAS

HELPED TENS OF THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE WITH THIS EXACT ISSUE

How To Stay Full In A Calorie Deficit Without Being Hungry

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Healthy Snacks

If I had a pound or dollar for every time I get asked the following question:

“What healthy snacks can I have?”

And I look at the person who has asked me that question and simply say:

“You know the answer”

They look at me bewildered, and confused - because surely it’s not that simple is it?

And sadly, it is. It really is.

What is wrong with fruit being a snack?

In terms of a “snack” fruit literally ticks all of the boxes. It is convenient, it is cost-effective, it is filling and it is relatively low calorie compared to other kinds of snacks.

I also don’t know anyone who has food guilt over eating a banana. But eating a bag of crisps or a doughnut might trigger you. It doesn’t have to…but it might.

You can snack on vegetables too, however, they take more preparation and have a much higher barrier to entry to execute on.

I know it’s not exciting, I know it’s not sexy and I know when someone asks for a healthy snack they are wanting something like a Bounce Protein Ball or some kind of superior Kale Chip.

But again, they are very expensive and they won’t fill you up as much as an apple or banana.

There are plenty of exciting things you can do with fruit as well - if you have the time.

Other healthy snack ideas could be:

Trail Mix: grab a mix of any nuts, seeds, dried fruits savoury mix-ins like chickpeas, and just put it all together. The combinations here are endless.

Nuts: Be careful with nuts, as they are quite high in calories and may hinder your weight loss if over-consumed - and they are very easy to over-consume, but they do have many other benefits as well.

Seaweed Snacks - my fiancee eats seaweed all the time - and some of them are really tasty, but they don’t fill you up much.

The bottom line with “healthy snacks” is that if you want to avoid the obvious in terms of fruit, the preparation of these snacks can be quite a time-consuming exercise, and that negates the efficacy of the “snack”. Also, just because something is healthy doesn’t always make it the best option for weight loss, so always view these snacks in the realm of your calorie allowances.

Here are some of my favourite snacks from recipe books I send out to my clients:

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Plenty of Water

This again features in my Five Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people are under-hydrated when they are trying to lose weight.

And it never ceases to amaze me how many people don’t recognise the amazing benefits of water in their ability to eat in a more healthy way for their diet.

I always ask my clients on the Strong & Confident Program to drink around three litres of water a day, which is quite a lot, but there are very few drawbacks to drinking enough water.

And that compared to the drawbacks of being dehydrated makes it well worth focussing on.

Water helps with cognitive function, muscle function, digestive function, complexion, joint function and energy levels throughout the day.

Water also has zero calories in it, therefore in terms of weight loss, it is really useful.

When you are dehydrated you will feel low on energy, might have a headache and generally won’t feel your best, which will lead you to consume more calories.

Don’t go from zero water to three litres immediately, build up slowly, and you may begin to notice the benefits on less water than three litres a day.

5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss

And that’s it…

Remember, to lose weight, you must be in a Calorie Deficit and to improve your eating habits you need to move away from the thoughts of certain foods being good and others being bad.

Having a “healthy” diet is different to everyone, but balance is the key to all things, and that means something different to all people.

One of the best things you can do to make your eating habits more healthy will be to stop trying to live up to the expectation of healthy eating you see on Social Media, and making sure you work hard on allowing your diet to work in the best way for your life.

And as always if you have any questions you only have to ask me.

To be able to do that don’t forget to send me a Friend Request by filling out the form below, and then you can email me your questions.

It would be my pleasure to answer them.

You will also get my book “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss” sent to you for free.

I hope you found this article useful and that my tips help you improve your eating habits.

I cannot wait to see you again soon…

Coach Adam

References:

Palascha A, van Kleef E, van Trijp HC. How does thinking in Black and White terms relate to eating behavior and weight regain? J Health Psychol. 2015 May;20(5):638-48. doi: 10.1177/1359105315573440. PMID: 25903250.
Pesta DH, Samuel VT. A high-protein diet for reducing body fat: mechanisms and possible caveats. Nutr Metab (Lond). 2014 Nov 19;11(1):53. doi: 10.1186/1743-7075-11-53. PMID: 25489333; PMCID: PMC4258944.

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 30/3/22 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 30/3/22

How To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps

How To Stop Counting Calories Obsessively

You might think that my choice of image for this article is an odd one.

But by the end of you reading this, I promise it will become clear.

I am writing this because I got this gorgeous question from one of my one-to-one clients on the Strong and Confident Program.

Firstly, the fact that my client feels like she is personally battling this, means that there are probably millions of others out there battling with it as well.

It’s normal to feel scared about wanting to stop counting calories.

So my first point is, if you are here reading this, you are not alone.

You are here because you are struggling, and you want to find a release…this Article will provide that release from counting calories obsessively.

An awful lot of people when they are struggling feel lonely.

So please don’t.

To help stop you from feeling lonely, it would be awesome if you wanted to become my friend.

As your friend, I will send you some things. Links to my podcasts, an opportunity to work with me, some educational material, and a few books. and workout programs and probably the odd story about me, and my cats Nala and Simba.

If you want to chat more, please just send me a friend request by filling out this form:

My face now we are friends:

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: How To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps

Does Calorie Counting Work?
Should You Stop Counting Calories?
Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting
The Process Behind Stopping Calorie Counting
A Little Pep Talk

You can listen to the audio version of this Blog Post on my Podcast: The Fitness Solution

You can watch the video version of this Blog Post on my YouTube Channel:

Does Calorie Counting Work?

It wouldn’t take you long to flick through my Blog Posts and see that I regularly give out advice to help people learn how to manage counting calories and how to make it more effective.

This is because if your goal is weight loss or weight gain - counting calories can work.

But that doesn’t mean it will always work.

And it doesn’t mean that it is the best strategy for everyone.

If you look at the titles of my posts:

It would be fair to assume that I am indeed in favour of this as a strategy. But if you read the posts and look deeper, you will see the great variance and nuance in my message around Counting Calories and their relative success for you in your Weight Loss goals.

This morning I was talking to a Physician who specialises in Type 2 Diabetes Healthcare - and we got into a glorious discussion about what is optimal healthcare for these clients.

The conclusion we both had was:

You have to let the person decide what science you are going to use.

There is Science out there that clearly shows Calorie Counting can help manage body composition [1]:

“Over 3 times as many Consistent Trackers as Inconsistent Trackers achieved ≥ 5% weight loss at 3 months (48 vs. 13%) and at 6 months (54 vs. 15%; ps < .001). Though causality cannot be determined by the present study, tracking weight and/or diet nearly every day [on a Commercial App] per week for 12 weeks a commercial app may serve as an effective strategy for weight loss. Strategies are needed to promote greater consistency in tracking.”

There is also science that shows truly how damaging counting calories can be. Damaging for a relationship with food, relationship with body image, relationship with social occasions - and this damage is real - I’ve worked with more than enough people to know that to be true.

This study [2] analysed 5.5k posts on community forums and three mobile food journals in relation to the difficulties with food tracking.

It found posts summing up these emotions of those who engaged in this behaviour:

Food journalers report feelings of shame, judgment, or obsession associated with current designs. P6 reported journaling “made me feel guilty sometimes”, while P27 noted a lack of positive feedback: “I always felt guilty when I ate too much, and there wasn't that much pride when I was under my goal.”
“Sometimes I feel like not logging things because I know it’s really unhealthy”
”It made me too focused and obsessive about what I was eating”
“It was more of an on the way to an eating disorder thing than anything else (tried to keep calories extremely low)”
“I think I was hesitant to do the logging if not alone”
“I had more of a problem with eating out at a friend’s house because I didn’t want to ask for ingredients or mention that I was logging calories”

Many of those feelings I can imagine you relate to. Which is why you are here.

The great tragedy in all of this is that my dear friend, “the fitness industry” has painted this as a black and white scenario.

Counting Calories = losing weight. Regardless of the cost.

And with all behaviour there is a cost attached - and you must always ask yourself when engaging in behaviour whether the cost is worth it.

But the good old “fitness industry” doesn’t tell you this. It doesn’t understand that everybody is different and you need a unique path for you.

It just draws a line from where you are to where you want to be and expects you to follow it.

Counting Calories has worked for many people. If it didn’t Under Armour would never have bought My Fitness Pal.

But its greatest failure is its inability to screen its users to actually check to see whether or not they should be counting calories.

Because there is a whole host of people, people more than likely just like you, who should not have engaged in tracking calories, to begin with.

So here I am. A humble fella with just his keyboard as his weapon to try and help you reverse that damage and show you a way out of this tunnel you feel like you are in.

Take my hand… Let’s find you a way out.

Should You Stop Counting Calories?

As I mentioned previously, many people can count calories and use it as a perfectly decent way to manage their intake.

But many others cannot.

This doesn't mean that one person is superior to the other, it simply means that there are no black and white rules in fitness, other than you must always treat each and every case on its individual merits.

This also doesn't mean that if you don’t count calories, you can’t achieve your goals.

Believe me, you really can. In fact, I would say 80% of my clients on The Strong and Confident Program don’t count their calories, and we manage their nutritional needs in other ways - more on this later.

As I write this, it is very important to me that I am clear on who should not be counting calories, so that you can judge whether you fall into one of these categories, and can therefore learn how to move away from this obsessive behaviour.

Have you ever been diagnosed with an Eating Disorder?

If the answer to this question is yes. Then you should not be counting calories.

Period.

No ifs. No buts.

End of discussion really.

You must remember with every behaviour there is a cost attached, and the cost attached to counting calories if you have ever had a diagnosed eating disorder - or suspect you might have an eating disorder - just isn’t worth it.

It’s not worth the cost to your Mental Health and physical health.

Knowing the calories in your food is not worth the negative effects that can occur from counting calories.

This study [3] looked into this very topic and found:

“Of the app [MyFitnessPal] users, 73% stated that the app had at least somewhat contributed to their eating disorder, with 30% reporting that the app very much contributed to their eating disorder. Additionally, the more likely an individual was to report that usage of the calorie tracker had contributed to their eating disorder, the more likely they were to have higher eating disorder symptoms”

If you are already susceptible to an eating disorder, tracking your calories is only going to re-open that pandora’s box again.

And believe me, no physique goal is worth that.

Are you a perfectionist?

If you have perfectionist tendencies, then tracking your calories is not a good idea as it will create too much stress in your life.

Calories aren’t perfect.

The calories that are published on packets can be up to 20% inaccurate.

This study found the following:

“Measured energy values exceeded label statements by 8% on average in pre-packaged convenience meals (12), which is slightly higher but consistent with the label disparity of 4.3% in packaged snack foods. Also consistent with this study, most products in our sample fell within the allowable limit of 20% over the label calories per Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations”

Added to that, all the clever equations we use in Fitness to help calculate your Maintenance Calories, for it is from there where we can establish your Calorie Window, is just the best guess.

Figuring out your weight, height and age, and then asking you to subjectively rate your movement each week in terms of intensity is not going to be accurate.

This is why when you use many different Calorie Calculators, you get different numbers. Whether it’s the Katch McArdle Method, or the Mifflin St. Jeor neither are perfect.

This is exactly why I work with a Calorie Window with all of my clients. I don’t need their calories to be perfect, I need them to be in a range that will work.

Therefore if you are a perfectionist in an imperfect set up you will find untold stress in trying to get it right all the time.

You can’t get it right. But you don’t need to. Comprehending the imperfect system will help you be less obsessive with counting calories.

Do you feel guilty after eating certain foods?

If you can’t eat a Krispy Kreme doughnut without feeling like you have to go to the gym for an hour to “burn off those calories” then you need to start creating space between what you eat and that immediate feedback on the calories involved.

No good can come from eating something and then chastising yourself by logging it immediately, and to see that the calories are more than expected which compounds all of those feelings of shame and guilt around what you enjoyed.

Even though you see tracking and logging your foods as a way of working towards your goals, it is actually counter-intuitive if you experience this guilty feeling. This is because it will slowly rot away your self-esteem. You will feel completely undermined, and you will be left with three choices:

Spend countless hours in the gym time and time again to punish yourself for the food you ate - damaging your relationship with your body and exercise.
Stop tracking the foods that make you feel this way and therefore feel like a failure every time you have them - and be aware you are “lying” to yourself about your caloric intake - damaging your sense of self-worth.
Give up on your whole fitness journey period - again leading you down a path of feeling like a failure and thinking you will never succeed at changing what you want to change.

None of those options are ideal for your long-term success.

Do you refuse to eat when you are hungry because you are worried about going over your Calories?

Calories are a best guess.

If you are refusing to eat when you are genuinely hungry because you might be over for a day - then you have a problem.

Hunger can mean many things - not all hunger is a desire for food.

Hunger can mean you are bored, you need a hug, or you are in need of a connection other than for food.

But there is an element of hunger that is related to the need for food - if you are denying that hunger too much in order to stay within your calories, and you are doing it too often, then there is no way you will be able to keep that up.

The hunger will win - and then you will again give into that physiological feeling - perpetuating your feelings of failure either way.

Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting

You are probably sitting there thinking this all so far makes sense but how on earth do you keep working on your goals when you have no idea what your intake is?

But there are many ways to manage a calorie deficit without having to track your calories.

A Study called: The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time [3] concluded that:

“Consistent trackers had significant weight loss (-9.99 pounds), following a linear relationship with consistent loss throughout the year. In addition, the weight-loss trend for the rare and inconsistent trackers followed a nonlinear path, with the holidays slowing weight loss and the onset of summer increasing weight loss. These results show the importance of frequent dietary tracking for consistent long-term weight loss success”

However, when you look at how they were asked to track their dietary intake you find a great nuance that doesn’t involve MyFitness Pal.

They managed this long-term weight loss by:

Maintain daily food journals and physical activity records;
Reduce portion sizes;
Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar;
Increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products;
Weigh themselves frequently and at least weekly

They each worked with a Health Coach and attended interactive sessions designed to educate them on nutrition and exercise adherence.

Strategy 1: Food Journals

The food journal in the study above could well have been on MyFitness Pal. But it doesn't have to be on there exclusively.

A Food Journal can just be writing a record of what you ate and when you ate it. No Calories but just the foods.

For example:

I'm Scared To Stop Counting Calories Obsessively

I chose this diary as an example because I love the “Starbucks” comment.

I do think that with Food Journals if you can also document an emotion along with the food you are eating it would be really helpful. It just needs to be a sentence, explaining how you were feeling at the time and how that led. to you eating what you had.

For example:

Porridge with peanut butter - was a little tired but wanted to have a good breakfast.
Coffee - I was tired, and I love starting my day with coffee.
Plant Kitchen No Chicken Indian Wrap - I thought this was a good lunch option, but I was a little short on time because of my work schedule, but I enjoyed it.

By doing this you begin to create objectivity between your food and emotions. You can begin to see how your emotions are impacting your food choices and the more information you gather in this way the more you can see patterns and get insights into how your emotional state affects your caloric choices.

Strategy 2: A Structured Diet

I come across an awful lot of people who use Calorie Counting as a way to try and control emotional and binge eating. But as we have seen from the studies, this can be very counterintuitive.

A lot of calories do come into your diet when:

You don’t eat because you are “busy”
You restrict too much and then binge.

This is where a structured diet will have huge benefits. The two issues are essentially the same.

Just yesterday, I had a banana for breakfast and some toast at about 07:30 am - not a huge amount of calories for me - then I didn’t eat again until I was in a restaurant at about 12:30. But by that point, I could feel my blood sugar levels dropping, I was getting anxious and was beyond hungry. The second I sat in the restaurant, before my lunch, I asked for a Croissant with Nutella in it. Just because I was ravenous.

I then ate my full lunch too.

That is an extra lot of calories that could have been managed a lot better by having a much better breakfast.

I have worked with many people who vow that they don’t eat that much, I then ask them to start eating breakfast…and they start to achieve their goals.

As this study [4] backs up:

“Eating breakfast is a characteristic common to successful weight loss maintainers and may be a factor in their success.”

When you don’t eat at regular times during the day it creates moments where you overeat at mealtimes.

By eating in a more structured way you protect yourself against that.

In many ways - you will feel like you are eating more - and yet you are actually consuming less.

How To Structure Your Diet

I have one method: 3 Meals. 2 Snacks.

Each meal must fit on one plate - as much food as you want - but it must only be on one plate.

If you have an alcoholic beverage the night before - try and take away a snack the next day - but this isn’t essential.

Remember:

“We find freedom within a structure, without structure all we have is chaos”

— Adam Berry

The other important aspect of structured dieting is actually spending time with your food. Don’t eat in a distracted manner, if possible. As in, don’t work as you eat, don’t watch TV as you eat, and certainly don’t scroll social media as you eat.

I fully respect and understand the issues with this advice for parents with young children - you are exempt - just do what you need to do to get through dinner.

But allowing yourself a moment of self-love, self-care and nourishment when you eat is going to help you improve that relationship with food, and will help stop the mindless eating.

It is all about being more mindful, not mindless.

Strategy 3: Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life

I came up with this for my clients when I first became a personal trainer. It was more instinct than science, and since then science has very much backed up what I put in place.

These Five Rules are very simple:

Be in a Calorie Deficit

and the others help you achieve that, without counting calories:

2. Three Litres of Water A Day

3. Protein and Veggies at every meal

4. 10,000 steps a day

5. 7-8 hours of sleep a night

I explain all of them in much more detail right here:

5 Easy Ways To Do A Calorie Deficit Diet without Working Out

Or you can watch this:

Strategy 4: Portions and Food Choice

Now within 3 Meals, 2 Snacks it would be wise to still follow some guidelines for better nutrition. It’s important we don’t overthink this because overthinking this can lead you back to that desire to track what you are doing to make sure you are getting it “right”.

I recommend Protein and Vegetables at every meal.

In fact, some meals I have personally, are only protein and veggies.

You are allowed Carbs - probably more Carbs than you think you should have - in fact, Carbohydrates will be the fair majority of your diet - in the forms of Fruit, Vegetables, and Complex Grains.

Remember, no one ever gained weight from eating too many fruits and vegetables.

The fact that within 3 meals, and 2 snacks you are only allowed your food to fit onto one plate is designed to help control portions.

When it comes to Carbohydrates, portion control is the issue. They are so easy to overeat.

This is why I always recommend building your plate of food with Protein first, Vegetables second, then Carbohydrates last.

But it is also why you should make sure your food fits onto one plate because then you know you are controlling portions in a more optimal way.

When you look at the study I referenced earlier one of the points that led to more successful weight loss was:

“Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar”

There are a number of other studies that back this up. In this study [5] participants had maintained a weight loss of at least 13.6kg for at least 1 year, and they found that:

“Successful maintainers of weight loss reported continued consumption of a low-energy and low-fat diet.”

The tasty food isn’t the Carbohydrates. It’s a very real combination of carbohydrates, Fat and Salt.

Like with potato chips. Let’s take the greatest potato chips ever made:

How To Stop Counting Calories Without Gaining Weight

These have:

123kcals, 6.5g of Fat which is 58.5kcal and 14.3g of carbohydrate which is 57.2kcal.

If you want to have a bag of chips, then please do. But as you do. consider the portion size a lot more and by doing that you will naturally improve your calorie management.

The Process Behind Stopping Counting Calories Obsessively

Everything I have so far said in this article will help you stop calorie counting because it is all designed to help take your fear away.

Because I get it.

You are stuck in this loop of;

“I don’t want to count calories anymore, but I am scared of having no control over what I am doing”

And the thought of just not logging into MyFitness Pal and not tracking that one carrot and teaspoon of Hummus you ate a 20:30 when you were at a friend’s house is just too scary.

So there are a couple of things you can do to help ween yourself off tracking your calories.

Make Sure You Have A Structured Diet

I am not going to go through the structure again;

***Cough***

Three Meals, two Snacks

***Cough***

But I do want to make sure I emphasise how truly important this is to your success away from tracking calories obsessively.

Track One Meal A Day

Pick a meal - any meal - and just track that each day. Then over time, you will see that you are still making progress by only tracking one-fifth of your intake, and you will show yourself that everything else you have implemented aside from tracking food is working.

Go into an Education Mindset

I believe this should be the case for anyone who starts tracking anyway - but sadly very few people set themselves up in this manner. When you started tracking your calories, rather than using it as a way to control your intake, you should have used it as a way to educate yourself about your intake.

And this difference takes away the shame.

It adds in the aspect of investigation and exploration, two very important themes in how I work with clients.

Therefore if you are trying to stop tracking calories obsessively, give yourself a time frame of a month or two to use the tracking as a way of learning, a tool for you to create a knowledge and database in your head about what you usually eat and how that all plays into your goals.

Tracking your calories should only ever be used as an educational tool - not a tool to control you, and the more you learn the more freedom you will find over time.

Make Sure You Are Doing “The Work”

Many people use calorie counting to control their intake because it gives them a sense of working towards their goals. They almost use it as a way to make up for doing the other work that is required.

They aren’t going to the gym, they aren’t getting their steps in, they aren’t making mindful and healthful choices with their food and so they can use tracking as a way to either help beat themselves up for not doing the other work, or they see tracking their intake as “the work”.

A great way to make sure you feel comfortable in moving away from tracking your calories is to make sure that you are executing a well-thought-through plan each day that helps you move towards your goals.

I am by no means saying you can give up tracking and do nothing else and still achieve your goals. Implementing the rest of your plan will help reduce your anxiety about stopping counting your calories.

A Little Pep Talk: Life After Apps

The reason you are so nervous about giving up calorie tracking is that you are scared of undoing your progress, or not making any at all.

This comes down to a trust issue.

MyFitness Pal is very clever in the sense that it gets you to put your trust into it and you therefore attach your success to the app.

Its a very good marketing strategy. But it comes at great cost. Great cost at your relationship with food, and great cost at the expense of your confidence in yourself.

To give up calorie counting. you have to teach yourself to believe in yourself.

You have to build your confidence to be able to stand on your own two feet.

You have to trust that you are able. You have to trust that you can do this. You have to trust that you won’t “screw up again”.

And I know that you can do that.

As this article draws to an end, I want you to use this as your guide, I want you to start working on the concepts laid out in it, and I want you to start rebuilding your trust in yourself.

You deserve food freedom.
You deserve unconditional permission to eat and enjoy your food.

You deserve the balance that can be found between those two concepts and your goals. You deserve self-love and self-trust.

You deserve self-empathy and compassion.

I started this Article with a text from one of my clients who gets one-to-one coaching from me on the Strong & Confident Program.

I would also like to finish with what she put in her weekly report to me the other week.

There are four weeks between the first text I showed you and the one I am about to show you:

She has put in the work to get to this point. She has implemented behaviours and actions that have bought balance into her life.

Those behaviours have allowed her to begin to release the toxic control that counting calories can have.

Set and Keep Promises To Yourself

If you want help developing a system where you can rebuild that trust in yourself. Rebuild your confidence and develop your ability to know that you are doing the things that will work towards your goals then I would suggest starting with getting a few things written down and laid out for you immediately so that you can have a system which supports you.

It started with this Google Form right here:

The First Step To Building Your Confidence

What’s Next?

I hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about your struggles at the moment.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work, it really does mean a lot to me to have you here.

I also have some other articles you might find useful to help you navigate scale weight and your relationship with it:

It would also be a delight if you wanted to join my Facebook Group. It’s a safe space for anyone who would like some free help with empowering their Fitness Journey. I can’t wait to have you in there.

Join Now

References:

Patel ML, Brooks TL, Bennett GG. Consistent self-monitoring in a commercial app-based intervention for weight loss: results from a randomized trial. J Behav Med. 2020 Jun;43(3):391-401. doi: 10.1007/s10865-019-00091-8. Epub 2019 Aug 8. PMID: 31396820.
Cordeiro F, Epstein DA, Thomaz E, Bales E, Jagannathan AK, Abowd GD, Fogarty J. Barriers and Negative Nudges: Exploring Challenges in Food Journaling. Proc SIGCHI Conf Hum Factor Comput Syst. 2015 Apr;2015:1159-1162. doi: 10.1145/2702123.2702155. PMID: 26894233; PMCID: PMC4755274.
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Wyatt HR, Grunwald GK, Mosca CL, Klem ML, Wing RR, Hill JO. Long-term weight loss and breakfast in subjects in the National Weight Control Registry. Obes Res. 2002 Feb;10(2):78-82. doi: 10.1038/oby.2002.13. PMID: 11836452.
Shick SM, Wing RR, Klem ML, McGuire MT, Hill JO, Seagle H. Persons successful at long-term weight loss and maintenance continue to consume a low-energy, low-fat diet. J Am Diet Assoc. 1998 Apr;98(4):408-13. doi: 10.1016/S0002-8223(98)00093-5. PMID: 9550162.

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 13/3/22 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 13/3/22

How To Get Past and Fix A Weight Loss Plateau

will a weight loss plateau go away on its own

I absolutely love this image.

Because in one fell swoop it has summed up this horrible term that the Fitness Industry has perpetuated over and over and over again as a negative happening.

The Weight Loss Plateau.

Just the word plateau is horrible to say - “plateauuuuuuuuu….”. And the connotations of what it means are even worse:

If you are in a Plateau - you probably think:

You are failing
You are never going to reach “your goal”
You need to try something new
You chose the wrong path
You can’t seem to “crack” it
That everyone else knows something you don’t.

And not one single one of those feelings is true.

I can promise you that.

In this article, I am going to take you through How To Get Past and Fix A Weight Loss Plateau - and I almost guarantee it isn’t going to be what you were expecting.

Which is exciting - but not as exciting as what I am about to offer you.

I want to be your friend.

As your friend - I will obviously stay in touch, send you things, some educational, some thoughtful, and probably some that are a bit near the mark - but hey ho - I think that is the hallmark of a beautiful friendship: balance.

If you would like to be my friend also then please send me a friend request right here:

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR HOW TO GET PAST AND FIX A WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU:

What is a weight loss plateau?
Why do weight loss plateaus occur?
How does scale weight actually work?
How to actually get past your weight loss plateau

What Is A Weight Loss Plateau?

If you’re in one…replace the word “fetch” with scale weight - and this GIF sums it up pretty well.

A weight-loss plateau (urgh) is when your body weight seems to have stopped going down on the scale - even though you have changed very little in your behaviour compared to when it was coming down.

It is normally regarded as a temporary stalling of scale weight.

There was a study done in 2021 called: Management Of Weight Loss Plateau [1].

In this study they define weight loss and a weight loss plateau thus:

“Studies comparing different diets have shown that a similar degree of weight loss can be achieved in an 8 to 12-week period, as long as a caloric deficit is achieved.[1] However, when looking at individuals in the longer-term, 24-weeks and beyond, only about 10 to 20% of those individuals successfully maintain their weight loss”

This doesn't mean they successfully maintain the weight they got to - this means the actual stats of the scale falling.

It also goes on to say:

“A misconception to beginners attempting to lose weight is that the process is linear. Therefore, one can expect that weight loss will occur more rapidly in the early stages. Still, then in the coming weeks, the weight may stay steady or even slightly increased despite maintaining the established calorie deficit”

This sets us up nicely for the rest of this article.

Why Do Weight Loss Plateaus Occur?

This is a very loaded question because as I always say “everybody is different” and every body is different.

And the solution to a weight loss plateau is likely not one sole thing for each person.

However, the most important point to this question is not a physical thing.

It’s not “your calories need to come down” or “you need to do more exercise”

It’s a psychological point that needs to be made - and it is so very important that I am putting it front and centre of this article.

Why do weight loss plateaus occur?

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But, I always knew there would be something that comes along that I just think needed fleshing out f

What a fantastic morning we had @windyacresfarm_ learning all about how to look after Bees! 🐝

The course was amazing, and Alicia was so welcoming to us all!

I’m a little scared about getting some Bees into our hive, but now at least I feel

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Well I feel pretty cool these days. Not only can I take a dope photo.

But I have a beautiful wife too. Feeling very grateful today…❤️

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Well I am incredibly proud to have been nominated by @mmmdarlingdowns in the Best Of Category for Gyms in my local community.

Sadly I didn’t win, but apparently I did get quite a few votes, which warms my hearts and thank you to everyone who

“Every revolutionary ends by becoming either an oppressor or a heretic” - Albert Camus

Although I am deeply heartened by the result last night, I am also acutely aware, regards this election more than ever of the more subtle workings beh

I NEVER do this.

But today I genuinely think I wrote the best workout I have ever written.

And if you would like me to send it to you, then please comment below or DM me “Fallen Angel”

The story behind this workout is hilarious.

T

Yesterday was a truly wonderful day, being able to celebrate 7 years of being with you.

I can’t thank you enough for being in my life.

I can’t thank you enough for making me your husband, making me your best friend, making me your par

Meet Juno. 🐶🐶

Hugo is being a great big brother 😍

We now have a Portobello Princess and Prince. 👑

Someone applied to work with me yesterday on the Strong & Confident Program.

In his application, he wrote this.

Got me in the feels.

What a truly lovely thing to say.

Some beautiful words from beautiful people who have all given me the pleasure of working with them.

Since moving to Toowoomba, I have enjoyed being able to carry on my work and help as many people as is humanly possible, and I love being able to se

Well this is truly is a new world we live in.

Not only have I just released a new episode of The Fitness Solution, it’s a video episode too.

So you can watch as well listen if you do wish.

This episode has come from a conversation I had w

Take Me There…

You Have Been Conditioned To View Them Negatively

Let me be very clear here.

Maintaining your body weight is a true success.

Sadly, we live in a world where allowing you to actually be proud of what you have achieved thus far, and promoting the fact that the scale may not be going down - but by golly - it isn’t going up…that is a true success.

This is what you and the fitness industry has allowed you to view as a:

“Plateauuuuuuu”

As a negative happening in your life. When actually it is a true success.

I am sure you have heard the phrase: “80% of all diets fail”. The definition of successful weight loss maintenance is:

“Successful long-term weight loss maintenance is intentionally losing at least 10% of initial body weight and keeping it off for at least 1 year.” [3]

Therefore if you are currently in an active deficit, and you have lost 10% or more of your body weight and your weight loss has “plateaued” you are actually on the path of being in the top 20% of the world’s population when it comes to dieting.

“Research has shown that approximately 20% of overweight individuals are successful at long-term weight loss when defined as losing at least 10% of initial body weight and maintaining the loss for at least 1 year” [2]

Therefore you aren’t stalling, failing or just not good enough.

You are actually in an elitist group of people. A rare cohort of incredible success - and you have been told to see it as a failure.

That’s a damn fucking shame.

I am sorry that we have done this to you. I am truly sorry that you have been led to believe that it is possible to keep dieting down and down and down and if that process ever stops then you are simply not good enough.

This has led to many people getting frustrated, angry and feeling shame at their inability to see scale weight continuing to tumble and it has to stop. Right now. Right here. With this post.

How Does Scale Weight Actually Work?

Scale Weight is a very fickle thing. You may or may not be aware that scale weight when you are in an active calorie deficit and trying to lose weight, will fluctuate.

Wildly.

Up and down. It will be stubborn at times. One day you can weigh on things, and the very next 24 hours later you can weigh 5-7lbs more.

This is normal.

In fact let me show you some of my weight readings, when I was in a caloric deficit and weighed myself each and every day.

This is July into August of 2021 - I started at 85.4kg and then deficit down to 81.9kg.

how long does it take to get past a weight loss plateau

It looks like the best rollercoaster you have ever been on.

But as you can see I was constantly trading peaks and troughs. This is actually a very normal graph of scale weight. If you ever see a graph that is more linear than this - that is indeed not giving you the full picture of someone’s body weight.

I have Coached many people through weight loss and every single one of them have had this experience.

These fluctuations mainly occur due to:

Hormones and Menstrual Cycle
Medications
Sleep
Types of food you consume
Digestion
Exercise

One of the most common reasons scale weight will fluctuate is because carbohydrates retain water. When you eat any Carbohydrate your body will absorb 3g-4g of Water to help store the glycogen from the food.

This is not body fat and is perfectly normal - and is a big reason you see a big reduction in scale weight when someone goes “low-carb”

There is just one other thing to say here and that is that when you are tracking scale weight as a marker of success or not when trying to lose weight, you must gather more data than weekly scale readngs.

This is another common reason that plateaus occur - you just aren’t getting enough data.

Looking at the same graph from my weight as before I have circled every seventh reading - to repllicate one a week weigh ins.

how do i get out of my weight loss plateau

As you can see every other week my weight was up from the week before.

Looking at the last circle, which is seven days from the one previous if I was weighing in weekly, and weighed in on the 6th day I would have had a reading that was lower than the last reading 7 days previous as opposed to one that was higher.

This is when data can become your best friend - and the more you gather the more insightful you can be when it comes to analysing what is going on.

If you have Scale Anxiety then please read my article that has helped hundreds of people overcome gravitophobia:

Have Scale Anxiety? Learn to imrpove your relationship with the scale

How To Actually Get Past Your Weight Loss Plateau

I guarantee I could find someone on the internet telling you very opposing things in relation to this question. You will be told to:

Reduce Calories
Increase Calories
More Exercise
Less Exercise
More Water
Less Water

And each person is just confusing you more and more and more - adding to your frustration and not knowing where to turn.

In truth, each solution could be correct.

Reducing your calories may lead to a calorie deficit as you will be consuming less in the short term.

Increasing your calories may lead to a calorie deficit in the long term as you might be less likely to binge and more adherent to your calorie moderate calorie deficit as opposed to always reducing and cutting and restricting.

More exercise might lead to a calorie deficit in the shorter term by way of burning calories (but this is a very silly way to go about losing weight) but it might lead to more hunger.

Less exercise might lead to a calorie deficit due to less hunger from exercise - especially with things like HIIT.

And water might help reduce hunger, but it does have a weight to it, and that will show up on the scale.

But I understand none of this is overly helpful right now.

Therefore I propose these solutions to your weight loss plateau problem.

Reframe it as a Success

What is the opposite of weight loss not going down? It going up…

And if weight loss is your ultimate goal, but it is in a “plateau” then you are indeed doing a fantastic job as your weight is stable and you are learning to manage your new body and its new weight.

I do feel like I want to caveat the above statement.

A lot of people, women especially, but men too, do feel great shame when their weight increases. This is because they get so much praise when their weight is coming down. Praise from friends, family, coaches, and society at large. This leads them to feel like failures when their weight may increase again, even if it is only slightly. As I mentioned before learning to maintain weight loss is incredibly difficult, and there is no shame or failure attached to regaining weight - because what the scale doesn't show is how much you have learnt, how much more skill you have developed in the gym, how consistent you have been with your actions, how much better your mental health is as a result of working hard and trying, how much more energy you have and how much better you are sleeping.

Even if you learn to manage your new body at its new weight and it is slightly up from the lowest scale reading you have - you are still succeeding at so much more than you are giving yourself credit for.

Remember, 80% of people cant maintain their weight.

A plateau really isn’t a bad thing.

Trust Yourself

Look at it this way…you got to the point of which a plateau can actually occur. You must have done something right thus far.

So now you just need to trust yourself. Trust you know what you are doing, trust that your actions will lead to the result you are after. One of the hardest things for people who are trying to lose weight is this element of trust.

Usually, because they have been sent on a path of yoyo dieting and then been made to feel like they themselves are the thing that is broken - not the diet itself. And relearning to trust yourself is very hard

To get to the issues of a weight loss plateau, you have a process that has worked, you have a process that is sustainable for you and you have a process that you know you can trust - you’re at this point already - and now it’s just a case of making sure that you trust that process, and trust yourself.

Remain Consistent, Remain Patient

The more weight you lose the slower it will occur. This is because many people who want to lose weight probably want to because they view the body fat they now have as excess.

They are above their body’s settling point that they are used to for themselves.

This can happen for many reasons, mainly lifestyle factors like becoming parents or changing from an active job to a sedentary one.

At the beginning with a tiny bit of focus, and dialling up a few things in terms of their diet, increasing some steps, in fact living by my 5 Awesome Rules for Fat Loss Life (please excuse how cringy the video below is), they then manage to lose that “extra” body fat relatively quickly.

But the closer you get to the point upon which you’re near when you want to be - think the classic last 5lbs of stubborn fat - then it will take an awful lot longer to get there.

The curve will always level off.

There is more at play in terms of this as well - which I go into further down.

But generally - you will lose weight quickest in the beginning - and this is also why many people do 6-week challenges that are all about losing lots of weight in that time frame - it’s a safe and easy way for personal trainers to get all the glory without having to actually do the hard work for people - get them through the moments when it feels hardest for them.

It’s a huge reason I don’t do them. I’m a Coach and there is no glory in not supporting people properly.

I digress.

As the curve levels off (something you have been told to view as a plateau), the most important thing to do here is to be consistent. Is to not change anything drastic, and just keep ticking off the days and the process.

Begin to enjoy the process more, begin to appreciate that you are doing so much more good for yourself than necessarily losing weight.

And the more you focus on the process provided it has been set up correctly (preferably with the aid of a Coach - I know a good one wink, wink, nudge, nudge: head here) then the results will eventually take care of themselves.

Patience is a virtue - and I’m sorry but if your weight hasn’t decreased in two weeks you are not in a plateau. In fact, if your weight hasn't decreased in a month, you are not in a plateau. If you are executing the behaviours that constitute a calorie deficit and your weight hasn’t moved from month one to month six, and you have investigated the areas of your life that you think might be getting in the way, then we can look into the possibility that you are indeed in a plateau.

Without a doubt, one of the main ways to get past a weight loss plateau is be more patient with yourself and the process.

Realise there is so much more to celebrate

SO MUCH MORE!

I used to call my coaching program this - because the list of things you can celebrate and crucially should celebrate away from weight loss is so much more empowering than celebrating the reduction of your body.

Getting Stronger
Being Consistent with your own health
Better Sleep
Eating in a more balanced way
Having more energy
Improving your relationship with you
Improving your relationship with others
Being in nature more
Learning new skills and applying them
Improving your relationship with food
Improving your relationship with exercise - more on this here: How To Love Exercise Again
Building your confidence through keeping promises with yourself
Building your self-esteem
Improving your mental health
Burning more energy
Increasing your Metabolism

I’m sure there’s more - but I’m a little hungover today so let’s leave it there.

But look at that list.

It’s a bloody good one isn’t it?

Why would you want to give up all of those benefits simply because you aren’t losing weight? Or you have lost weight and it appears to have stalled.

If you are engaging in a health and fitness journey and you are not working on all of those things that I have listed - and only working on losing weight - you are setting yourself up for complete failure - because naturally, your weight loss will stop - and when that happens you will feel like you are failing.

I always say:

“Focus on production, not reduction”

— Adam Berry, The Gym Starter

I appreciate that list might look overwhelming, but many of it is the by-product of just engaging in physical movement and an active lifestyle appropriately - and only focussing on weight loss - that is not an appropriate way to engage with not just movement, but yourself too.

I understand and appreciate that weight loss might be a great tool for which people begin, get started and can discover all of this - but once you have got over that initial moment of engaging because of your body weight - you need to transfer your thoughts onto that list I have laid out.

Be proud of what you managed to lift and how you managed to lift it. Be proud of the fact that you are eating in a more structured way and that is having huge benefits on your relationship with food.

And if you aren’t doing those things and if you aren’t focussing on that list …it could be an indicator as to why your weight loss has plateaued.

Bodyweight Settling Points

Set Point theory is the premise that you have a predisposition to a certain body weight. This is due to a number of factors, but genetics and lifestyle are the two main ones.

It is only a theory, but it is backed by quite a lot of evidential studies. [3, 4, 5].

This doesn’t mean that you are predetermined to always be overweight if that is where your set point is. It means that changing it might be a lot harder than you ever thought possible. Having worked with thousands of people on weight loss over my career I have found this to be true as well. Very few people lose the 3 stone of weight that they were aiming to, and then also manage to stay there for the rest of their lives. Most people I have worked with, we are always trading around 5lbs here and 5lbs there - and those who do lose more, have to overhaul a lot in their lives both mentally and physically to manage it, and it takes a lot longer than you would ever believe.

Setpoint theory is also why we define successful weight loss as losing 10% of your body weight and keeping it off for at least a year. You may lose 17% initially - but that might be an amount too great for your body and therefore 10% is the marker of successful weight loss.

Because weight will come up and down.

You can change your set point - which is why I refer to it as a “settling point”. At different phases in our lives, we will probably have different bodyweights. Think of it like this - if I took you out of your environment right now and placed you on an island somewhere to live - it is likely that your bodyweight will change - as you have different access to different foods.

This happened to me - when I moved to Australia - trying to learn the nuances in the different foods here took a while - and it meant I stuck to things I knew a little more - which were obviously brands that generally pack their food with calories.

Added to that my activity levels were very different whilst I was trying to find a job, get used to being out of the sun for certain hours of the day and not having the money to be able to pay for a Gym whilst I was setting everything up.

Then once I got used to my environment, my body weight started to decline again back to where it nearly always sits at around 80kgs.

Therefore your body settles depending on its environment - and the more comfortable you are in an environment the more likely you are to hit a plateau.

Added to all of this, we also have mechanisms in our body that when it realises calories are being reduced, it changes your hormones to increase hunger to protect you. These hormones are affected by Adipose Tissue (Fat Cells) and the more of them you have the more the hormones will affect you making things just that little bit harder for you.

And as you can imagine, the closer to that point you get - the more your body will fight back - the more likely you are to be in a plateau.

This is exactly why you should focus a lot more on the list above than just the scale readings you are collecting.

Metabolic Apdation (check in with your numbers)

Metabolic Adaption [6] is the very simple fact of life that a smaller organism needs fewer calories to survive. As you lose weight, you will require fewer calories to maintain that weight.

Therefore if you have been losing weight, and that seems to have slowed down for a long enough period to quantify an actual plateau (at least a couple of months) depending on the amount of weight you have lost in that time, it could mean you need to check your calorie deficit numbers again.

The caloric maintenance of your body has literally changed - and it is quite common for someone to still be eating the same amount of calories that were designed for when they started their fitness journey as opposed to where they are now - as they have noticed a big slow down in weight loss.

So always check in with your maintenance numbers, which will then allow you to adjust your calorie numbers.

For more on Bodyweight Maintenance head here: How To Find Your Calorie Maintenance Level

And if you want a free Calorie Calculator then please head here: Free Fitness Goodies

Build More Muscle and Be More Active???

It would be remiss of me to write this whole article without touching on these points.

And I have put a question mark next to the points for very good reason. For this article, I have written it with the perspective that you probably already are being very active - and probably don’t have the privilege. to increase that part of your life too much.

If you are stuck, and you aren’t doing 2-3x strength sessions a week, you aren’t regularly hitting 8k steps a day at least, then yes - please do that.

By doing that I almost guarantee your weight will change again.

I also want to discuss the art of building muscle here.

Everyone is different - but building muscle takes time. It takes more time if you are female and it takes more time the more experienced you are at doing it.

For a woman, you are looking at about 1lb a month in the first year, then 0.5lb a month in the second year of training.

For a man, you are looking at about 2lbs a month in the first year, and then 1lb a month in the second year of training.

1lb of Muscle at rest burns 5kcal a day.

Therefore after your first year of training as a woman, you will have only added an extra 60kcals a day to your metabolism, and if you are a man, you can double that.

Yes, building muscle will help your metabolism because you will also burn calories as you exercise, and after you exercise. But in order to improve your metabolism enough to see it on the scale and to help break through a plateau you are going to have to be very dedicated to the cause of building muscle for a period of time a lot longer than you probably believed before you read this article.

Of course, I am an advocate of strength training for all people - I just wanted to bring to your attention that when people tell you to build muscle to improve your metabolism, it is true, but not in the manner you may interpret it, or the manner in which they believe it would help you also.

Just be aware, that building muscle probably isn’t the quick fix you are hoping for to break through a plateau - but it’s a blinking good thing to do for your health.

What’s Next?

How long does a weight loss plateau last

I really hope you found this article useful, and that you feel a lot better about your struggles at the moment. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work, it really does mean a lot to me to have you here.

If you would like a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator then just put your email in here:

References:

Sarwan G, Rehman A. Management Of Weight Loss Plateau. [Updated 2021 Oct 29]. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing; 2022 Jan-. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK576400/
Wing RR, Phelan S. Long-term weight loss maintenance. Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 Jul;82(1 Suppl):222S-225S. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/82.1.222S. PMID: 16002825.
GEMA FRÜHBECK,, JAVIER GÓMEZ‐AMBROSI, Rationale for the existence of additional adipostatic hormones, The FASEB Journal, 10.1096/fj.00-0829hyp, 15, 11, (1996-2006), (2001).
Hoeger, W., Hoeger, S., Fawson, A., & Hoeger, C. (2019). Principles and labs for fitness and wellness. Cengage.
Liao, T., Zhang, S.-L., Yuan, X., Mo, W. Q., Wei, F., Zhao, S.N., Yang, W., Liu, H., & Rong, X. (2020). Liraglutide lowers body weight set point in DIO rats and its relationship with hypothalamic microglia activation. Obesity: A Research Journal, 28(1), 122-131. doi: 10.1002/oby.22666
Trexler, E.T., Smith-Ryan, A.E. & Norton, L.E. Metabolic adaptation to weight loss: implications for the athlete. J Int Soc Sports Nutr 11, 7 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1186/1550-2783-11-7

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 22/2/22 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 22/2/22

The Ultimate Guide: What To Eat When Working Out

The Ultimate Guide to What To Eat When Working Out

I went back and forth on the image I was going to use for this article.

I had the classic “woman in the Gym drinking a protein shake” and then I went completley to the other side and considered a lovely image of someone eating Pizza.

But the issue with both of these images is they promote one extreme and then the other.

They don’t promote balanace - and I am all about balance!

The reason balance is so critical - is that the fulcrum can always move as you change and grow through your fitness journey - and that is a beautiful thing.

This is a tough article to write because the reasons that someone is working out is always very different:

Mental Health
To Lose Weight
To Build Muscle
To be part of a community
To enjoy yourself
To develop a skill
To train for a challenege

Therefore what I am going to do is stick to principles that will work across the board for you.

There are principles that can fit into the scope of any of these outcomes the only difference is the energy balance equation.

To build muscle you need to be in a caloric surplus of about 110% of your TDEE.

For more information on that head here: How To Gain Weight

To lose weight you need to be in a calorie deficit which is a window between your BMR and your Goal Bodyweight in LBS multiplied by 12.

For more information on that head here: What is a Calorie Deficit Diet Plan?

For your mental health having balanced nutrition is also critical. Having a varied colourful healthful diet with balance and flexibility is important. But then again that’s important for life.

As the study Food and Mood [1] in the British Medical Journal states:

“This message supports the idea that creating environments and developing measures that promote healthy, nutritious diets, while decreasing the consumption of highly processed and refined “junk” foods may provide benefits even beyond the well-known effects on physical health, including improved psychological wellbeing.”

In this article, I am going to take you through all three Macronutrients and how much of them you should eat and why. In each section, I will point to you about your workouts and managing nutrition around that, but in truth, the differences aren’t that huge.

In actual fact, “what to eat when working out” isn’t really that different to what you should be doing with your nutrition towards your goals anyway. There are some timing and optimal things you can do around your diet and training, but this is about 10% of the work you actually need to do to achieve your goals. I will take you through supplementation too - but this is really a plan for anyone who is now wanting to engage in and live an active lifestyle.

I love educating and informing people just like you in this way all about fitness. In fact, I love it so much, it would be awesome if you wanted to become my friend. You got this far…so it would be remiss of me to not extend an invitation out.

Now if you do decide to become my buddy, I do have a warning for you…I will send you things:

Helpful things (Blog Posts, Workout Manuals, Calorie Calculators)
Insightful things (New Research, thoughts of the day, stuff about my life)
Educational things (much of the above fits into this category)

and

Some inappropriate things (I better not list them here as Google might get suspicious)

But that’s what being friends is all about right? And I fully expect you to do the same back to me…

Therefore if you would like to send me a friend request then just fill out this form:

Table of Contents: The Ultimate Guide: What To Eat When Working Out

What Protein to eat when working out?
- How much Protein do you need? | Protein and Workouts | High Protein Meals
What Carbohydrates to eat when working out?
- How many Carbohydrates do you need? | Carbs and Workouts | Are Carbs Good? Bad? Or just Misunderstood?
What Fats to eat when working out?
- A Final Word on Fats…
What Supplements to have when working out?
How To Structure Your Diet

What Protein to eat when working out?

Here is the good news - you DO NOT NEED TO BE DOING WHAT THIS MAN IS DOING.

I don’t even know why he would do that himself? Maybe he thinks he is Gaston from Beauty and the Beast?

Who knows?

Protein.

Is it important? Yes.

Why is it important? It is the main building block of your body.

Other key features of Protein are:

It keeps you fuller for longer
It takes longer to digest - hence increasing your Thermic Effect of Food (basically increases metabolism)
It builds muscles, tendons, organs and skin.

How Much Protein do you need?

This is a debate that rages and rages.

And honestly, we could get very technical. But I am going to assume you are at least semi-interested in being active and fitness, like most of my clients, and therefore because of the complexity on this topic, over the years I have had to simplify my view on Protein significantly.

One key feature with protein, which I have noticed working with hundreds of people throughout my career, is that they think they are eating more than they actually are.

And eating “enough” is really bloody hard for most people.

Science states lots of different things on this topic.

I have always maintained you need: 0.8-1.1g of protein a day per KG of total body weight.

When I weighed 82.8kg I had 71kg of Lean Body Mass - which meant I “needed” 91.8g of protein as I was calculating it on my LBM in KGs.

But there is great variance in the best suggestion here. Some sources say 2g/kg of bodyweight. Others say 1g per pound of bodyweight.

This means I either need to eat:

91.8g of protein a day, 165g of protein a day or 182g of protein a day.

Now others will ask you to base it on your Lean Body Mass or Fat-Free Mass.

These figures are given as: 1.1g per LB of Lean Body Mass

This changes the numbers again…meaning I would need to eat:

171g of protein a day.

It is confusing. But don’t worry. I do have a very simple solution to the question of how much protein you need to eat a day.

It’s important to remember that everybody is different and not everyone has the luxury of knowing their Lean Body Mass either - and you don’t need to have that information to get this right.

When I weighed 82.8kgs, I don’t think I ever hit numbers like 170g of protein a day - and I still managed to build muscle, get to my goals and achieve what I wanted to achieve.

what to eat when working out to lose weight

Like with most things in fitness - you must always balance what is optimal with what is possible.

I did try to actively increase my protein, but not to the detriment or worry of anything else. Added to that I’m a Vegetarian, so I was already aiming a little lower. I’m under no illusions, I know I’m not the bulkiest, most muscly person - I’m not ever going to be a bodybuilder and nor do I want to be - I work out for many reasons that are not aesthetics - but this photo shows that by trying to increase protein consistently - you can still make really good progress.

This is also the most “Daniel Craig” I think I will ever look…

PHOWAAAARRRRRRRR

So here is my simple solution to protein:

Work towards 100g a day and if you are a Vegetarian 80g a day will suffice

There is little negative effect to having more protein in your diet. If you can get more in then great, but you don’t necessarily have to.

In terms of weight loss, and weight gain. This study [2] found that:

“Thermogenesis at 2.5 hours post-meal averaged about twofold higher on the high protein diet versus the high carbohydrate diet, and differences were significant after the breakfast and the dinner meals (p < 0.05)”

and concluded:

“These data indicate an added energy-cost associated with high-protein, low-fat diets and may help explain the efficacy of such diets for weight loss”

Therefore not only is protein awesome for building your body, it’s also awesome at helping you maintain and work on weight loss too.

100g a day is also the system I implement with most of my clients - and it seems to be a good figure for them to aim for regardless of their composition.

It’s pretty incredible.

And working towards 100g means you don’t have to be there every day - again it’s that word: balance.

Protein and Workouts…

Speak to most “personal trainers” and they will tell you to eat post-workout a combination of “protein and carbs”. This is to maximise something called muscle protein synthesis. This is known as the “Anabolic Window”.

Which to you and I basically means refill your muscles with protein so they grow.

There is a modicum of truth to this.

But…and it is a big but…

Don’t sweat it.

The advantages to maximising muscle protein syntheses in comparison to just hitting your protein target each day is insignificant.

The most important thing you can do is just hit your numbers over a day as this study [3] concludes:

“With respect to hypertrophy, total protein intake was the strongest predictor of Exercise Strength magnitude. These results refute the commonly held belief that the timing of protein intake in and around a training session is critical to muscular adaptations and indicate that consuming adequate protein in combination with resistance exercise is the key factor for maximizing muscle protein accretion.”

I think this is also where I pitch my coaching services which involve “resistance exercise” and is called The Strong and Confident Program

All of this being said…I personally do consume a protein shake after each and every workout - for the simple reason that it's a good moment to get some protein in, quell my hunger and rehydrate me.

My workout is almost a reminder to keep working on this part of my nutrition, and I enjoy having it post-workout - usually when I am swimming.

One thing with nutrition is that habit can be your best friend and your worst enemy. In this instance, I use it to my advantage - and it could be a strategy for you as well to get a nice helping of ~20g protein in throughout your day.

Some High Protein Meals:

Now I am a Vegetarian, so what I am sharing with you here are not necessarily the foods I eat - but they are from the Recipe Books that I give to my clients - because not all my clients are Vegetarian (in fact I think none of them is).

what to eat after a workout to build muscle

what to eat after workout to lose weight

What Carbohydrates to eat when working out?

The more I write these Blogs the more I begin to realise that Schitt’s Creek literally knows everything about life.

Now please repeat these two sentences after me:

Carbohydrates do not make you fat….

No one gained weight from eating too many fruits and vegetables…

In fact, Carbohydrates and protein have the exact same calories per gram in them - 4kcal per gram.

Therefore the very oversimplified premise that carbs make you fat is just a downright lie, and I would be very wary of anyone who says that to you - simply because it so much more complex than that.

How many Carbohydrates Do You Need?

The biggest issue with carbohydrates is that we can eat an awful lot of them in one go. It’s not uncommon to eat three servings of rice at dinner, or have four portions of oven chips without realising.

Do you know how many oven chips one serving actually is?

Please sit down for this…the results are that shocking.

what to eat before a workout to build muscle

And within that portion is 154 calories. Now, quite rightly, I do not know a single human being on the planet that will only eat 7 chips with their dinner.

Chips are yummy. They should be enjoyed properly (with ketchup), and I fully expect a person to not have one portion of them. But you can begin to see, how one portion can become three portions when you serve dinner.

Many people who say to me “I’ve gone low carb and feel great” upon further examination have actually just bought their Carb intake into line with the amounts outlined below.

They aren’t “Low-Carb” they are simply eating an accurate amount for their individual body - as opposed to overeating them.

The amount you need is dependent on your goals - like with all food - it all has to be viewed within the context of calories.

To Lose Weight: 0.5g - 2g per pound of body weight per day
To Gain Weight: 1g - 3g per pound of body weight per day

If we take 82kg me again…this means I should have been eating around: 330g of Carbohydrates a day as I was trying to lose weight at that time. This is 1323kcal/day from Carbohydrates.

There is no one size fits all, because guess what…we are all different.

But a good rule to go by, which the CDC suggest is that you should aim for about 50% of your daily calories to come from Carbohydrates. Other sources say between 45% and 65% of your daily calories should come from Carbohydrates.

So ~50% of your Calories seems like a good place to start to me.

This doesn’t mean if you eat more than 50% you are failing. Like with most things “calories” working in flexible windows is always a good idea.

There is also a study [5] that backs this up. Published in the Lancet in 2018 it was a Meta-Analysis of 420,000 people in 20 countries and found the following:

“a percentage of 50–55% energy from carbohydrate was associated with the lowest risk of mortality.”

And interestingly went on to conclude:

“Our findings suggest a negative long-term association between life expectancy and both low carbohydrate and high carbohydrate diets when food sources are not taken into account. These data also provide further evidence that animal-based low carbohydrate diets should be discouraged. Alternatively, when restricting carbohydrate intake, replacement of carbohydrates with predominantly plant-based fats and proteins could be considered as a long-term approach to promote healthy ageing”

Carbs and Workouts

Carbohydrates are essential for your ability to work out.

Your muscles use the glucose from Carbohydrates to move - and as you move, the tank of energy you have gets depleted.

As this study states:

“During short, heavy exercise it may be the only energy source for the working muscle and may be derived exclusively from the glycogen stores within the muscle fibres themselves”

This is why, very often, when you workout and haven’t fuelled your workout correctly, you can just run out of energy, experience unusual fatigue or feel shaky - it is not because you have done something wrong - its simply because your body is running on empty of Carbohydrate.

This is also why, when looking into what you “should” eat after a workout many people will say a combination of Protein and Carbs.

As the study: International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: nutrient timing [4] states:

“Post-exercise (within 30 minutes) consumption of CHO at high dosages (8 - 10 g CHO/kg/day) have been shown to stimulate muscle glycogen re-synthesis, while adding PRO (0.2 g - 0.5 g PRO/kg/day) to CHO at a ratio of 3 - 4:1 (CHO: PRO) may further enhance glycogen re-synthesis.”

So you need carbohydrates post-exercise - with some protein too. You need to restock your energy in your muscles - otherwise, you will grind to a halt.

Remember what I said about protein muscle synthesis? Well, that’s true of glycogen (Carbohydrate) too.

This is one reason that when you are in a Calorie Deficit and training properly, but not eating enough, your Metabolism can drop so much. You stop moving as much throughout that day because your muscles aren’t filled with the ability to move your body.

This can slow your metabolism down by up to 15% [5].

The frequency of your training will dictate how much attention you need to pay to all of this. The more you train, the more you might need to make sure that you are being sensitive to these needs, the less you train, the less sensitive you need to be.

If you workout most days - then give this a little more attention. If you workout 1-2/week then it is far less important.

This is all in relation to an ideal world - and having worked with many people - an ideal world is far from how you actually live. Now that you know the why’s and wherefore’s how would this look practically?

For example, the only time you have to get to the gym is at around 6 am - your stomach doesn’t do too well eating very early - but you want to get the most out of your workout knowing that you need that glucose in your muscles, because the last thing you ate was at 6 pm the night before…

What on earth do you do?

With most of my clients, I will simply ask them to eat some fruit.

It’s that simple. A banana, an apple, some grapes. Whatever takes their fancy - but some fruit should be more than enough for a 30-60min session - even if you are on an empty stomach.

If they have a little more time and don’t need to worry about driving and eating, then I might suggest some Greek Yoghurt with the fruit.

Are Carbs Good? Bad? Or just Misunderstood?

Carbs…are classy. They are a treasure trove of healthful nutrients - but sadly they have been let down by fad diets and society at large.

All Fruits (with the exception of an Avocado) and all Vegetables are Carbohydrates - and if you are willing to sit there and tell me that these are damaging to your health, then I am afraid that you are on the wrong Blog.

I do think that the demonisation of Carbs in our Society is wildly correlated with how much more sedentary we are as well. Simply put, the more muscle you have on your body, the more carbohydrates you can eat - because you have more room for it to be stored in your muscles to be used up as energy, as opposed to it having to be stored as fat in the body.

READ MY BLOG POST WHICH IS HELPING HUNDREDS OF OFFICE WORKERS GET MORE HEALTHY

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As a Vegetarian, I know this to be true. My Diet had to go from a bigger protein base to a bigger Carbohydrate base, but my physique didn’t change that much for two reasons:

I had an awful lot of muscle on my body (72kg of muscle on an 82kg body)
I remained active

No food is good or bad. They can contain more calories or fewer calories. They can affect your body in a different way depending on who you are - but this does not denote their moral value.

And by attaching moral values to food - you are attaching judgement to the foods you eat - that will erode your relationship with food over time. I understand it’s almost common to describe a doughnut as bad, and an apple as good. But neither is true - and the more you learn to frame it as just food, which has an energy value contained within it - the better everything will become for you.

Why do we misunderstand Carbs?

There is no denying it.

If you want to lose just Scale Weight quickly - reduce your Carb intake. This will without a doubt bring the scale down, as every time we eat 1g of Carbs we retain 3g of Water.

As this study [6] from 2015 confirms:

“Our findings agree with the long held notion that each gram of glycogen is stored in human muscle with at least 3 g of water. Higher ratios are possible (e.g., during REHFULL) likely due to water storage not bound to glycogen.”

When you go “low-carb” the scale weight you see drop is just water leaving your muscles - its not body fat dropping. This also goes a long way to explaining why the scale goes up after you have had a night out on Italian Food!

The other great misunderstanding about Carbs is whether you are actually overeating eating them or not. Oftentimes its not the Carbohydrate content in a food that makes it scrummy and delicious - its the combination between Carbs and Fats.

These are the greatest flavoured crisps that have ever come into existence.

And when you look at them - you probably think - its a big old bag of Carbs.

But when you break it down to its nutritional caloric values - its actually predominately a bag of dietary fat.

This bag per serve has:

123kcals, 6.5g of Fat which is 58.5kcal and 14.3g of carbohydrate which is 57.2kcal.

Let’s look at a “more sugary” piece of food = the greatest donut of all time:

The Krispy Kreme Original Glazed.

190kcals, 11g of Fat which is 99kcals, 22g of carbohydrates which is 88kcals.

The reason these foods are so damn tasty isn’t because they have Carbs in them. Instead, it is the potent combination of Carbohydrate AND Dietary Fat.

All of these years you have been slamming yourself for eating Carbs…when the truth is…you have been eating more Dietary Fat than you actually realised - which, if you are considering going “low-carb” to lose weight - think again - you actually need to cut down

Now, why might this be an issue…

What Fats to eat when working out?

Fats have 9kcal per gram within them. This means calorically they are worth more than double Carbohydrates and Protein.

Now, this is a real friend when trying to gain weight or maintain your weight - but when trying to lose weight, this can be a big reason that success eludes you.

Similar to Carbohydrate this is why it is very important to manage your portion sizes well.

Fats are very good for you - despite their Caloric density - we do need them in our diet for a whole multitude of reasons.

The World Health Organization states that total fat intake needs to be around 20-35% of total caloric intake [7] - and other Health Bodies say similar.

Dietary Fat allows our body to absorb the essential ADEK Vitamins into our system - they are Fat-Soluble Vitamins - whereas all other Vitamins are Water Soluble.

Now Fats can get very confusing because there are so many sub-categories of them…but I am going to try and make it as simple as possible for you.

Fats that are to be limited:

Saturated Fat - often found in things like Butter, Cakes, Sausages, Bacon and Cheese - can have a negative outcome on health if eaten to excess. Think Animal Fats, whole Fat Diary and Coconut and Palm Oil.

Trans Fat - this is nearly the only category of food I will allow people to discuss in a negative manner. These are foods with hydrogenated oil in them. Usually your fried foods, fast foods, margarine, pastries and processed snacks.

All other Fats are to be enjoyed moderately within your goals.

Poly Unsaturated Fats: Fish, because they contain two types of Fatty Acid - Omega 3 and Omega 6 which are great for heart and brain health. Tofu also contains these fats as well as, soybeans and pumpkin seeds.

Mono Unsaturated Fats: Nuts, Olive Oil and Avocado.

In terms of strictly speaking for your workouts, I would say prioritise Poly Unsaturated Fats as the Omega 3s and 6s are very good for your joint health.

As these studies [8, 9] show when it looked at the role of Poly Unsaturated Fatty Acids (PUFA) and the effect on Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) prevention it found that:

“Growing evidence demonstrates a role of PUFAs in chronic inflammation of RA and this is well established in many types of animal models of inflammatory arthritis” [8]

“The results suggest that omega-3 PUFAs are an attractive adjunctive treatment for joint pain associated with rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and dysmenorrhea” [9]

A final word on Fats…

Olive Oil could be regarded as the “Healthiest Fat” on the planet.

It is probably the most powerfully healthy food we have available to us. The supreme benefits of Olive Oil are thus:

Rich in Mono Saturated Fat
Large Amounts of Antioxidants [10]
Reduces Inflammation due to its Oelic Acid content [11]
Helps prevent strokes [12]
Reduces Heart Disease by reducing Cholesterol [13] and Blood Pressure [14]
Helps you Maintain Bodyweight when calories are controlled the same [15]
Helps with Insulin Sensitivity [16]
Can reduce Cancer risk [17]

Now I am not expecting you, nor do I want you, drinking Olive Oil like it is water. Try to make sure you get Extra Virgin Olive Oil. The best way in which to ingest Olive Oil is in its uncooked form, so maybe drizzle it on your salads and vegetables.

Although the benefits are impressive, you need to make sure that you aren’t having more than what meets the recommended intake of between 20-35% of your total caloric intake for the day.

What Supplements To Have When Working Out?

Supplements not to have…

Supplements are a very intriguing world that is highly unregulated. Supplement companies sell you the quick fix and the shortcut to your results…and 95% of them are just rubbish - and are just designed to take your money and exploit your insecurities.

Remember if it is a shortcut to success, it wouldn’t be a shortcut - it would simple be known as the way to do things.

To create a supplement you do not need any approval from a governing body - which is a little terrifying. There was a fantastic documentary on this called “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*” where they looked into the world of steroid use and dietary supplements. This is how easy it is to make a supplement:

Terrifying right?

Supplements you don’t need are:

BCAAs
Pre-Workouts
Ketones
Apple Cider Vinegar
Laxatives
Diuretics
Fat Burning Pills
Detoxes
Cleanses
Slimming Teas
Any MLM Products

And a quick note on Branch Chain Amino Acids or BCAAs as they are getting more and more popular as a supplement.

This systematic review of 12 studies found that:

“BCAA supplementation seems not to improve performance and gain of strength and muscle mass.”

Therefore it would appear that so long as you are getting a well-balanced diet - as outlined in the rest of this article - you are not “losing gains on the Gym floor” by not drinking BCAAs.

What about Multivitamins?

In terms of Multivitamins and Vitamin Supplementation, I am not an expert - and many people enjoy having these in their nutrition. On occasion when I lived in the UK I did take Vitamin D3, and in the Winter here in Australia I do have a multivitamin during winter. But with regards to this - you do you - it’s not my remit and I’m not here to judge what you are supplementing yourself with in terms of vitamins.

Many people need many different things for many different reasons.

And that is going to have little or no effect on your ability to workout.

Supplements that are useful…

Whey or Vegan Protein Powder: Getting in your 100g+ of Protein can be quite hard sometimes and this is where Whey Protein or any other kind of Protein Powder can come in handy. It’s a simple, quick hit of protein that will help you get those numbers up as you need. As I alluded to earlier I have my Protein Shake after each workout or run - because I often need something to eat, and I really enjoy having it at that time. There is no magic effect of having it immediately after - it’s just a good moment to make sure that you are getting your protein in each day.

Creatine Monohydrate: The benefits of Creatine Monohydrate are slowly being more and more realised by science. It is widely considered the best supplement out there to help build muscle and strength and is one of the most researched and studied supplements of all time. It is also naturally found in the body already,

It’s also incredibly affordable and lasts a long time because you only need 3g of it a day.

I just put it in my protein shake - and you don’t even know it is there.

The benefits of Creatine Monohydrate almost can’t be overstated. It helps with muscle development of sedentary people, elderly people [18] and elite athletes. It also helps with brain function and potentially could help slow down the onset of Parkinsons’ Disease [19] and a whole host of other brain conditions.

Creatine is also very useful if you are like me, a vegetarian.

If you are going to buy some Creatine Monohydrate make sure that you read the label, and follow the dosage requirements.

Caffeine: This will boost your performance in the Gym [20] and is equally pretty safe to use. I always enjoy a coffee before I work out. You must be careful though, especially if you are working out in the evenings. Caffeine stays in your system for a long time, and it will inhibit your ability to get deep REM sleep - whether you have worked out or not. Therefore the benefit of what you gained from your workout from having caffeine will be negated the next day due to inadequate sleep.

You can find out more about it right here: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?

What’s Next?

I really hope you found this article useful, and you feel a lot more comfortable about your diet and nutrition when ity comes to your workouts.

I also have some other articles you might find useful to help you navigate your nturitona lot more on your Fitness Journey:

Added to all of that, if you would like a Free Calorie and Macro Calculator then just put your email in here:

You are also more than welcome to join my Free Facebook Group:

What to eat when working out to lose belly fat

JOIN NOW

Thank you so much for being here - it means an awful lot to me.

Have a great day…

Coach Adam

References:

Food and mood: how do diet and nutrition affect mental wellbeing BMJ2020;369doi:https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m2382(Published 29 June 2020)Cite this as:BMJ2020;369:m2382
Johnston CS, Day CS, Swan PD. Postprandial thermogenesis is increased 100% on a high-protein, low-fat diet versus a high-carbohydrate, low-fat diet in healthy, young women. J Am Coll Nutr. 2002 Feb;21(1):55-61. doi: 10.1080/07315724.2002.10719194. PMID: 11838888.
Schoenfeld BJ, Aragon AA, Krieger JW. The effect of protein timing on muscle strength and hypertrophy: a meta-analysis. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2013 Dec 3;10(1):53. doi: 10.1186/1550-2783-10-53. PMID: 24299050; PMCID: PMC3879660.
Levine JA. Non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT). Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2002 Dec;16(4):679-702. doi: 10.1053/beem.2002.0227. PMID: 12468415.
Seidelmann SB, Claggett B, Cheng S, Henglin M, Shah A, Steffen LM, Folsom AR, Rimm EB, Willett WC, Solomon SD. Dietary carbohydrate intake and mortality: a prospective cohort study and meta-analysis. Lancet Public Health. 2018 Sep;3(9):e419-e428. doi: 10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30135-X. Epub 2018 Aug 17. PMID: 30122560; PMCID: PMC6339822.
Fernández-Elías VE, Ortega JF, Nelson RK, Mora-Rodriguez R. Relationship between muscle water and glycogen recovery after prolonged exercise in the heat in humans. Eur J Appl Physiol. 2015 Sep;115(9):1919-26. doi: 10.1007/s00421-015-3175-z. Epub 2015 Apr 25. PMID: 25911631.
Liu AG, Ford NA, Hu FB, Zelman KM, Mozaffarian D, Kris-Etherton PM. A healthy approach to dietary fats: understanding the science and taking action to reduce consumer confusion. Nutr J. 2017 Aug 30;16(1):53. doi: 10.1186/s12937-017-0271-4. PMID: 28854932; PMCID: PMC5577766.
Navarini L, Afeltra A, Gallo Afflitto G, Margiotta DPE. Polyunsaturated fatty acids: any role in rheumatoid arthritis? Lipids Health Dis. 2017 Oct 10;16(1):197. doi: 10.1186/s12944-017-0586-3. PMID: 29017507; PMCID: PMC5634864.
Goldberg RJ, Katz J. A meta-analysis of the analgesic effects of omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation for inflammatory joint pain. Pain. 2007 May;129(1-2):210-23. doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2007.01.020. Epub 2007 Mar 1. PMID: 17335973.
Tuck KL, Hayball PJ. Major phenolic compounds in olive oil: metabolism and health effects. J Nutr Biochem. 2002 Nov;13(11):636-644. doi: 10.1016/s0955-2863(02)00229-2. PMID: 12550060.
Yoneyama S, Miura K, Sasaki S, Yoshita K, Morikawa Y, Ishizaki M, Kido T, Naruse Y, Nakagawa H. Dietary intake of fatty acids and serum C-reactive protein in Japanese. J Epidemiol. 2007 May;17(3):86-92. doi: 10.2188/jea.17.86. PMID: 17545695; PMCID: PMC7058455.
Martínez-González MA, Dominguez LJ, Delgado-Rodríguez M. Olive oil consumption and risk of CHD and/or stroke: a meta-analysis of case-control, cohort and intervention studies. Br J Nutr. 2014 Jul 28;112(2):248-59. doi: 10.1017/S0007114514000713. Epub 2014 Apr 28. PMID: 24775425.
Patrick L, Uzick M. Cardiovascular disease: C-reactive protein and the inflammatory disease paradigm: HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, alpha-tocopherol, red yeast rice, and olive oil polyphenols. A review of the literature. Altern Med Rev. 2001 Jun;6(3):248-71. PMID: 11410071.
Psaltopoulou T, Naska A, Orfanos P, Trichopoulos D, Mountokalakis T, Trichopoulou A. Olive oil, the Mediterranean diet, and arterial blood pressure: the Greek European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition (EPIC) study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2004 Oct;80(4):1012-8. doi: 10.1093/ajcn/80.4.1012. Erratum in: Am J Clin Nutr. 2005 May;81(5):1181. PMID: 15447913.
Bes-Rastrollo M, Sánchez-Villegas A, de la Fuente C, de Irala J, Martinez JA, Martínez-González MA. Olive oil consumption and weight change: the SUN prospective cohort study. Lipids. 2006 Mar;41(3):249-56. doi: 10.1007/s11745-006-5094-6. PMID: 16711599
Kastorini CM, Panagiotakos DB. Dietary patterns and prevention of type 2 diabetes: from research to clinical practice; a systematic review. Curr Diabetes Rev. 2009 Nov;5(4):221-7. doi: 10.2174/157339909789804341. PMID: 19531025.
Trichopoulou A, Lagiou P, Kuper H, Trichopoulos D. Cancer and Mediterranean dietary traditions. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev. 2000 Sep;9(9):869-73. PMID: 11008902.
Brose A, Parise G, Tarnopolsky MA. Creatine supplementation enhances isometric strength and body composition improvements following strength exercise training in older adults. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2003 Jan;58(1):11-9. doi: 10.1093/gerona/58.1.b11. PMID: 12560406.
Matthews RT, Ferrante RJ, Klivenyi P, Yang L, Klein AM, Mueller G, Kaddurah-Daouk R, Beal MF. Creatine and cyclocreatine attenuate MPTP neurotoxicity. Exp Neurol. 1999 May;157(1):142-9. doi: 10.1006/exnr.1999.7049. PMID: 10222117.
Hodgson AB, Randell RK, Jeukendrup AE. The metabolic and performance effects of caffeine compared to coffee during endurance exercise. PLoS One. 2013;8(4):e59561. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0059561. Epub 2013 Apr 3. PMID: 23573201; PMCID: PMC3616086.

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 20/9/21 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 20/9/21

7 Practical Tips To Make Counting Calories Easier

Easy Ways To Count Calories for beginners

One of the most frequent complaints I get from clients on the Strong & Confident Program is that they just don’t have the time to track their food.

Once they have cooked the dinner, eaten the dinner and then washed up after - its either their bedtime or their children’s bedtime…and the act of meticulously going through what they ate that day, and most importantly trying to remember everything they ate that day, is obviously going to be the last thing on their mind - whether they want to achieve their goals or not.

And I get it.

80% of my clients, throughout my career have been busy parents, and realistically you have to look at their lives and question whether tracking their calories is really going to add stress or take the stress away from their life.

And much of the time it will add stress - which will have far more negative repercussions on their fitness than whether they choose to track calories.

About a month ago, I did a Seminar here on the Gold Coast, Australia, all about Tracking your calories, and I wanted to share with you what we all went through on that day.

Table of contents for: 7 Practical Tips To Make Counting Calories Easier

Does Calorie Counting work?
Why should you track your food?
Informed Consent on tracking your calories
7 Tips to make Counting Calories Easier
How To Be In A Calorie Deficit Without Logging Your Food

There is a quick summary of my 7 Practical Tips on YouTube. But to understand the principles and the whys and wherefores behind counting calories - keep reading!

Does Calorie Counting work?

This is a very hotly debated topic.

There are people out there…on the internet…who will tell you that tracking your calories simply doesn’t work…simply because the calorie amounts on packages aren’t accurate.

This study [1] called ‘Food Label Accuracy of Common Snack Foods’ found that:

This is a shocking revelation, but it’s still only 8% out.

The last time I checked, 8% was a pretty small amount. Let me put it to you thus, if I gave you 92% success in your Goals…would you take it?

Exactly.

So let me ask again; Does Calorie Counting Work?

And it’s a resounding yes provided you have never had an Eating Disorder.

If you have ever had an Eating Disorder then please don’t engage in Calorie Counting. And if you need help with that please contact the Charity BEAT here [2].

There are issues relating to Calorie Counting, and I go into those later in the article. But the main answer to this question is the following:

Yes. Calorie Counting does work.

This study [3] took participants over one year, and depending on their consistency with dietary tracking, split them into three Groups.

Rare Trackers equalling <33% days tracked (114 days out of 343)
Inconsistent Trackers 33-66% days tracked
Consistent Trackers >66% days tracked (228 days out opf 343)

Please note that consistent trackers qualify at just two-thirds of the time available to them - not 100% of the time available to them.

All participants were asked to:

Maintain daily food journals and physical activity records;
Reduce portion sizes;
Reduce foods high in calories, fat, and simple sugar;
Increase consumption of fruits, vegetables, and low-fat dairy products;

and

Weigh themselves frequently and at least weekly (more on this here)

They each worked with a Health Coach, and attended interactive sessions designed to educate them on nutrition and exercise adherence.

The results were:

It also concluded the following:

“Early in the program weight change of consistent trackers did not differ from rare or inconsistent dietary trackers. However, rare or inconsistent trackers gained weight during the holidays but the consistent trackers' rate of weight loss did not change as they sustained their rate of weight loss from the first quarter. Hence, successful behavioural interventions should emphasize the benefits of consistent dietary tracking for participants, motivating individuals to track for at least 5 days of each week for sustained and clinically significant weight loss"

This study teaches us a lot about weight loss.

The first lesson is that consistency is what matters, and consistency doesn’t mean as much as you think it does. It is simply just two-thirds of your time.

The second lesson is that tracking is a behaviour that supports other behaviours like having a Coach, reducing portion sizes, and eating more fruits and vegetables.

The third lesson is that scientifically 10lbs is a significant amount of weight to lose in a year.

As a coach, my point here is you need to stop comparing yourself to people on Social Media. What you see on there, compared to what real world results truly look like vary greatly.

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Take Me There…

Why Should You Track Your Food?

One of the most common occurrences in people who are trying to lose weight and getting frustrated with the outcomes in terms of weight loss is that they often overestimate the calories they are burning and underestimate the calories they are consuming.

As this study concludes:

“The failure of some obese subjects to lose weight while eating a diet they report as low in calories is due to an energy intake substantially higher than reported and an overestimation of physical activity, not to an abnormality in thermogenesis.”

This basically means that it comes down to your Calorie Deficit, rather than there being an issue in the way your body metabolises food.

The hypothesis has been tested in two other ways as well. This study pipped Dieticians against Non-Dieticians and found that even dieticians under-report their energy intake somewhere between 223 and 116 kcal/day, compared with the non-dieticians who underreported between 429 and 142kcal/day.

This just goes to show…that even those who are really well educated on food and nutrition still underestimate the calories they are consuming.

This doesn’t mean that learning about nutrition and your food isn’t worthwhile. The dieticians were still better with an average over-reporting of 169.5kcal/day compared to the non-dieticians which averaged 285.5kcal/day.

And finally,

This study actually paid people to be accurate. They were giving out $50 bonuses to be accurate with their diet recall on four occasions. One group had to be accurate the first two times, the second group accurate the second two times, and one group received no bonus at all.

And guess what happened:

“Energy intake did not differ within or between groups at any time, and the number of under reporters was not associated with group at any time. Overall, the incentive was ineffective.”

So by tracking your food, you reduce the risk of being inaccurate. In fact, tracking your food is the most accurate way to tell if you are or are not in a calorie deficit for that day. We have no other way of knowing this information, and if you want instant feedback about your weight loss day on day - then tracking your food is the best way to go about it.

In terms of overestimating the number of calories, you are burning this comes down to many things. The main one is that we trust our smartwatches to be accurate with this information when this study [5] demonstrates.

It found that Smartwatches at their most accurate, in terms of judging energy expenditure are off by between 27% and 93%.

The study also found that they are better at reading heart rates.

Personally, as a Coach, I don’t like clients on my Strong & Confident Program to focus on Calories burned from exercise - because that can destroy your relationship with exercise and create very extreme behaviour that will only lead to failure.

You should focus on eating to your deficit - and exercising to get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods.

Informed Consent when tracking your food

As I mentioned above, you should not track your food if you are recovering from any form of Eating Disorder.

But I also take my responsibility for your Mental Health very seriously so I want to let you know about the drawbacks of tracking your food, before I give you the 7 Practical Tips To Make Counting Calories Easier.

Then you can decide whether or not it is a behaviour you are safe to engage with.

This study [6] analysed 5.5k posts on Community Forums, like MyFitness Pal, and discovered what the practical difficulties are with tracking food.

Success is attributed to a “goal weight achievement”
Of 94 people, only 22 thought they were empowered enough to no longer need to track their food
Can be a tedious practice
Not knowing how much of a food to enter
Not being able to find foods in the database
How do you track restaurants and eating at a friends house?
When asked to rate difficulty by meal type, respondents rated packaged food (average: 6.5) and fast food (6.3) as significantly easier to journal than home-cooked meals (4.6), buffet meals (3.7), ethnic food (3.7), restaurant meals (3.6), foods served by friends (3.2), and foods consumed at parties (2.9)

I’d just like to highlight a few points here:

“Success is attributed to a “goal weight achievement” - this is always going to be an issue on an App like MyFitness Pal - because it keeps reminding you how much you will weigh in x amount of days, if you keep up the behaviour you set that day. Although some will find this motivating I am here to tell you that your success is not defined by hitting a weight on the scale. Your success is determined by engaging in behaviours over a consistent period of time. If you set these behaviours and execute you will gain confidence and strength - as a consequence of that you might lose weight.

I think I summed this up best when I said on Instagram:

“How do you track restaurants and eating at a friends house?” - there are two schools of thought here:

If you don’t eat out too often - mainly if it’s just a special occasion - then you shouldn’t be tracking in the first place, you should be enjoying the moment.
If you eat out more and are worried about the calories, do your best at figuring out what you had when you get home…then add 30% to account for factors of food that are out of your control - like the amount of oil used by the Chef.

The same study [6] then also analysed Mental Health outcomes relating to tracking food and it found:

Food journalers report feelings of shame, judgement, or obsession associated with current designs. P6 reported journaling “made me feel guilty sometimes”, while P27 noted a lack of positive feedback: “I always felt guilty when I ate too much, and there wasn't that much pride when I was under my goal.”
“Sometimes I feel like not logging things because I know it’s really unhealthy.
“It made me too focused and obsessive about what I was eating”
“It was more of an on the way to an eating disorder thing than anything else (tried to keep calories extremely low)”
“I think I was hesitant to do the logging if not alone”
“I had more of a problem with eating out at a friend’s house because I didn’t want to ask for ingredients or mention that I was logging calories”

You should never feel shame around a behaviour you are engaging in and if you are feeling that way then please do not operate in that behaviour.

If what you are doing is not making you feel strong and empowered - then why o why are you doing it?

You shouldn’t have to suffer - and I don’t want you to suffer at all.

In terms of going over your calories sometimes - and that leading to a feeling of failure - please remember that no matter what you do - you can’t fuck this up - because when you engage in a fitness journey - it shouldn’t be defined by an endpoint, it should be a move to building an active lifestyle and pulling yourself into balance.

Therefore, all you have to do is get back on track the very next day.

The human body doesn’t gain weight that quickly, so there really isn’t a need to panic when you go over.

1. Don’t try to be perfect in an imperfect system

The whole system around calories is flawed.

When we establish someone’s Basal Metabolic Rate which is the point upon which we begin to figure out their deficit calories we are making it our “best guess”. This guess is based on years and years of study across millions of people, but it is still a guess.

And the food industry does the same. In 1991 the Australian Food Standards Code used to state:

“That the value shown in a Nutrition Information Panel was deemed to comply if these values (of energy, carbohydrate, starch or fibre) did not vary by more than 20% from those values actually present and 10% variation was permitted for other nutrients”

And although these figures are no longer part of Law they are still regarded as acceptable folklore in the Food Industry.

The current Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code does not permit or mandate any limits on accuracy of the levels of nutrients expressed in Nutrition Information Panels but only requires that these values be ‘average’ values. Maximum and minimum quantities are required in regard to claims for polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fatty acid contents of food.

And in the US a study called “Food Label Accuracy of Common Snack Foods” [7] we have already seen that calories in published are not that reliable.

Being consistent with tracking your food, to get a best guess is good enough, and by doing that you still get results as you will be holding yourself accountable and over time will improve your choices to help you get to your goals.

2. It’s Not A Life Sentence; its a Period of Education

When you approach anything in life with the view of “What can I learn about this?” as opposed to “Can I pass or fail this?” you will automatically improve your relationship with that behaviour.

Tracking your food is no different. You should do it to learn about the energy in food, to learn about how your choices over a day impact your energy and ability to control your stress. Its a way of finding out if your weekends are destroying your progress and what eating in balance really looks like.

You get to decide when that period of education is over and when you feel empowered enough to move away from tracking your calories - because that is the goal here. The goal isn’t to be tied to MyFitness Pal for the rest of your life.

You should want to be educated enough about nutrition so that you never have to open an app ever again.

3. There is no right or wrong, just exploration

One of these days I’m going to get this printed on a t-shirt. It’s true of exercise, and it’s true of nutrition.

If you go over your calories, the only person judging you is you.

If you don’t hit your protein target, the only person judging you is you.

Every time something sub-optimal occurs the good news is that you have the opportunity to learn from it, grow from it, and ultimately succeed from those lessons.

You are only every investigating, course correcting and developing - you are not passing or failing.

4. If it’s in a packet: Track it!

This is so simple it hurts. MyFitness Pal and any other tracking app you might use will have what’s called a Barcode Scanner. It will literally take you a matter of seconds to get all of the nutritional information you need about that food by scanning the barcode.

Therefore if you eat something with a barcode. on the packet - which will be a fair 75% of the food you eat - just track it.

5 . Set Up generic value amounts for Fruits and Veggies

Let’s be very clear - no one ever gained weight from eating too many fruits and veggies. Even if you are a Vegetarian, I promise you fruits and vegetables in your diet are not the problem here.

And when it comes to tracking them, they can be really annoying to put into an app accurately.

Therefore you should just set up a generic value for Fruits and Vegetables, save that into your App and just use those every time you have your Veggies at dinner.

Personally I just scan a bag of frozen vegetables set it to 100g and use that every time I have dinner - irrespective of what the Vegetables actually are.

6. Eating Out? Add 30% to your meal

I alluded to this earlier in the article - but it’s a strategy that makes everything. more accurate for you when you are trying to track your food.

The best way to track your food when eating out would be the following:

1. See online if the restaurant publishes their calories

2. In the restaurant take a photo.

3. When at home, best guess the amounts.

4. Add 30% to every amount even if the restaurant does publish their calories

That way you have the bases covered.

And remember if you are out celebrating - celebrate. Don’t worry about the calories on special occasions - just worry about getting back on track the next day.

7. Cook Meals that are already Calorie Tracked

This is the one that perplexes me the most when it comes to people who are trying to lose weight and using calorie tracking as a solution to that.

It also perplexes me with clients on my Strong and Confident Program - who are tracking - as they have access to over 250 recipes all with calorie tracked barcodes including vegetarian and vegan options - yet they still say that tracking is too hard for them.

All the hard work has been done for you.

In fact, if you Google “MyFitness Pal Dinner Recipes” you get 688,000 results and the top one is all with the Macros and Calories already figured out for you.

So use that resource.

I guarantee you will be able to find a version of your favourite meal that is now Barcode Scannable or has all of the nutritional information figured out for you. Then you just have to copy and paste.

The brass tax is if you can’t be bothered to copy and paste some information or spend ten minutes finding the information on the internet to be able to track your calories - then engaging in a fitness journey will always be a slog for you.

How To Be In A Calorie Deficit Without Logging Your Food

There are other things you can do to keep your calories in check without necessarily logging your food.

But bear in mind, the only way to truly know if you are in a deficit each day - is to log your foods.

I have two strategies for this.

The first is a three meals, two snacks which I outline here:

This is very simple.

Each day you are allowed three meals.
Each meal must fit on one plate.
Between breakfast and lunch and lunch and dinner you can have a snack.

I have found applying this structure is incredibly effective.

The second strategy is called The Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life.

This is a list of 5 things you need in order to lose weight:

Be in a Calorie Deficit
Three Litres of Water A Day
Protein and Veggies at every meal
8-10k Steps A Day
7-8 hours of sleep a night

And if you want help figuring this out then watch this:

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Across this website, I have other Articles all about Tracking your Calories and managing your Calorie Deficit:

Added to that it would be AMAZING if you wanted to become my friend.

As my friend, I will send you some amazing help, like a book called 27 Ways to Faster Fat Loss, workout plans for both the Gym and home workouts, and much more. Just put your email in below:

References:

Jumpertz R, Venti CA, Le DS, et al. Food label accuracy of common snack foods. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013;21(1):164-169. doi:10.1002/oby.20185
Beat. 2021. The UK's Eating Disorder Charity - Beat. [online] Available at: <https://www.beateatingdisorders.org.uk/> [Accessed 15 September 2021].
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Lichtman SW, Pisarska K, Berman ER, Pestone M, Dowling H, Offenbacher E, Weisel H, Heshka S, Matthews DE, Heymsfield SB. Discrepancy between self-reported and actual caloric intake and exercise in obese subjects. N Engl J Med. 1992 Dec 31;327(27):1893-8. doi: 10.1056/NEJM199212313272701. PMID: 1454084.
Shcherbina, A.; Mattsson, C.M.; Waggott, D.; Salisbury, H.; Christle, J.W.; Hastie, T.; Wheeler, M.T.; Ashley, E.A. Accuracy in Wrist-Worn, Sensor-Based Measurements of Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in a Diverse Cohort. J. Pers. Med. 2017, 7, 3. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm7020003
Cordeiro F, Epstein DA, Thomaz E, Bales E, Jagannathan AK, Abowd GD, Fogarty J. Barriers and Negative Nudges: Exploring Challenges in Food Journaling. Proc SIGCHI Conf Hum Factor Comput Syst. 2015 Apr;2015:1159-1162. doi: 10.1145/2702123.2702155. PMID: 26894233; PMCID: PMC4755274.
Jumpertz R, Venti CA, Le DS, Michaels J, Parrington S, Krakoff J, Votruba S. Food label accuracy of common snack foods. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2013 Jan;21(1):164-9. doi: 10.1002/oby.20185. PMID: 23505182; PMCID: PMC3605747.

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 28/8/21 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 28/8/21

Why Can't I Lose Weight No Matter What I Do?

Inability to lose weight despite diet and exercise

Choose a Lego Head above.

Any Lego Head.

And I imagine its pretty close to how you are feeling about your weight loss efforts…and how you happened to end up here…reading this Article.

And if you have been trying to lose weight for a while now…and you have ended up here, reading this, then I am sure you probably feel more like this:

To find the images of the Lego Heads I used two words:

“Angry” and “Frustrated”

This gives me one sole goal for this article - as your Coach - to remove your frustration and your anger about your inability to lose weight no matter what you do - and be able to set you up on a path to success.

Just like my friend Jenny who lost over 7kgs working with me online on the Strong and Confident Program.

She came to me at her whits end - having spent hours on the Gym floor, following every single piece of advice they gave her on diet and exercise. Sometimes she would exercise twice a day just to try and achieve a change on the scale, in her clothes or how she felt about herself.

And still couldn’t crack the “secret code” to weight loss.

Then we spoke on a video chat, she was very emotional and I held out my hand, told her to stop worrying, and together….we’ve got this.

She achieved this by just doing 10mins a day every day for 3 months.

Because she had a process that she could trust.

And that is what I am going to share with you today in order to make you feel empowered, strong and confident to finally Google the term:

“How to get strong enough to wrestle a bear in the woods”

Please remember this article is not from a Medical Perspective - it is a Coach’s perspective on why you aren’t losing weight no matter what you do.

I am presuming you have been to the Doctor, and got the all-clear from any severe Metabolic conditions, I am also going out on a limb and saying that if you have Hypothyroidism, PCOS, or are currently struggling with the symptoms of Menopause what I am going to share with you is still relevant, and will still work - it just is that much harder.

If you need help with PCOS and Weight Loss then read this:

HOW TO ACTUALLY LOSE WEIGHT WITH PCOS

The structure of this article is a little different from my “normal” ones. For each header, I am going to pose you a question for you to answer - from there I will hope to establish some holes in your approach to losing weight - and I will tell you the science-backed solution to fixing that hole in your approach.

By the end of this article, you will be able to reset, reapproach and feel reinvigorated to help make the changes you need.

All I ask from you, as you read this, is that you are honest with yourself in how you respond to these questions.

If you are able, to be honest, then I will be able to help you…and we can make you feel more like a Super Hero in your weight loss journey. We can literally get you eating ice cream and losing weight….

Which in truth is the ultimate goal anyway isn’t it?

Table of Contents for “I Can’t Lose Weight No Matter What I Do”

Are you in a Calorie Deficit?
Are you sleeping enough?
Are you blaming your Metabolism?
Are you making the most of your Metabolism?
Are you restricting your diet too much?
Are you being consistent?
Are you expecting your movement to do the job for you?
Are you on a plan that is making you unhappy?
Are you too stressed?
Are your expectations too great?
Are you comparing yourself to others?

Question 1: Are you in a Calorie Deficit?

If you have read any of my work before then you will know that a Calorie Deficit is the only way you can lose weight.

As in you need to burn more calories from your body than you are putting into it - and this is what a Calorie Deficit is.

Very simple to understand - but not easy to implement.

If you have found this article, and you have never heard the term Calorie Deficit before then this is the reason you are not losing weight no matter what you do.

You should probably watch this for further context on what a Calorie Deficit truly is and how to set yourself up in a Deficit:

If you have heard the term before, and believe it is what you have tried to implement - then keep reading because every single point I am going to explore in this article is literally going to be the best Coaching advice I have for you to investigate WHY you aren’t in a Calorie Deficit DESPITE your best efforts.

So lets get into it…

Question 2: Are you Sleeping enough?

I have laid out the correlation between sleep and weight loss in one of my more recent Blog Posts: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?

In writing that Blog, I came to the realization that Sleep is probably more important to a human in order to lose weight than a Calorie Deficit.

Because…

Without enough sleep, you simply will not be able to get into a Calorie Deficit.

In a nutshell…sleep helps you process your emotions like stress and anxiety. When we are deprived of sleep, there is greater activity in the part of the brain known as the Amygdala [1].

The Amygdala is responsible for your emotional responses to what is happening to you during the day.

In subjects who are more sleep deprived, the Amygdala is buzzing with activity, and therefore the sleep-deprived person is responding more emotionally than if they had their 8 hours a night.

And if your emotions are high and negative, your Caloric intake increases.

As the study ‘Modeling the Effects of Positive and Negative Mood on the Ability to Resist Eating in Obese and Non-obese Individuals’ [2] states:

“We also demonstrated strong associations between food craving and these eating behaviours, particularly after following a negative mood induction in obese individuals”

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Question 3: Are you blaming your Metabolism?

Throughout life, you may have heard lots of different theories on your Metabolism. The two main ones are:

Your Metabolism slows down as you age
Your Metabolism is broken or Starvation Mode

Let’s deal with your slowing Metabolism first.

A new study called: Daily energy expenditure through the human life course [3] has found that your Metabolism is stable throughout your adult life from the age of 20 all the way up to the age of 60.

This is despite going through Menopause and Pregnancy.

This is good news. As it now clearly shows us that assigning blame when it comes to weight to something that is “out of your control”, ie; your Metabolism, is not a useful strategy.

You can now look past this, and start investigating other reasons you may be unable to lose weight - more than likely one of the other points in this blog.

And as for your Metabolism being broken from a history of eating too little…that is also not relevant.

You can’t break your Metabolism.

The thoughts on this stem down into something known as Starvation Mode; the idea that if you eat too little over your life then your body goes into a “survival mode” or a “starvation mode”.

This does not exist.

Your body metabolically adapts but does not stop as the study Metabolic slowing with massive weight loss despite preservation of fat-free mass [3] concluded:

“RMR declined out of proportion to the decrease in body mass, demonstrating a substantial metabolic adaptation” .

in 1944 the University of Minnesota wanted to find out what extreme Famine does to a population and crucially how to rehabilitate people out of extreme famine in the wake of World War 2.

The study [4] started with, starving people. For real. In study conditions.

36 participants were recruited and were put into Prisoner of War conditions. Made to do manual labour, walk 22 miles a week and were fed 50% of their caloric needs.

Oh, it gets worse…

They did this for 6 months.

One participant cut off his fingers just to get out of the study early…

And as you can imagine it got pretty rough for them. On average each participant lost 25% of their body weight. Here is a photo from the experiment:

But crucially what happened to their Metabolism?

Their metabolisms were performing about 20% lower than predicted after losing weight - their metabolisms adapted.

But this was a two-fold experiment. Participants were put into a “recovery diet” to help them regain the weight they had lost, and after 12 weeks their metabolisms were re-assessed. In 12 weeks their metabolisms were only underperforming by 10%. And in some cases - there was no Metabolic damage at all.

So after being put into Prisoner of War Camp-like conditions, given just 5o% of their caloric needs each day and being forced to do what can only be described as a fuck tonne of exercise, their Metabolisms were not “broken”.

And if you look at this study it would suggest that if you followed the recovery of the subjects in the Minnesota Starvation Experiment for longer than 12 weeks - their Metabolism made a full recovery.

And…

Each participant continued to lose weight throughout the whole experiment.

Question 4: Are you making the most of your Metabolism?

Your metabolism (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) is made up of four components.

why can't I lose fat in a calorie deficit?

As you can see in the chart above, your Basal Metabolic Rate which is 70% of your Metabolism is the largest portion of your Metabolism. But it is also largely out of your control. This 70% is determined by your Sex, Height, and Weight. It's how your body just keeps your body functioning to get the most out of your Metabolism, as in, to burn the most amount of Calories each and every day, you should focus on your NEAT.

This makes up 15% of your Daily Caloric burn.

It outranks your time in the Gym by 10% and outranks the food you eat by 5%.

So how do you increase your Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis?

Aim for 8-10k steps a day
Stand up when on the phone
Stand up when at work
Have walking meetings/social events
Park further away from the shops
Fidget more
Stand up on Public Transport
Use the upstairs toilet, not the downstairs toilet
Stand when you brush your teeth

Many people when they want to begin to lose weight will prioritize in this order:

Exercise in the Gym
Nutrition
Daily Movement

Even to the point that 2 and 3 sometimes don’t even get thought of.

But in truth it should look like this:

Nutrition
Daily Movement
Exercise in the Gym

Question 5: Are you restricting your Diet too much?

Restriction of calories can lead to weight loss.

That’s basically what a Calorie Deficit is.

But there is a dark side to this as well - and this dark side is probably the number one reason people yo-yo diet AND just can’t seem to lose weight no matter what they do.

This is what occurs:

You decide to lose weight
You jump onto a Calorie Calculator and get an arbitrary number of calories to lose say 1kg a week
That number is a very low amount of calories
You manage to stick to this very low number for a brief period
The hunger and the restriction gets too much
You stop restricting but you don’t go into a balance
You go into a Binge
This binge lasts two months because now you feel like you failed
You gain weight again
You repeat the cycle

And what happens is you spend more time out of a deficit than in one which will lead to short and sharp results with the weight loss - but ultimately you will feel like you are constantly failing and unable to ever lose weight because it’s just too damn difficult to do.

This is what I describe as a classic Binge and Restrict Cycle.

You blame yourself for not being able to stick to it.

When in truth you were always set up to fail from the start.

When you over restrict - you have to compensate for that at some point down the line and this creates a swing of too much restriction and too much indulgence.

Then over a year, you have spent more time out of a deficit than in one - which is why you seem to never be able to lose weight.

It always comes down to sustainability and giving yourself a much longer-term view of your goals rather than trying to achieve what you want in a couple of months.

You need what I call…a wide angle lens….

@thegymstarter

When really you just need to be more level with everything to begin with. Drop your expectations of losing weight on a set schedule, because scale weight doesn’t work on a schedule, and give yourself a smaller deficit - which is wholly more sustainable.

To figure that out you can download my Free Fitness Goodies which includes a personalized calorie calculator which makes sure you set yourself up for success with sustainable methods.

Question 6: Are you being consistent?

It’s an infamous word, isn’t it? Consistency. I feel we all know what it means - and we all believe we are executing on it.

But much like the binge and restrict cycle outlined previously, when it comes to consistency what occurs is perfection and abstention - and often the perfection part of the pendulum is confused for consistency.

Many many many people tell me they are being consistent:

By going to the gym every day
By avoiding processed foods every day
By cutting out sugar all the time
By tracking their food every day

Whenever you use the words “every day” or “all the time” you are not being consistent.

You are striving for perfection. And perfection is impossible.

And then when you can’t keep up the perfect routine you are excusing for consistency the feelings of failure begin again…and you eventually give up.

You don’t need to do it every day. You don’t need to work out every day. You don’t need to track your calories every day. You don’t need to eat salads every day to have success.

You do need to do it consistently - a good guide for this is the 80/20 rule which would dictate that in a month you need to be hitting your goals around 25 days of the month.

As the study “The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time” [6] states:

“Successful behavioural interventions should emphasize the benefits of consistent dietary tracking for participants, motivating individuals to track for at least 5 days of each week for sustained and clinically significant weight loss"

Not 7 days, not even 6. At least 5 days.

That sounds like an 80/20 rule to me.

To find out more about how to implement consistency in your fitness journey head here: How To Stay Consistent With Your Fitness

Question 7: Are you expecting your movement to do the job for you?

Now I am sure you have heard the old saying:

"You can’t out-train a bad diet”

And this is pretty much true - although I detest over simplifications and cliches like this.

On an average strength training workout, you are burning maybe 300 calories.

At a real push.

You could try and get a bigger calorie burn in by doing some cardio or HIIT but these exercises increase your appetite - so any gains you might make in the Calorie burning department are going to be negated by your hunger increasing.

And for women, that increase in hunger can occur 3-5 days after you have actually worked out meaning it can become really unclear on what the root cause of that increased diet is.

You may well be reading this section and thinking:

“When I work out my watch tells me that I burn 600kcal a workout”

Well, again, your watch is lying to you. There are many studies like this one [7] that shows a wristwatch can be up to 25% inaccurate when looking at calories burned from exercise.

This isn’t to say that being in the Gym isn’t useful for your health and wellbeing - especially when you are wanting to lose weight - it is vitally important to help you get a sense of wellbeing, of strength and achievement.

But you need to get into the mindset of going to the Gym to “get strong enough to fight a bear in the woods” and you need to get into the mindset of your controlling your calories to try and help you lose weight.

The gym isn’t for burning calories, its for getting strong and proving to yourself that you can do hard things and repeat behaviours over time that will lead to your long term success elsewhere in your life.

Question 8: Are you on a plan that is making you unhappy?

This again is a very common behaviour and it doesn’t matter how great the plan is in terms of results, you will never be able to do it for long enough to actually see these results if you aren’t enjoying what you are doing.

I can think of many examples of Exercise regimens and Diets that do not prioritise balance and enjoyment - and sadly they are the ones that have a lot of marketing behind them and promise “fast results”.

When it comes to diet and exercise - enjoyment is the sole driver of success.

If you don’t enjoy what it is you are doing, but do see results, that’s great. But it just will not last. The results will be temporary and the inevitable weight regain will occur on the back end.

Now sure, we would all enjoy eating doughnuts all day long…

But that too would soon become unenjoyable, just like it did with Homer.

The key to successful weight loss is getting into a process.

The last thing you want is to reach a goal and realise it was all about the process in the beginning.

By focussing on the process, you also focus on the behaviours that will change your life - and get you to your goals.

If those behaviours don’t inspire you, don’t excite you and don’t drive you to take action each and every day then you will never be able to sustain what you are doing.

If you can learn to focus on the process of looking after yourself in this manner, then my friend, you have already won.

Question 9: Are you too stressed?

Stress is very underrated in terms of how it affects your ability to lose weight.

A point beautifully demonstrated by Homer. Again.

Stress will create two behaviors in your life that make a Calorie Deficit very hard to stick to.

The first is that it will disrupt sleep - now I covered that in Question 2, however, you cannot be reminded enough that you need a better sleep regimen to be able to stay in a Calorie Deficit.

The other role stress plays is its link to emotional eating.

Now firstly we all emotionally eat - please do not think that you are “broken” because you respond to emotions with food. We all do it. The biggest difference here might be the quantity or frequency upon which we do it.

Personally, my emotional eating reveals itself in chugging a beer or two.

For others, it can be hours of eating Haribos or hours upon hours of drinking alcohol - my emotional eating binges last for the duration of the food I am consuming - whereas, for other people, it can last whole evenings, possibly three to four times a week.

Often when it comes to emotional eating, we try to fix the emotions with food - however in truth, the only thing that will fix the emotional eating is learning to process the emotions correctly - and dealing with that head-on.

Stress is proven to cause an increase in caloric intake in someone’s life.

As the study: “Stress-induced obesity and the emotional nervous system [8] concludes:

“Stress also induces secretion of glucocorticoids, which increases motivation for food, and insulin, which promotes food intake and obesity. Pleasurable feeding then reduces activity in the stress–response network, reinforcing the feeding habit. These effects of stressors emphasize the importance of teaching mental reappraisal techniques to restore responses from habitual to thoughtful, thus battling stress-induced obesity”

As you can see there is a need to help reduce your stress in the best way possible.

These are my top recommendations to help you reduce stress:

Get enough sleep regularly. If you need help with that listen to my Sleep Stories here: Three Medatitive Sleep Stories by Adam Berry
Exercise regularly. Exercise has been proven to reduce stress and help you sleep, as well as process your emotions.
Eat more nutritiously - make choices that align with your goals and you will feel like you are achieving as opposed to constantly failing.
Meditate. I don’t mean sit on the floor humming, I mean take time to connect to your breath and actively relax - that’s all meditation is. To get some free meditations from me head here: Centering The Breath: A YouTube Playlist

Question 10: Are your expectations too great?

I’ll let you in on a little secret:

Expectations are the number one reason people fail in fitness.

Forget everything else.

The issue is without a doubt expectation.

Many people start with an expectation that is wholly unrealistic - and usually based on an arbitrary human they have seen on Social Media as opposed to what is realistic for them, in their given circumstances.

And then when these expectations are seldom met, you start to feel like a failure….which inevitably results in giving up.

Let’s say you set up a goal to lose 5kgs. You aim for 0.5kgs a week and expect this to take 10 weeks.

Seems reasonable enough.

But over a 10-week period…you will inevitably have a few nights out….maybe a weekend away with your partner and let’s face it, a few missed Gym sessions.

You decide to weigh yourself weekly (more on why this is not a good idea here) and let’s say you only lose 200g one week….you have fallen behind your expectations, and go into “catch up mode”

The more this happens, the more drastic the behaviours come for you to get back on track.

The more drastic the behaviour the more unsustainable the whole thing becomes.

The only expectation you should have when it comes to your Fitness Journey is to simply try your best, do your damnedest, and get your strongest.

These are goals within your control, and they will result in your success becoming inevitable.

Question 11: Are you comparing yourself to others?

Ever heard the phrase “comparison is the thief of joy”?

Well, it’s true. By trying to live up to what someone else has achieved will only result in you not enjoying what it is you are doing.

You aren’t them. You don’t live their life. You don’t have the same abilities, genetics, finances, health, and support they have.

You are simply yourself.

You are simply only ever in competition with yourself. When you can try to just be better than you were yesterday you will build momentum, and momentum can be very very powerful.

But if you compare yourself to others, your momentum will stop immediately because you will only ever compare yourself to someone who is doing better than you - because that is all you will see.

The brain finds what we focus on. If you only want to focus on people who are thinner than you, lighter than you or more confident than you….then that is all you will ever see.

Nay.

That is all you will ever compare yourself to. When in actuality you have done better today than you did yesterday.

This is the last question in this Article. But I want to truly leave you with one thought.

One thought that will be the biggest game-changer you can imagine - an attitude that if you can adopt will allow you to stay focussed on what you are trying to accomplish and will allow the results you crave so much to come.

And it is this:

Adopt this singular thought - and your confidence will soar.

If we all just realized that nothing compares to ourselves…we will all become superheroes.

And being a superhero for yourself is what you should want to become.

Did You Find This Useful?

why can't I lose weight even when I exercise

Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.

As I mentioned earlier in the article, I would love to work with you if you need help with any of the above.

If you would like to apply to work with me then just click here:

Learn more

Thank you so much for being here.

Speak to you again soon.

Coach Adam

References:

Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 731–748.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
Udo T, Grilo CM, Brownell KD, Weinberger AH, Dileone RJ, McKee SA. Modeling the effects of positive and negative mood on the ability to resist eating in obese and non-obese individuals. Eat Behav. 2013;14(1):40-46. doi:10.1016/j.eatbeh.2012.10.010
Johannsen DL, Knuth ND, Huizenga R, Rood JC, Ravussin E, Hall KD. Metabolic slowing with massive weight loss despite preservation of fat-free mass. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2012 Jul;97(7):2489-96. doi: 10.1210/jc.2012-1444. Epub 2012 Apr 24. Erratum in: J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2016 May;101(5):2266. PMID: 22535969; PMCID: PMC3387402.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Starvation_Experiment
Zinchenko, Anastasia & Henselmans, Menno. (2016). Metabolic Damage: do Negative Metabolic Adaptations During Underfeeding Persist After Refeeding in Non-Obese Populations?. Medical Research Archives. 4. 10.18103/mra.v4i8.908.
Ingels JS, Misra R, Stewart J, Lucke-Wold B, Shawley-Brzoska S. The Effect of Adherence to Dietary Tracking on Weight Loss: Using HLM to Model Weight Loss over Time. J Diabetes Res. 2017;2017:6951495. doi: 10.1155/2017/6951495. Epub 2017 Aug 9. PMID: 28852651; PMCID: PMC5568610.
Shcherbina A, Mattsson CM, Waggott D, Salisbury H, Christle JW, Hastie T, Wheeler MT, Ashley EA. Accuracy in Wrist-Worn, Sensor-Based Measurements of Heart Rate and Energy Expenditure in a Diverse Cohort. Journal of Personalized Medicine. 2017; 7(2):3. https://doi.org/10.3390/jpm7020003
Mary F. Dallman, Stress-induced obesity and the emotional nervous system, Trends in Endocrinology & Metabolism, Volume 21, Issue 3, 2010, Pages 159-165, ISSN 1043-2760, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tem.2009.10.004

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 17/6/21 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 17/6/21

6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings

how to stop snacking at night while watching tv

We have all been there.

it’s dark outside, it’s been a stressful day, and you’re lying in bed listening to one thing.

The rumble in your tum tum.

And as you pay more attention to it, the louder it gets. You then get up and head towards the light.

Like a person possessed. Your brain is screaming: “NO”. But your legs are just walking slowly but surely down the stairs, and towards the light.

You almost try to convince yourself that you will choose something “good” as with each step you justify your legs moving you towards the light.

You get there.

Your arm is on auto-pilot.

The hum is almost soothing, and the light is not too bright….and not too dark. It’s as mesmerising as a flame to a moth.

And before you made a single conscious decision you have already eaten the Milkybar Yoghurt that was just calling your name less than 20 seconds ago.

And as your scrape your tongue on the bottom of the plastic tub, making sure that you do not want to waste a single drop of that Milklybar goodness…the guilt, fear, and worry start to set in:

“Oh my god I’ve totally screwed up”

“Why am I a total failure?”

“I have no self-control”

“I’m never going to conquer this”

“Why am I such a slob?”

“What is wrong with me?”

And the blame game with the self sets in, and then the whole process is repeated.

So here are my top 6 Strategies to help you stop late-night eating and food cravings!

Briefly, before I begin I want to address the issue of “Does Late Night Snacking Lead To Weight Gain?”.

No. It doesn’t from a purely scientific and objective point of view.

The Calories in a Banana do not change between 18:58 and 19:02 on a Wednesday night.

Calories are Calories are Calories.

As this Instagram Post on my Page, points out:

But from a Human Perspective…ask yourself what kind of foods are you eating late at night? I’m pretty sure it’s not Apples and Oranges.

As this Instagram Post explains:

why do I feel hungry at night even after eating

When Calories are controlled, timings of food make no difference to your overall success or not in Weight Loss.

There are arguments to be made for how eating later at night might affect your circadian rhythm, stress resistance and Gut Health. But this doesn’t change the caloric make up of the food and how your body processes the energy from food at night as opposed to during the day, it just influences your ability to stick to a Calorie Deficit over time.

However, late at night, staring into the fridge, you are less likely to be making decisions that are congruent to your Calorie Window and therefore congruent to your goals.

So bear that in mind. Please.

Table of Contents for: “6 Strategies To Help Stop Late Night Eating and Food Cravings”

Eat More Calories
Eat more protein
Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water
Get More Sleep
Lower Stress and Anxiety and Boredom
Stop restricting yourself to lose weight

Eat More Calories

Yup. I said it. You need to eat more.

That might be a little too much….but the image will stick in your head for sure!

According to a paper called The Biology of Binge Eating, 2010, Food Deprivation is a key indicator of Binge Eating Disorder.

The 2010 paper wanted “to examine the literature on binge eating to gain a better understanding of its biological foundations and their role in the eating disorders” [1]

And in the section relating to Food Deprivation it concluded:

“Rats maintained on a restricted feeding schedule, during which they receive 66% of the amount of food that free eating rats consume, increase their caloric intake by 42% compared with sated rats when allowed ad lib access to food. Increased consumption is evident within 2 hours of the return of the food and persists for up to 4 hours (Hagan et al., 2003). This increased consumption over a discrete period of time mirrors behaviors seen in humans who binge eat.” [1]

Ergo, just a 44% reduction in your calories, can lead to a 42% increase in caloric intake.

Don’t worry, I’m not about to renege on my stance of a Calorie Deficit being required to lose weight, but I am going to hammer home the point, your Calorie Deficit must be built on certain foundations to make sure that you can adhere to it in the long term, and not feel overly restricted, leading to a Binge Episode further down the track.

These principles are outlined by my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life:

And many of these will re-occur in this article. But the most important one is to make sure your Deficit is not too aggressive.

It is far far better to have slow sustainable progress that gives you flexibility and doesn’t lead you on a path to undercutting your psychological progress by falling into a trap of Binge Eating at night than to get aggressive results that you know are not sustainable.

Your Calorie Deficit should at a minimum be set to your Basal Metabolic Rate, and at a maximum at your Goal Bodyweight in LBS multiplied by 12.

To make sure you get that in place - download my Free Calorie Calculator right here.

Yes, by eating more, your weight loss will happen at a reduced rate. But this reduced rate will also allow for:

The flexibility you need as a human being who has emotions.
You to build muscle and improve your Basal Metabolic Rate whilst still in deficit
Greater adherence to actually being in a Calorie Deficit

Late-night snacking so very often comes from a place of restriction throughout the day - and this wouldn’t be so bad if, at night you ate foods congruent to your goals. However quite often late at night…you aren’t snacking on Apples and Broccolli. Due to the restriction throughout the day, you get cravings for foods that are a lot more palatable - and often a lot higher in calories.

This is due to a number of factors, but one obvious one is, come to the end of the day, you are out of energy - and therefore convenience becomes king. Convenient foods are far higher in calories - and far tastier.

Which then puts you into a cycle of craving said foods more the following day…and so it continues.

This study found when they took 20 weight-stable adults and split them into two groups. One group was given an ultra-processed diet and the other an unprocessed diet for 2 weeks. Subjects were told to consume as much or as little as desired. Rather unsurprisingly, the Group that was given the Ultra Processed DIet consumed on average 508kcal/day more with increased consumption of carbohydrates and fat, but not Protein. [2]

This brings me nicely to my next Strategy for you:

2. Eat more Protein

In terms of quelling hunger and regulating appetite, Protein has two main roles.

It makes you feel fuller for longer
It lowers your desire to eat late at night

In this study from 2011, the researchers took 27 overweight or obese men, split them into two groups. Group One was given a Higher Protein (HP) Diet at 25% of energy as Protein, and Group 2 was given a Normal Protein (NP) Diet at 14% of energy as Protein.

The study concluded the following:

“When compared to NP, the HP group experienced lower late-night desire to eat and preoccupation with thoughts of food”

and,

“Collectively, this data supports the consumption of HP intake, but not greater eating frequency, for improved appetite control and satiety in overweight/obese men during energy restriction-induced weight loss” [3]

I often feel that when we discuss eating more protein, you think it has to be the dominant component of your diet. This isn’t true. As you can see from the study above Protein consumption was still only a quarter of dietary intake and garnered great results for halting late-night snacking.

To figure out your Protein Intake I would recommend you download my Calorie and Macro Calculator here: Free Macro Calculator

However, if you want to know the numbers without doing that they are as follows:

Eat 0.8g-1.1g of Protein each day per LB of Lean Body Mass.

However those numbers can be quite hard to achieve, and thus if you start by aiming for just 100g a day if you eat meat, and 80g a day if you don’t then you should be in a pretty good place.

If you would like some more help with your diet and your training then get my Ultimate Guide to your Diet when Working Out:

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE: WHAT TO EAT WHEN WORKING OUT

3. Eat more Fibre and Drink More Water

If you have read a number of my Blogs you will know that I discuss this a lot.

And the prevalence of it is extremely important. Not just if you are wanting to lose weight, but to also curb those late-night snacks.

In terms of Fibre, you want to be keeping this as a key feature of your diet - think of it as the “other Macro-Nutrient”.

Research in Fibre is ever-evolving, and I have it on good authority that what we thought we knew about Fibre may well develop deeper very soon.

Fibre has the ability to do two things that will help curb your hunger:

High Fibre intake stretches the stomach and slows its emptying rate - therefore making you feel fuller for longer
Fibre also ferments in the Bowel, which is thought to increase feelings of fullness as it releases short-chain fatty acids.

Then if we look at this in the context of your goal to lose weight, being fuller for longer throughout the day is an awesome win for you…and if it is going to help you stop eating high-calorie snacks late at night then that too will help you keep your calories down over time.

Added to everything else…

You will be increasing your Vegetable intake - and no bad can come from that can it?

Now onto Water…

Water is filling, and can very much reduce appetite, especially when consumed before you eat.

This study titled: “Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review”

It found:

“Of 4963 retrieved records, 11 original studies and 2 systematic reviews were included. In participants dieting for weight loss or maintenance, a randomized controlled trial, a nonrandomized controlled trial, and an observational longitudinal study showed that increased water consumption, in addition to a program for weight loss or maintenance, reduced body weight after 3-12 mo compared with such a program alone” [4]

Hunger and thirst are interlinked also. When I am working with a friend who I coach online, and their calorie consumption is where it needs to be, but they are still feeling hungry, I will point them towards their water bottle, and remind them of my Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life or the blog post below.

GET A FREE MONTH OF COACHING WITH ME; JUST CLICK BELOW TO FIND OUT HOW TO APPLY

Learn More

Back to water…

I will always ask them to aim for 3 liters a day.

And they react like this:

This is a lofty goal.

But I found that setting this goal higher, as it is a behaviour that can be very easily done, means that my clients would be more than likely to hit an amount appropriate for them and their goals.

Thus, lowering their hunger, and therefore their caloric intake.

So, if it’s late at night, and you know that going to the fridge for that snack is an option that isn’t going to make you feel your best, then you should probably think about reaching for the water bottle first.

Establish if you are hungry or thirsty.

And I reckon about 80% of the time, the water will do the trick.

If you have some water, wait 15mins, and still think you are hungry…then consider having some food….but my best advice in this situation would be:

4. Get More Sleep

The Blog Post I published before this one is all about “How Sleep Affects Your Weight”.

But in terms of more sleep leading to less late-night snacking, I think the point is rather obvious. If you are in bed asleep, you’re not in the kitchen eating food.

Then the benefit of being in bed earlier will help reduce your calorie intake the following day. Added to that, improved sleep, helps you regulate your emotional responses the next day, and if emotional eating is a reason for your late-night snacking then a great strategy against that will be getting those extra hours of zzzz’s.

For optimal sleep, you want to plan for about 8 hours of sleep a night. One thing that always perplexes me about the way you manage sleep is this:

You rely on your wake-up time being the marker of your total time sleep.

But your wake-up time is out of your control pretty much. You could be woken up early, which frequently happens, by some traffic, a bird, a child, needing a wee.

Suddenly you have had a bad night’s sleep because you went to bed at 11:00 pm hoping you would get your 7 hours in and suddenly woke up at 5 am.

Plan better.

If you went to bed at 10:00 pm suddenly 5 am isn’t such a bad wake-up time.

Sleep is the foundation that your appetite control is built on. This study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.

Grehlin is a hormone that is responsible for how hungry you get. Leptin is the hormone responsible for how full you feel.

So yeah. Poor sleep leads to these two hormones very much working against your ability to curb that late-night eating.

Other strategies to improve your sleep are:

Exercise Regularly
Sleep with your Circadian Rhythm
Listen to Sleep Stories (link to my YouTube Sleep Stories)
Listen to Sleep Meditations (link to my YouTube Sleep Meditations)
Stop Drinking Caffeine from 11:00 am
Reduce Alcohol Intake

And Brush Your Teeth…

This is anecdotal evidence, as is in there is ZERO Science to actually back this up, but brushing your teeth has been reported to stop people snacking.

And it makes sense right?

Have you ever had Orange Juice straight after you brushed your teeth?

The combination of tastes, the effort of going to all that trouble to have to brush your teeth again, or if there is some psychological thing about the act of brushing your teeth priming your mind for sleep as opposed to food…but…whatever works.

Maybe try it next time your legs are walking to the fridge and the brain is saying “NOOOOOOOO”. See if it helps.

5. Lower Your Stress, Anxiety and Boredom

I know that this is easier said than done. But if you can at least practice some behaviors that will help you lower these two things, then you are going to put yourself into a better position when it comes to these food cravings, especially late at night.

Of these 7 strategies, there are 2 that most people will ignore.

Get More Sleep and Lower Stress, Anxiety and Boredom (especially Stress and Boredom)

Personally, I believe them to be the most important two on the list, for the exact same reason - they are mostly overlooked.

We seem to be happy to live in the two states of being Stressed and being Bored quite a lot in this day and age. It's almost a Social Norm for us, to just accept that we will be stressed and that boredom is one of those things.

However, when you accept living this way, as opposed to learning to control it, you pay the consequences for it as well.

And the consequences of chronic stress, and Emotional Eating manifesting itself as Boredom Eating are indeed not fun things to be faced with.

So let me show you the link between these emotions and how that is impacting your Fitness Goals.

Does Stress Lead To Increased Food Intake?

This study [6] called “Stress and Eating Behaviours”

“Repeated bouts of minor daily stressors that keep the stress system in a chronically activated state may alter brain reward/motivation pathways involved in wanting and seeking hyper-palatable foods and induce metabolic changes that promote weight and body fat mass”

The part of this that I find correlates majorly to late-night eating is the term “hyper-palatable foods”. When you are stressed you aren’t eating apples and oranges. You’re eating Apple Pies and Terry’s Chocolate Orange.

Does Anxiety Lead To Increased Food Intake?

This study [7] from 2017 is called “Effects of anxiety on caloric intake and satiety-related brain activation in women and men”.

It took twenty-nine twin pairs (58 individuals) and asked them to fill out a questionnaire about their tendency to be anxious. Participants had to answer questions like:

“I worry too much over something that really doesn’t matter”

“I am content; I am a steady person”

and questions like:

“I am tense; I am worried” and “I feel calm; I feel secure”.

All items are rated on a 4-point scale (e.g., from “Almost Never” to “Almost Always”)

Participants were then given an all-you-can-eat buffet, as a thank you for filling out the questionnaire, and were not told their intake was being recorded.

And those that scored a higher rating of anxious feelings on the questionnaire also ate more food at the buffet (Fig A)

stop eating at night to lose weightnight eating syndromewhy am i hungry at night after dinnerhow to stop eating at nightwhat to eat at night when hungrybinge eating at night remediesnighttime hunger suppressantovereating at night effectsstop eating …

As you can see from the graphs. The Twin that scored higher on the Trait Anxiety Scale also ate more food at the Buffet, independent of BMI (Fig B)

The study concluded the following:

“In conclusion, the current findings suggest that anxiety promotes caloric consumption and consumption of high-fat foods in women. We also provide evidence that anxiety alters brain responses to satiety such that the normal reduction in activation by high-calorie food cues induced by a meal does not occur in highly anxious women, suggesting a disruption in neural circuitry that could promote overeating. Anxiety may be a risk factor for obesity, but we show this risk is likely limited to people with a genetic susceptibility to weight gain”

So this gets more complex than just…you’re anxious so you increase your calories.

It also means that if you are anxious, you might show signs of Leptin Resistance which therefore means you won’t know if you are full or not.

Does Boredom Lead To Increased Food Intake?

I think we all know this to be true colloquially.

However, this study from 2012 [8] by the University of Limerick, proves it to be true.

Researchers wanted to establish whether or not Boredom eating is a distinct construct away from other negative emotions by revising the Emotional Eating Scale.

Results found were: “On the open-ended items, participants more often reported eating in response to boredom than the other emotions”

They also stated: “boredom leads to unhealthy eating, as it helps to distract from the unpleasant boredom experience.”

Added to that, a study in 2016 by the University of Central Lancashire ran a couple of tests to measure this also.

The first test asked 52 people to fill out a questionnaire about their food preferences, then complete a task of copying the same group of letters over and over again. They then filled out the questionnaire again.

The second test was 45 participants and they got to watch either a funny video or a boring video. As they watched bowls of snacks were left out for the participants for them to eat ad libitum.

They found that:

“From the first study showed people were more likely to express a preference for unhealthy foods like crisps, sweets and fast food after completing the boring task.

The results from the second study showed that the participants who had watched the boring video ate significantly more unhealthy food.” [9]

How To Lower Stress, Anxiety, and Boredom

You will start to see a pattern emerging in all of these Strategies and the positive behaviors that will help you stop those late-night food cravings.

Some of these will help all three categories, some of them will only help one emotion, however, all of them will go some way to helping you stop those late-night cravings for food:

Exercise Regularly (again)
Improve Your Sleep (again) by not staying up late mindlessly watching tv and playing video games - get to bed earlier and turn off the electronics
Eat more nutritious food
Meditate
Reduce Caffeine intake
Journal Daily
Communicate your feelings
Manage your to-do list to avoid procrastination
Get focused on what you want from life
Pick Up A Hobby

Pick a few from the list, the ones that excite you the most and have the lowest barrier of entry for you, and see if that helps you with those late-night munchies.

6. Stop Restricting Food

I would say that food avoidance is one of the biggest reasons that people crave food.

Pink Elephant syndrome.

You know, if I’m telling you not think of that big, round, funny-looking Pink Elephant…

You’re going to think of it.

Put into the mix that we have a sensual relationship with food, and if I tell you not to eat something….you are going to crave it more and more.

And the cravings ALWAYS WIN.

Because they rear their head, at night, when you are stressed, anxious, and bored.

Are you starting to see a theme here?

This is also a key construct in why Diets Fail - because many Diets require you to give up foods you enjoy. But the cravings will always win because your willpower is finite - and then the feelings of guilt and failure set in, perpetuating the cycle that has led you to look for a solution in the first place.

This study [10] from 2005, is called “The Effect of Deprivation on Food Cravings” and for one week they took 103 Female Undergraduates and deprived them of Chocolate, Vanilla or not deprivation at all.

The result was:

“Chocolate-deprived restrained eaters consumed more chocolate food than did any other group. Restrained eaters experienced more food cravings than did unrestrained eaters and were more likely to eat the craved food”

But for me the most interesting conclusion was this:

“Moreover, restrained eaters deprived of chocolate spent the least time doing an anagram task before a "taste-rating task" in which they expected that chocolate foods might be available”

So if you are deprived, not only will you actually end up eating more, but you will also rush through life at times where you think the food that you are deprived from is on the other side of the task - and as we know from other studies when you are in a state of stress, you will indeed consume more food.

The final conclusion from this study was the following:

“Converging measures of craving indicate that deprivation causes craving and overeating, but primarily in restrained eaters.”

Which draws a direct correlation between deprivation - and overeating especially in those who are abstaining from certain foods.

Ergo, to conquer those cravings, give yourself permission to eat the foods you enjoy the most.

Remember, if it is within your Calorie Window it won’t halt your progress. Added to that…even if it is outside your Calorie Window, having it might still do less damage to your overall goals than not having it at all.

Remember…CRAVINGS ALWAYS WIN because WILLPOWER IS FINITE.

And by giving yourself permission to eat these foods you will eradicate many negative feelings you attach to “indulging”.

Bottom Line

These strategies are here to help you understand why you might be behaving in a certain way. All 6 might work a treat for you, you might only need one or two of them to find success.

As I have been writing this article, someone has reached out to me on Instagram discussing her past trauma and how that effects her eating, especially late at night. Emotional Eating is a whole other topic, and although some of what I have shared in this article might be helpful to you, if you are dealing with something a lot deeper then I urge you to get the proper help needed for that.

In our conversations, this person explained to me that as part of dealing with the trauma it leads her to eat foods that she is craving, foods that she also knows work against her fitness goals.

But in this instance, working on the trauma and resolving what happened is much more important. If eating choclate after a therpay session helps you cope with the therapy and is a part of the process of your healing, then you have to understand that is going to be better for your long term success as a person, as opposed to your short term success for your fitness goals.

To be hungry is normal.

To have cravings is normal.

To have an appetite is normal.

To have reduced willpower in the evenings is normal.

I don’t want you to have read this article and then thought that because you can’t seem to avoid late-night snacking, even when you implement some of the things in this article you are in some way “broken”.

We all need to stop trying to find ways of erasing our human self, in the pursuit of fitness.

You don’t need appetite suppressants, you don’t need bio hacks and you don’t need to just “have more willpower”.

You more than likely need to have more self-empathy and understanding for your own human condition.

And you probably need to:

Exercise some more to reduce your stress
Get to Bed earlier to help reduce your stress
Stop restricting yourself away from foods you love….to reduce your stress.

Your cravings come from too much stress and drained willpower at the end of the day.

Luckily, that’s far easier worked upon than trying to “fix” what isn’t broken in the first place.

Did You Find This Useful?

Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.

I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.

My aim with the friends I work with is to give them so much more out of their fitness by focussing them on the process of getting stronger and therefore making them more confident.

Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can.

My approach to online training is no different. The whole program is about you - how best can I serve you, and therefore help you in the best way possible.

If you want to find out more about how the Strong & Confident Program works, and get a free month of coaching from me, then please fill out the application form below…and I will get back to you within 48 hours.

Please remember to check your Junk Folder for my reply - or when you submit an application send me an email (prompted in the application confirmation) and then my reply should appear in your Inbox.

I can’t wait to hear from you!

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Also, if you would like to keep up to date with me, and get some free fitness goodies from me…just fill in the form below and I will send you a free calorie calculator, my book “27 Ways To Faster Fat Loss”, and two workout manuals to help you get your fitness started…

Thank you so much for reading my work.

Speak again soon,

Coach Adam

References:

Mathes, W. F., Brownley, K. A., Mo, X., & Bulik, C. M. (2009). The biology of binge eating. Appetite, 52(3), 545–553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2009.03.005
Hall KD, Ayuketah A, Brychta R, Cai H, Cassimatis T, Chen KY, Chung ST, Costa E, Courville A, Darcey V, Fletcher LA, Forde CG, Gharib AM, Guo J, Howard R, Joseph PV, McGehee S, Ouwerkerk R, Raisinger K, Rozga I, Stagliano M, Walter M, Walter PJ, Yang S, Zhou M. Ultra-Processed Diets Cause Excess Calorie Intake and Weight Gain: An Inpatient Randomized Controlled Trial of Ad Libitum Food Intake. Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):67-77.e3. doi: 10.1016/j.cmet.2019.05.008. Epub 2019 May 16. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2019 Jul 2;30(1):226. Erratum in: Cell Metab. 2020 Oct 6;32(4):690. PMID: 31105044; PMCID: PMC7946062.
Leidy HJ, Tang M, Armstrong CL, Martin CB, Campbell WW. The effects of consuming frequent, higher protein meals on appetite and satiety during weight loss in overweight/obese men. Obesity (Silver Spring). 2011 Apr;19(4):818-24. doi: 10.1038/oby.2010.203. Epub 2010 Sep 16. PMID: 20847729; PMCID: PMC4564867.
Muckelbauer R, Sarganas G, Grüneis A, Müller-Nordhorn J. Association between water consumption and body weight outcomes: a systematic review. Am J Clin Nutr. 2013 Aug;98(2):282-99. doi: 10.3945/ajcn.112.055061. Epub 2013 Jun 26. PMID: 23803882.
Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Yau, Y. H., & Potenza, M. N. (2013). Stress and eating behaviors. Minerva endocrinologica, 38(3), 255–267.
Mestre, Z. L., Melhorn, S. J., Askren, M. K., Tyagi, V., Gatenby, C., Young, L., Mehta, S., Webb, M. F., Grabowski, T. J., & Schur, E. A. (2016). Effects of Anxiety on Caloric Intake and Satiety-Related Brain Activation in Women and Men. Psychosomatic medicine, 78(4), 454–464. https://doi.org/10.1097/PSY.0000000000000299
Koball AM, Meers MR, Storfer-Isser A, Domoff SE, Musher-Eizenman DR. Eating when bored: revision of the emotional eating scale with a focus on boredom. Health Psychol. 2012 Jul;31(4):521-4. doi: 10.1037/a0025893. Epub 2011 Oct 17. PMID: 22004466.
British Psychological Society (BPS). "Bored people reach for the chips." ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 27 April 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/04/160427081756.htm>.

Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 3/6/21 Adam Berry - The Gym Starter 3/6/21

Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?

We live in an age where sleep is an aspect of our lives we compromise on more and more.

Sometimes through our own behaviors, we have ALL said “just one more episode” when watching Schitts Creek, despite knowing it would take our sleep from seven hours…to six and a half.

Or…many people struggle with their sleep due to more intricate issues like anxiety and stress. In fact in the UK during the first Lockdown in 2020, Britons suffering from sleep loss due to worrying increased from one in six to one in four, with Key Workers, Mothers, and people from Minority Backgrounds being the worst affected [1].

We know that Mental Health issues are on the rise, outside of the Global Pandemic. In fact, this is the World Health Organizations summary of the state of the Worlds Mental Health as of 2017:

“Mental health conditions are increasing worldwide. Mainly because of demographic changes, there has been a 13% rise in mental health conditions and substance use disorders in the last decade (to 2017). Mental health conditions now cause 1 in 5 years lived with disability. Around 20% of the world’s children and adolescents have a mental health condition, with suicide the second leading cause of death among 15-29-year-olds. Approximately one in five people in post-conflict settings have a mental health condition.
Mental health conditions can have a substantial effect on all areas of life, such as school or work performance, relationships with family and friends and ability to participate in the community. Two of the most common mental health conditions, depression and anxiety, cost the global economy US$ 1 trillion each year.
Despite these figures, the global median of government health expenditure that goes to mental health is less than 2%.” [2]

From this information, it is fair to conclude that as our Mental Health deteriorates, so too does our sleep.

And this links to increased body weight.

As the study “Sleep and Obesity” from 2011 states:

“According to recent estimates, the worldwide prevalence of obesity has doubled since 1980. This obesity epidemic has been paralleled in modern society by a trend of reduced sleep duration. Poor sleep quality, which is often associated with overall sleep loss, has also become a frequent complaint.”[3].

Please don’t misunderstand me.

Sleep is certainly a major aspect of every human’s life, but it doesn’t dictate whether or not you gain weight - eating too many calories does.

But Sleep, or lack thereof, is oftentimes the reason that you might be consuming more calories.

And that is what we are going to unpick in this article.

I’m going to show you some of the risk factors associated with lack of sleep, how that will then impact your sleep - and crucially a plan of action to help you improve your sleep.

Table of Contents for: Why Does Sleep Affect Your Weight Loss?

The Link between Sleep, Depression and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Stress and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain
The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain
How To Improve Your Sleep

Over the years that I have been working as a Personal Trainer, one thing that very few people seem to have a handle is a good, solid, sleep routine.

And the second I bring it up with them, they get very defensive.

I have heard things like:

“I may go to bed at 2 am but I sleep really well”

“Lack of sleep just doesn’t affect me”

“But I must have “me” time”

And from Matthew Walkers brilliant book “Why We Sleep” he states this:

“People have said to me I’ll sleep when I’m dead. And that is exactly right…because lack of sleep in one’s life means that you will indeed die sooner”

The benefits of sleep sit directly opposite to many of the causes of weight gain and obesity.

We know that factors like depression, stress, poorer health, lack of confidence, lack of creativity, and lack of movement, are all things that can lead to increased body weight in an individual.

And they are all aspects of your life that sleep can improve.

The Link Between Sleep and Mental Health and Weight Gain:

According to the Sleep Foundation:

“It is becoming clear that there is a bidirectional relationship between sleep and mental health [4] in which sleeping problems may be both a cause and consequence of mental health problems.”

Cause and consequence.

The later stage of sleep, known as REM (Rapid Eye Movement) sleep, a stage that you will visit up to 4-6 times as an adult has profound effects on your emotions and health.

The amygdala is part of the brain, that is responsible for your emotional memories. It is responsible for giving emotions meaning and memory. It is also responsible for your responses to your emotions.

All of your emotions.

In a study by Matthew Walker, [5] they took a group of people and split them in two. Both Groups were shown emotional Stimuli, and then one group was allowed to sleep, the other was sleep deprived.

As you can see in the Figure below the sleep deprivation group showed much higher activity in the amygdala:

Concluding that: “Without sleep, however, amygdala-mPFC connectivity was decreased, potentially negating top-down control and resulting in an overactive amygdala.”

But why does Depression or even an Overactive Amygdyla due to lack of sleep equal weight gain?

Have you ever heard the term “emotional eating”?

I think we all know what emotional eating is, although there isn’t an actual medical definition. I would describe it as:

The behaviour of consuming any food, as a direct result of an emotional experience you have had happened to you at any time in your past, or anticipate might happen to you in the future and seeking short-term comfort in this behavior.

In fact, I bet you have used it…I think we all have at one time or another.

Depression in and of itself doesn’t mean you will gain weight but there is a correlation.

About 43% of Adults with Depression are Obese according to the CDC, and those who are diagnosed with depression are more than likely to be overweight.

So you have to ask yourself. What is coming first? Depression, Emotional Eating or Lack of Sleep?

Well, I can’t sit here and tell you to just stop being depressed.

I can’t sit here and tell you to just stop eating emotionally.

But I can ask you to build a better structure around your bedtime, protect your sleep in a much better way…and can then see if that has a positive impact on the other factors at play.

The Link Between Sleep and STRESS and Weight Gain:

Stress impacts hunger in a number of ways. In fact, stress is an emotional term we give to a hormonal response pulsing around our body. This hormone is called Cortisol.

Cortisol can cause havoc in our systems.

When we experience stress, our adrenal glands on top of our Kidneys release insulin into our bloodstream, which means that there is more Glucose in our system.

This is fine when you are running from a bear - or a whirlwhind.

But repetitive exposure in the body to Cortisol can and will lead to weight gain - because that glucose needs to be used, or it gets stored in the body…and typically that occurs around the midsection.

A 2015 study [6] found that when people are stressed your metabolism is slower.

In the modern-day, a threat can be a bad news article, an unwanted text, bills to pay, just a scroll on Social Media. We don’t run from bears anymore.

What we do instead is sit at our desk fuming at the situation we are in, or we turn to our fridges in order to cope with the emotional feeling we are experiencing.

How does Sleep reduce Stress?

Having already established that REM sleep helps you reduce the activity in your amygdala each night and in turn helps you with your mental health, it stands to reason that it would also help you with the emotion of stress.

In fact, here is an image from the American Psychological Association [7] that demonstrates the negative effect of stress on people if they get less than 8 hours of sleep a night:

does lack of sleep cause weight gain does sleeping too much cause weight gaindoes sleeping in the afternoon make you gain weight does sleep affect weight losslack of sleep weight gaindoes lack of sleep cause weight lossdoes sleeping more i…

Looking at that list of symptoms of stress, outside the norms of being an emotional eater, many of them link directly to other factors that lead to weight gain.

Lacking interest, motivation, or energy - we know that boredom equals the consumption of food in many people, combined with the lack of motivation and energy leading to a lower metabolism each day.

Skipping Exercise - this will result in fewer calories burned, less muscle on the body and therefore opens up the potential to unwanted weight gain

The Link Between Sleep, Hunger Hormones, and Weight Gain

Your appetite is controlled by two very receptive hormones.

Leptin and Grehlin.

Leptin is the hormone that is responsible for your stomach telling your brain that you are full.

Grehlin is the hormone that is responsible for your stomach telling your brain (hypothalamus) that you are hungry,

In the ideal world we want our brains to be very recpetive to Leptin, and have low levels of Grehlin, leading to lower hunger and increased satiety once we eat.

Think of Grehlin as this:

A little gremlin that is easily influenced and affected by nearly everything that goes on in your body.

Factors that increase Grehlin in your body are:

Weight Extremes, both anorexia and obesity alter Grehlin
Low Muscle Mass
Lack of Protein in your Diet
Yo-Yo Dieting
Eating too few calories for too long a time

and, yup you’ve guessed it:

Lack of Sleep

Added to that there are many factors that cause Leptin levels to decrease, or more, can lead our brains to just not recognize it.

And therefore you may never feel full after eating…even though you technically are, which will result in more calories consumed.

When this is the case you are “Leptin Resistant” and to try and reverse this you should:

Exercise more
Eat less highly processed foods
Increase your Soluble fiber intake (fruits, vegetables, whole grains)
Increase your protein intake

and, yup you’ve guessed it:

Improve your sleep

How are Grehlin and Leptin affected by Sleep?

In 2004, Taheri et al, took 1,024 participants from the Wisconsin Sleep Cohort Study [8] and tested their blood each morning for Grehlin and Leptin levels.

The study found a correlation between lack of sleep in duration and increased Grehlin and lack of sleep in duration and decreased Leptin.

As shown here:

The link between Sleep, Reduced Movement, and Weight Gain

The Sleep Foundation states: “Losing sleep can result in having less energy for exercise and physical activity” [9]

If I refer you back to the image I shared with you earlier, from the American Psychological Association, there were two symptoms of stress that I bought to your attention in terms of how stress affects your ability to affect your weight.

Lacking interest, motivation, or energy and Skipping Exercise

This all points towards “prescribed movement” and it stands to reason that you are going to be less likely to head to the gym if you are sleep deprived.

No one wants to see this:

But there are other forms of movement that help significantly with your weight loss efforts.

The Daily Step Count.

And let’s face it, those who are tired are less likely to walk, less likely to fidget, and therefore are less likely to burn enough calories in the day to help them with their weight loss efforts. Therefore lack of sleep reduces your metabolism.

How does reduced sleep mean fewer calories burned each day?

When we look at your Metabolism - the name given to the body’s ability to burn calories - we can see it is broken down into four main sections:

The two I want to draw your attention to today are:

NEAT - Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenesis and EAT - Exercise Activity Thermogenesis.

These two categories are basically the calories you burn through movement. NEAT is your daily movement outside of prescribed activity, and EAT is your prescribed activity.

Therefore, if you aren’t moving, if you aren’t getting to the gym, then you are burning fewer calories each day. NEAT is 15% of your Metabolism and is the reason we Personal Trainers ask you so very often to increase your step count. More steps equal more calories burned which equals an impact on your weight.

Aside from all the other amazing benefits walking can bring you.

Added to this, the more tired you are, the less intensity you will be able to put into your training.

There have been a variety of studies on this.

This study [9] took 10 male athletes, deprived them of sleep for 30 hours, and tested their Sprinting ability - which was indeed reduced significantly.

This study [10] took Runners and Volleyball players and tested their time to exhaustion after being deprived of sleep for one night. It concluded: “We suggest that one-night sleep deprivation may reduce exercise performance by decreasing exercise minute ventilation and time to exhaustion. We also indicate that sleep loss may decrease more the performance of volleyball players than that of runners.”

It would is my belief that Volleyball players tire quicker because the sport would require much more cognitive work combined with physical work. It is a less repetitive movement pattern and therefore you are having to make more decisions relating to the execution of skill as well as your physical fitness.

Looking at these studies, it is fair to conclude that lack of sleep will result in less time being active, less intensity when being active and therefore not helping your overall goal of being able to sustain a healthy weight in the long term.

How To Improve Your Sleep

Now that we have looked into the effects that not having enough sleep can have on you, its probably a good idea to look at how to actually help you to get to sleep so that you can start implementing some better behaviors for your bedtime.

Plan to Get 8 Hours Sleep A Night

All of the studies I have looked into for this article state that the optimal time for sleep is indeed 8 hours. This is because our bodies go through sleep cycles - about 4-6 a night.

NREM sleep or Light Sleep is broken into three stages, and in one cycle to get through all three stages it can take about 45mins.

REM sleep or Deep Sleep can last between 10-60mins. Giving you a total, across 6 cycles, of about 8 hours worth of sleep.

The whole pattern of your sleep is known as your “sleep architecture” and as you can imagine, we all have a different architecture - but bearing these guidelines in mind will certainly help you.

Sleep with the Sun

Have you ever heard of a circadian rhythm? This is your body’s natural timer, that correlates with the sun.

As the US National Institute of General Medical Sciences states:

“Circadian rhythms are physical, mental, and behavioral changes that follow a 24-hour cycle. These natural processes respond primarily to light and dark and affect most living things, including animals, plants, and microbes. Chronobiology is the study of circadian rhythms. One example of a light-related circadian rhythm is sleeping at night and being awake during the day.” [11]

Many people put great value on living in harmony with their circadian rhythm and making sure they get up when the sun comes up and go to sleep when the sun comes down - and it makes sense that it is what the human race has done since time began.

So if you are lucky enough to be able to do this…then I strongly recommend it. If you are a Shift Worker or a New Mum, then of course this will be more difficult for you to implement…but at times in your life when you can…make this a priority in the best way possible.

Exercise Regularly

Exercise makes you tired, which makes you sleep in a more restful state. By sleeping in a more restful state you will get much more quality sleep and feel more rested when you wake up again.

Exercise also helps stabilize your mood and decompress your mind which will help you drift off into NREM Sleep.

Listen to a Sleep Story

Why do we read to children before bed? One because it’s good for their development…but also to help them wind down after an exciting day of discovering the world. Yet as adults we simply think that we don’t need to do the same.

We give our brains no space to decompress from whatever we were doing in the evening to hitting the pillow. And then we just toss and turn and get frustrated that we can’t seem to drift off.

Sleep Stories are excellent at two things.

Distracting your mind and taking them on a journey
Helping you meditate before you sleep

I’m awful at keeping up with the habit of meditating - despite the fact I know how good it is for me.

Being able to quieten the mind during the day is something that takes discipline and repetition - and my days lack structure for that to be able to occur.

Therefore I do my meditation as I drift off to sleep - and I kill two birds with one stone.

Might not be optimal. But it’s certainly possible for me - and I do these with Sleep Stories.

I can’t remember how I first discovered them…but I have been listening to them very consistently on the Calm App for nearly 5 years now - and have journeyed in my mind’s eye to some of the most amazing places the world has to offer - and it has benefited my sleep beyond words.

Sleep Stories do take a while to get used to…and they do require an element of patience. For a while I used to fight them so much, I used to find them intrusive and frustrating…but just like meditation the more you practice the better the effect of them.

So if the Sleep Story doesn’t work right away - the issue is not likely to be the story (although we all find different voices soothing and not so soothing). Work through it - the benefits of being able to calm the mind to ensure you drift off peacefully are very much worth it.

If you want to try a Sleep Story…luckily I have recorded a few myself for you to enjoy.

Listen to a Sleep Meditation

These are very similar to Sleep Stories but rather than distract your imagination they are designed to focus you on your breathing, using suggestive language to help you calm your mind and drift away into NREM Sleep.

Meditation is a very powerful tool to help you learn to quieten the mind and help you move away from the stress of your day.

Here is a selection of Sleep Meditations I recorded for my clients.

If the Sleep Stories are too distracting these might help you in a very similar way.

Get Off Your Phone 60mins before Bedtime

Your phone releases Blue Light. In fact, most screens do. And this blue light directly stops your brain from releasing melatonin, which is the hormone required to induce sleep.

It’s great to have this Blue Light during the daytime, as it can be helpful to keep our brains switched on, however it is not helpful before bedtime.

In fact, many screens these days have a “Night Shift” Mode which takes out the blue light and makes your screen look yellow. I have this turned up all day every day on both my iPhone, my MacBook, and my iPad.

It has got to the point where when I look at a phone without this on…I feel like I need sunglasses to look at it. I also make sure my TV Screens have their backlight and Brightness turned down. It takes some getting used to in the beginning. But is so worth it on the other side of a great night’s sleep.

Reduce Caffeine late in the day

Now by late in the day I really mean late in the morning like 11 am.

And by Caffeine I’m not just talking about Coffee. I’m talking about all caffeinated drinks, including Coke Zero and Cups of Tea.

Let me explain why.

The standardized recommendation for caffeine for an adult each day is just 400mg.

Caffeine has a half-life of 5 hours. This means that if you drink a cup of coffee with 300mg of Caffeine in it, like a Starbucks Venti Americano, at 11 am, you still have 150mg of Caffeine in your system at 4 pm. Wind this on further, and at 9 pm you still have 75mg of Caffeine in your system - and at 2 am the next day 37.5mg of Caffeine in your system.

Now I know many people, that believe Caffeine doesn’t affect them. This is certainly not the case. About 10% of the world has the “Caffeine Gene” according to a 2011 study.

If you are still able to consume caffeine and drift off to sleep then that’s great, but the effects of the caffeine will happen in your sleep. The caffeine will affect your ability to get into the crucial deep restorative REM sleep [12].

Reduce Alcohol Intake

Sorry, Homer. This just isn’t true…especially if you struggle with fatigue.

Much like Caffeine, Alcohol also inhibits that all-important restorative REM Sleep.

Although alcohol can induce sleepiness and is a relaxant, you will get into a vicious cycle if you rely on it for sleep, because of how it impacts your ability to have deep REM Sleep.

In Conclusion

Sleep is one of the single most important pillars of a healthy happy life. Away from your body weight, sleep is a critical part of your human behaviour.

Now I am acutely aware that sleep cannot be afforded to us all in a fair manner. My fiancee works in Emergency Services, and she has looked into the negative effect that shift work has on your health. Poor Sleep behaviour isn’t the sole reason that shift workers’ health is negatively affected, but it is certainly one of the largest.

I am also aware that many people struggle to sleep for much deeper psychological reasons pertaining to something from their past.

And of course, as I have mentioned previously, new parents are always going to struggle with their sleep behaviour for obvious reasons.

What I would ask of you is this.

Give yourself a chance. Many people do struggle to sleep, but they also don’t do anything to help the root causes of this either.

I once heard that the bedroom should only be used for two things.

Sleep and Sex.

If you want to make your Weight Loss journey as successful as possible, as sustainable as possible and you want to get the most out of your training, then stop looking for the BCAA supplements, stop looking for the quick fixes, stop looking for the optimal amount of nutrition and for crying out loud….PRIORITISE YOUR SLEEP.

If you get this in place first…I bet everything falls into complete insignificance.

Sleep and Sex.

If you remember one thing from this article.

Remember that.

Did You Find This Useful?

Thank you so much for reading my article - I really hope you found it helpful.

I work with clients all over the world in my One on One Coaching Program called The Strong & Confident Program.

A New Program Designed To Get You Stronger, Healthier & more confident than ever before.

My aim with the friends I work with is to give them so much more out of their fitness by focussing them on the process of getting stronger and therefore making them more confident.

Just like with this article - where I like to give as much help to you as I can

My approach to online training is no different. The whole program is about you - how best can I serve you, and therefore help you in the best way possible.

Just like my client Tim who has nailed the last 5 months.

We actually worked very hard on two things I have referenced in this article with Tim. We increased his Steps (NEAT) and we improved his sleep.

Tim is getting married next year, and he is trying to make sure that he feels his most confident & strong on what will be a truly happy day. Tim has trained with me in person for a number of years until in 2021 he decided to take me up on my offer of working online.

And by making that switch…he really started getting some results. In 5months he has lost nearly 2 stone in weight, and every lift he is doing has improved. This coincided with asking Tim to get more steps in each day…and now he is on an average of 15k a day….and his sleep has improved leaps and bounds.

He still enjoys a beer at the weekend - and we both have a love of well Barista’d coffee.

But he has learned how to still enjoy meals out with his lovely fiancee (soon-to-be wife) as well as keeping on track with his goals of feeling stronger and more confident ready to tie the knot.

It goes without saying how utterly proud of him I am.

But more importantly…he is proud of himself.

And there is no better success than that.

If you want to get a Free Month of Coaching with me then hit the Learn More button below and apply to work with me on the next page.

LEARN MORE

Thank you so much for being here and reading my work.

Speak again soon,

Coach Adam

References:

the Guardian. 2021. Coronavirus lockdown caused sharp increase of insomnia in UK. [online] Available at: <https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/02/coronavirus-lockdown-increase-insomnia-uk-sleep-mothers> [Accessed 24 May 2021].
Who.int. 2021. Mental health. [online] Available at: <https://www.who.int/health-topics/mental-health#tab=tab_2> [Accessed 24 May 2021].
Beccuti, G., & Pannain, S. (2011). Sleep and obesity. Current opinion in clinical nutrition and metabolic care, 14(4), 402–412. https://doi.org/10.1097/MCO.0b013e3283479109
Scott, A. J., Webb, T. L., & Rowse, G. (2017). Does improving sleep lead to better mental health? A protocol for a meta-analytic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ open, 7(9), e016873.https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2017-016873
Walker, M. P., & van der Helm, E. (2009). Overnight therapy? The role of sleep in emotional brain processing. Psychological bulletin, 135(5), 731–748.https://doi.org/10.1037/a0016570
Kiecolt-Glaser JK, Habash DL, Fagundes CP, et al. Daily stressors, past depression, and metabolic responses to high-fat meals: a novel path to obesity. Biol Psychiatry. 2015;77(7):653-660. doi:10.1016/j.biopsych.2014.05.018
https://www.apa.org. 2021. Stress and sleep. [online] Available at: <https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/stress/2013/sleep> [Accessed 2 June 2021].
Taheri S, Lin L, Austin D, Young T, Mignot E. Short sleep duration is associated with reduced leptin, elevated ghrelin, and increased body mass index. PLoS Med. 2004 Dec;1(3):e62. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.0010062. Epub 2004 Dec 7. PMID: 15602591; PMCID: PMC535701.
Skein M, Duffield R, Edge J, Short MJ, Mündel T. Intermittent-sprint performance and muscle glycogen after 30 h of sleep deprivation. Med Sci Sports Exerc. 2011 Jul;43(7):1301-11. doi: 10.1249/MSS.0b013e31820abc5a. PMID: 21200339
Azboy O, Kaygisiz Z. Effects of sleep deprivation on cardiorespiratory functions of the runners and volleyball players during rest and exercise. Acta Physiol Hung. 2009 Mar;96(1):29-36. doi: 10.1556/APhysiol.96.2009.1.3. PMID: 19264040.
Nigms.nih.gov. 2021. Circadian Rhythms. [online] Available at: <https://nigms.nih.gov/education/fact-sheets/Pages/Circadian-Rhythms.aspx> [Accessed 3 June 2021].
Sleepfoundation.org. 2021. Caffeine’s Connection to Sleep Problems | Sleep Foundation. [online] Available at: <https://www.sleepfoundation.org/nutrition/caffeine-and-sleep> [Accessed 3 June 2021].

Don’t trust everything you read. Except Here. Trust It All.

Welcome to my Blog. Here you can learn everything you want to know about getting stronger, losing weight and managing your diet, in an empathetic and scientific way.

Table of Contents for Creative Ways To Increase Your Steps Each Day:

Why Should You Increase Your Steps?

READ MY BLOG THAT OUTLINES EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR METABOLISM:

How Many Steps A Day To Lose Weight?

FOR MORE READING ON THIS TOPIC HEAD HERE:

Can Walking Help Your Mental Health?

How To Increase Your Step Count at Home

How To Increase Your Step Count at Work

A Final Word…

Table of contents for Easily Lose Weight Without Counting Calories:

Is Calorie Counting the Best way to lose weight?

How to be in a Calorie Deficit without Counting Calories

PORTION CONTROL

2. STRUCTURED EATING

3. WATER INTAKE

SLEEP

2. STRUCTURED MOVEMENT

3. INCREASING YOUR NEAT

How Do You Know If You’re In A Calorie Deficit

SCALE WEIGHT

2. MEASUREMENTS

3. WORK IN PROCESS PICTURES

4. CONSISTENCY

5. HUNGER

Really Simple Solutions

THE 3, 4, 5 SYSTEM

DAILY AWESOME SALAD

BUILD MEALS AROUND PROTEIN

FIVE AWESOME RULES FOR FAT LOSS LIFE

FOLLOW THE DADDY HUMPHREYS PLAN

What’s Next…

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: 5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss

The Importance Of Healthy Eating Habits?

Healthy and Unhealthy Eating Habits

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Structured Eating

READ MORE ON IMPROVING YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH FOOD RIGHT HERE:

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - No Black or White Thinking

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Increase Protein and Vegetables

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Healthy Snacks

What Are 5 Healthy Eating Habits? - Plenty of Water

5 Easy and Healthy Eating Habits For Weight Loss

And that’s it…

I hope you found this article useful and that my tips help you improve your eating habits.

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR: How To Stop Yourself Counting Calories Obsessively: Life After Apps

You can listen to the audio version of this Blog Post on my Podcast: The Fitness Solution

You can watch the video version of this Blog Post on my YouTube Channel:

Does Calorie Counting Work?

Should You Stop Counting Calories?

Have you ever been diagnosed with an Eating Disorder?

Are you a perfectionist?

Do you feel guilty after eating certain foods?

Do you refuse to eat when you are hungry because you are worried about going over your Calories?

Strategies to manage Calories Without Calorie Counting

Strategy 1: Food Journals

Strategy 2: A Structured Diet

How To Structure Your Diet

Strategy 3: Five Awesome Rules For Fat Loss Life

Strategy 4: Portions and Food Choice

The Process Behind Stopping Counting Calories Obsessively

Make Sure You Have A Structured Diet

Track One Meal A Day

Go into an Education Mindset

Make Sure You Are Doing “The Work”

A Little Pep Talk: Life After Apps

Set and Keep Promises To Yourself

What’s Next?

TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR HOW TO GET PAST AND FIX A WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAU:

What Is A Weight Loss Plateau?

Why Do Weight Loss Plateaus Occur?

Follow Me On Instagram:

You Have Been Conditioned To View Them Negatively

How Does Scale Weight Actually Work?

If you have Scale Anxiety then please read my article that has helped hundreds of people overcome gravitophobia:

How To Actually Get Past Your Weight Loss Plateau

Trust Yourself

Remain Consistent, Remain Patient

Realise there is so much more to celebrate

Bodyweight Settling Points