Journey to Fit with Debbie

I had a conversation with a friend recently that helped me understand that one of the biggest barriers to losing weight is knowing where to start. There are so many conflicting messages out there. Additionally, there is often a belief that losing weight requires a lot of change, all at once.

I have one friend who recently acknowledged that their go to method is to set outlandish goals, fail to accomplish those outlandish goals, feel bad about themselves and then try again by setting even more outlandish goals.

Most of the people I work with list weight loss as one of their goals. Let’s take a look at how I walk them through knowing where to start on a journey to losing weight.

Proper expectations for weight loss

One of the most important first steps in working towards a weight loss goal is setting realistic expectations. Despite what the multitude of Instagram influencers might tell you, 30 days is not enough to make significant changes. Losing weight in a lasting way will be slower than you want it to be. It is incredibly important to ditch timelines in your outcome based goals. You want to lose X amount of pounds is an acceptable outcome based goal. Wanting to lose it in a certain time frame is a recipe for disaster.

Instead of focusing on outcomes, shift your focus to behaviors and habits that will get you the change you want.

Choice

This is the fun part! You get to choose.

When it comes to weight loss there are a lot of factors involved. One of the biggest mistakes I see in clients is feeling like they need to change everything at once and get it all right so they can see progress quickly. I am not impressed by things happening quickly. I am impressed by long lasting changes. 

Some things that impact body weight are:

• Amount of calories you eat
• Types of foods you are eating
• Amount of calories you burn
• Amount of sleep you get
• Amount of muscle you have

With my clients I break it down into action categories. In the beginning I ask them to choose 1 or 2 things from the list. Only 1 or 2.

• Do you want to pay attention to how much you are eating?
• Do you want to pay attention to how much you are moving each day? (Usually in the form of step count)
• Do you want to work on how often you strength train every week?
• Do you want to pay attention to how much protein you are eating?
• Do you want to work on your sleep habits?
• Do you want to focus on how much fiber you are eating?
• Do you want to focus on something else entirely?

How much are you eating?

In order to lose body fat, you need to eat less calories than your body needs to maintain its current weight. However, there are quite a few ways to pay attention to how much you are eating. I have a few methods I have my clients try, but there are many ways to limit how much you eat. The most important thing is to find a method that you can see yourself sticking to long term. Short term over-restriction may bring fast results, but it is likely to backfire once you realize it is not sustainable in the long term.

Calorie counting

One of the most common and most accurate ways to pay attention to how much you are eating is to count calories. This may sound tedious, but you do not have to count calories forever. Counting calories for even a short time can help you become more aware of how many calories are in the foods you are eating and what a proper portion size looks like.

If you do choose to count calories, there are many apps available now that make it quite simple. You can also simply write down what you are eating on a piece of paper. The key is to find the process that makes this as easy as possible for you.

One thing to be aware of is trusting apps to tell you how many calories you should eat. Often the apps prescribe a number that is much lower than what you actually need. They do this so that you will lose weight quickly, thus ensuring you will feel the app is working and tell all your friends how great it is. There is a simple calculation you can use to find a range of calories that will allow you to eat as much as possible while still being in a calorie deficit.

One thing I do recommend is that you get yourself a digital food scale. It is easier and more accurate to measure servings by weight than by volume (cups and tbsp).

Hand Sizes

I earned my nutrition coaching certification from Precision Nutrition. They recommend a method of tracking using hand size portions. In this method a serving of protein is the size of your palm. A serving of carbs is the amount that would fit in a cupped hand. A serving of fruits and veggies are the size of a closed fist and a serving of fats is the size of the tip of your thumb.

In this method you are essentially controlling calories by controlling for the serving sizes of what you are eating. This method is convenient because you always have your hands with you, whereas taking a food scale with you everywhere is not a good look. They found hand size tracking to be just as accurate as calorie counting for weight loss success.

This method can get tricky if you like to eat foods that are mixed together, like in a casserole or soup. However, if building simple meals around individual ingredients works for you, then this method can be ideal.

You can learn more about hand sizes and how to figure out how many portions of each you would need from the Precision Nutrition website or I can help you with that if you sign up for 1-1 coaching as well.

Plate Control

A third method that I discuss with clients who do not want to count calories (There are many reasons that this may be the case. Calorie counting is not the best option for everyone, and that is okay.) is a method that has many different names. The essential idea is that you choose a normal dinner size plate and you use that plate to help limit the portions sizes of food you eat.

For most people I recommend starting with 3 plates and 2 snacks. This fits into a fairly traditional eating pattern. It also provides a good range of calories.

Each of the three plates should consist of veggies, lean protein and one other food. Aim to fill about half your plate with veggies. Choose a lean protein option you enjoy and fill about a quarter of your plate with that. The other quarter of your plate can be filled with whatever you want. You can choose a carb, like rice or potatoes. You can choose something with a bit more fat, like mac & cheese. You can also choose to use this quarter of your plate for a serving of dessert.

Hint: Don’t overcomplicate this. It doesn’t have to be a plate. It could be a bowl. You also don’t actually have to put your dessert on the quarter of the plate. The idea here is that you are using the plate to help visualize and moderate the size of your servings while choosing mostly nutrient dense foods.

For your two snacks you should choose a lean protein or a fruit or veggie. Some ideas are greek yogurt, a protein shake, veggie sticks or an apple.

How much are you moving?

One of the easiest ways to pay attention to how much you are moving is in the form of step count. This can be fairly easy to assess these days as most smart phones track your steps if you carry your phone with you. Many people also have smart watches or health wearables that give a step count as well.

However, it does not have to be walking. It can be cycling, roller blading, hiking, boxing, or dancing. All forms of movement matter! Steps is the most common method because it does not require any extra equipment and it is easy to sprinkle short walks into your day, thus increasing your movement.

The place to start with monitoring how much you are moving is to get a good baseline. Pay attention to how much you are currently moving. If you are focused on steps, how many steps do you get on average throughout the week? Or if you are monitoring something else, pay attention to how many minutes you spend doing those activities.

Once you have a baseline, the goal with this habit is to slowly increase the amount you are moving throughout the day. You do not have to try to jump from an average of 3,000 steps/day to 10,000. There is no real magic in that number, by the way. You can learn more about it in an article I wrote. Instead, try to increase your steps by 500-1,000 per day. You might be surprised by how much difference adding a few 5 minute walks to your days or weeks can make.

How often are you strength training?

Lifting weights, especially in a well designed program, can be an excellent place to start a weight loss journey. Historically speaking, many people, especially women, have been led to believe that if they want to lose weight they should start doing cardio.

Cardio is excellent for your health, but it is not the most dynamic way to change how much body fat you have. Lean muscle uses up more energy than body fat. Therefore, if you build more muscle, it will take more calories to maintain your weight. Which means you can eat more and stay the same weight.

Additionally, when you are in a calorie deficit your body will lose both body fat and lean muscle. It is important to strength train so that you can maintain the muscle that you already have.

You can see a lot of improvements in strength and muscle in as little as two to four workouts per week, provided they are well designed workouts. You should be lifting heavy weights and working to increase your efforts a little bit over time. Jumping from random workout to random workout will not give you the benefits you are looking for.

Strength training may feel intimidating at first. However, if you stick to it, you will find an increased feeling of empowerment that will be applied to things outside of the weight room as well. One of my clients just hit her 6 month mark of training and she is most excited by how much stronger and more capable she feels in her everyday life. Things like shoveling snow used to make her feel terrible for days. This winter when she and her daughters shoveled snow they got sore and tired before she did!

How much protein are you eating?

Eating enough protein is a vital part of your weight loss journey. Protein will help you feel full for longer. It helps to build and maintain lean muscle. It also takes more energy for your body to break it down and use it. 

One of the first questions my clients ask me is how to increase their protein intake. As with many of these other categories, the first step is observing how much protein you are getting currently. 

Once you have a clear idea of where you are already getting protein in your diet, you can simply increase the amount of that protein in those meals. Are you currently eating half a can of tuna at lunch? Consider eating the full can instead. Do you currently eat 1-2 eggs for breakfast? Consider adding some egg whites to that meal in addition to the whole eggs.

Next you can start adding other protein to meals where you aren’t getting much now. If you regularly include pasta as your main dish for dinner, try having a smaller amount of pasta and adding some chicken or shrimp to the meal.

It is also okay to use things like protein powders and protein bars if having a convenient way to add in some protein is helpful.

Ultimately, like with the other categories, you want to figure out ways to slowly increase this target. You should not expect to go from eating 40 grams of protein per day to 150 grams per day over night. 

A simple method for calculating how much protein to eat is to multiply your body weight by .7 to get the number of grams per day you should aim for. If you have a lot of weight to lose, you should use a goal body weight to calculate how many grams of protein you should aim for in a day instead of your current body weight. This number is a minimum target. You are welcome to eat more than that.

How much are you sleeping?

So many important things happen when we sleep. Sleep is when our body rests and recovers from the challenges we put it through every day. In addition, during sleep, our hormones have a chance to reset. This is perhaps one of the most important reasons paying attention to your sleep might be a great first step.

Have you ever experienced a night of disrupted or not enough sleep followed by a day where you feel like you just can’t get enough to eat. All of the goodies sound good. And you have an overall hollow feeling, like there may not be enough food to make you feel full. If so, you are not alone.

When you don’t get enough sleep your hunger hormones will be out of sorts. There are two hormones that impact hunger, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin increases hunger signals, letting your body know it is time to eat. Leptin decreases appetite and signals when you have had enough to eat.

Sleep deprivation has an impact on both of these hormones, which leads to those feelings of intense hunger in the days after not getting enough sleep.

How much sleep is enough sleep? It is recommended that you get 7-9 hours of restful sleep in order to have the best results. However, just like with movement, don’t feel like it is useless to try to adjust this if you are currently falling far short of 7 hours. Shifting your sleep pattern even a little bit, say adding an extra 20-30 minutes, can have an impact on how you feel.

Additionally, if you are in a season of life where 7-9 hours is simply not possible, (sorry young parents and shift workers), know that not getting enough sleep does not make it impossible to lose weight. Sometimes just having the knowledge that there is a reason are feeling so hungry can help you.

How much fiber are you eating?

Fiber is a very important element of our diet when it comes to long term health. Increasing the amount of fiber you eat in a given day will not, by itself lead to weight loss. Remember you have to be in a calorie deficit in order to lose body fat. However, by paying attention to high fiber foods you will likely increase your vegetable and whole grain intake. 

In addition to the health and gut benefits that come with increased fiber, foods high in fiber will likely keep you full for longer both because of what they are made of and because of the volume you can eat. Eating a big salad or a big pile of veggies will take you a lot longer to chew and eat, which will also lead to you eating less in the long term.

Increasing the quality of your food choices can be a great first step for trying to lose weight. It shifts the traditional focus of removing foods from the diet onto adding more nutrient dense options. Not only will these types of foods make you feel better, but they will be a part of the overall shifts needed to lose weight and maintain it long term.

Where will you start?

Remember that the goal is to choose one to two of these action categories as a starting place. It does not matter how much weight you have to lose, the only way to get to the end goal is to start. 

Make starting feel as easy as possible by choosing the category that feels most manageable in the short term. This will help you to build up self-efficacy, your belief in yourself, which is critical to not only starting the journey, but staying consistent with it for the long term. (To learn more about how self-efficacy will impact your success, check out part two of this article.)

Once you have built up a bit of steam with one or two of the categories you can add in the rest of the categories one-by-one until eventually your daily habits work with you to meet your goals instead of feeling like something you have to fight against.

How can I help?

There are a lot of ways you can reach out to me if you have questions or need additional support. Sign up for my email list. Follow me on Instagram for more frequent, free content. Or, if you feel like you would like some support and accountability in your weight loss journey you can apply for my 1-1 coaching.