I’ve been thinking about writing a step by step guide like this for weight maintenance for a few weeks.
Weight maintenance requires long-term adherence. This plan is tailored for practicality and ease of compliance. Notice that each step has concrete goals that you either comply with or not, which makes it easy to assess whether you are on track. The steps are ordered for [efficacy/difficulty].
0) Buy:
- body scale
- food scale (if you get to step 4)
− 8 food containers that can hold ~ 250mL or ~ 1 cup (if you get to step 4)
For the scales, have easy to replace batteries (i.e. AA, AAA, not lithium coins that you never can find at the store).
Start at step 1. Maintain a step for 2 weeks and assess if you’re losing weight or maintaining an acceptable weight. If yes, then stay on that step. If not, keep doing what you are doing, and also add the next step. Once you reach your target weight, you can assess for two weeks and pull back one step at a time every 2 weeks. Follow this as written for best results, however, for ease of compliance:
You may skip any 1 step except #1
You may also switch a step up or down by 1 spot except #1
Step #6 is required for subsequent steps.
1) Weigh yourself every morning.
2) Stop drinking anything containing sugar (including juice) or alcohol.
3) Include 4 or more eggs with breakfast (280 cal), however you want to prepare them. If you really dislike eggs, 2 scoops of whey protein (~240 cal) can be substituted.
4) Any time you are going to eat (any meal, any snacks, a single cookie, anything), you have to eat one of the following first if it’s been more than 1 hour since you have:
Fruits
− 100 g fresh apple (52 cal)
− 100 g fresh strawberries (33 cal)
− 100 g fresh cherries (63 cal)
− 100 g fresh peach (40 cal)
− 100 g fresh pear (57 cal)
− 100 g fresh blackberries (43 cal)
− 100 g fresh raspberry (53 cal)
− 100 g fresh blueberry (57 cal)
Vegetables
− 100 g fresh baby carrots (41 cal)
− 100 g fresh cucumber (16 cal)
− 100 g fresh celery (16 cal)
− 100 g fresh or steamed spinach (23 cal)
− 100 g fresh or steamed broccoli (34 cal)
These are selected for palatability, cost, ease of use (easy to prepare, no cooking = less excuses). Prepare 100 g containers of the above each night for the next day. Balance fruit and vegetable in equal amounts.
5) Weight training:
Learn to deadlift with proper form (Youtube videos are probably enough), deadlift 5 sets of 5 reps 1 day per week. Add 5 lbs any time you successfully finish 5x5. A hex bar plus plates don’t take up too much room so this can be done at home if you have a ground floor and space available.
Do push-ups of the best quality you can for 5 sets of 10 once a week. Improve the quality as you get stronger.
6) Count calories using the food scale and published nutritional information on packages / restaurants. After doing this a while, you may be able estimate (be careful though).
7) Limit daily calories to 15.0x your bodyweight in lbs.
8) Limit daily calories to 12.5x your bodyweight in lbs.
9) Limit daily calories to 10x your bodyweight in lbs.
10) Still not working? Check your math. Are you really counting everything? Are you weighing it? Are your units correct (grams / kg / lb / serving sizes)?
Created an account, because finally, something I can speak about from firsthand knowledge!
For a quantitative person it’s helpful to check your weight on a regular schedule. For me it’s every morning after waking up, before consuming anything (water, food). It’s the most consistent time. This gives a reward for your work immediately, especially because the first week or two you may lose water weight as glycogen stores deplete (each 1 gram of glycogen lost also gives up 4 grams of water, you may lose ~1lb of glycogen). Sure it’s just water loss, but you look better, and fit into your pants better, and it’s encouraging.
The part where diets fail is in maintaining the weight loss. This is where weighing yourself regularly becomes even more important: Have a target weight that you actually can hit and strive to maintain without excessive willpower (say 170). Once you’re below 170 you can eat more freely within reason. But always have an “action weight” (say 175) where if you go above, you start watching what you eat more carefully until you’re below 170 again.
It’s not “weight loss” it’s weight maintenance.