Eating for weight loss

🔥Master these 3 critical components.

Welcome to the 170th consecutive edition of the newsletter.

Today’s focus is on weight loss.

I'm going to explain the 3 critical components to master that will help skew weight loss success in your favour.

But before I tell you what they are, I need to admit something.

I have two ulterior motives.

One. I want to empower you with the knowledge necessary to solve your own problem.

Two. I want you to take that knowledge to design an eating program that works for you.

In other words, I want you to adopt an owner's mindset.

That's a mindset where you stop looking for other people to fix you, and instead design something to fix yourself.

Hopefully you are ok with my "sinister" intentions.

Here are the 3 components that comprise eating for weight loss, what they mean and how I envision them all working together.

1. Dietary Restriction (DR)

DR is identifying the foods that prevent you from losing weight. Or put more bluntly, what are the foods that make you fat?

Why is this important?

Because one of the fastest and most powerful ways to lose weight quickly is to eliminate the foods you know make you fat.

That act alone will have a profound impact on your weight loss success.

The challenge though is to figure out what foods make you fat.

Here is what I know blows up my waistline...

• refined flours → eliminated completely

• refined sugars → eliminated completely

• rice → eliminated completely

• most processed foods → eliminated 92%

• alcohol (which also makes me more likely to act like a jackass) → on special occasions

By eliminating those foods completely or having them in moderation, I have noticed 3 remarkable things...

1. I lose weight much more quickly.

2. I don't need to train nearly as much to see great results because I'm not trying to burn off eating mistakes.

3. I can eat more of the stuff that doesn't make me fat.

Your takeaway → Subtraction from your diet leads to subtraction from your waistline.

2. Calorie Restriction (CR) 

CR is about consuming fewer calories.

Why is this important?

Simply put, if you are overweight it's because you are overeating.

Before I go any further, I would like to point out a few things I don't agree with.

I don't like the phrase calorie restriction. I'm using it here because this is the terminology trusted experts like Dr. Peter Attia use.

The reason I don't like it is because most people think “restriction” means depriving yourself.

That kind of CR is not sustainable long term.

I prefer to call CR the Calorie Sweet Spot (CSS).

Each of us has a CSS that accomplishes two things.

1. It keeps us satiated so we don’t feel hungry.

2. It allows us to lose the excess weight we are carrying until we achieve our ideal weight.

The challenge with our CSS is figuring out what the heck that is.

That's where the art of weight loss comes into play. We determine that by trial and error.

Personally, I find weight loss success when I keep my CSS around 2200 calories. But that’s just me. Yours might be higher or lower depending on a whole host of factors.

That said, CR is still my biggest challenge on this weight loss journey.

I have periods where I am very disciplined with my eating and then I experience stretches where I blow way past my CSS.

Even though I am in the fifth year of my successful body journey, I still have a lot to learn.

Your takeaway → For weight loss success, steal a page from Golilocks and find the CSS that is just right for you.

3. Time Restriction (TR)

TR the creation of an eating window where you establish a consistent time to start eating and one to finish eating for the day.

Why is this important?

It's my belief that Weight loss happens when we are not eating.

Therefore it’s our job to figure out how much time our body needs to do its 3 primary functions after we eat.

1. Digest.

2. Repair.

3. Remove toxins.

Eating windows come in all shapes and sizes. Three common ones are...

• 16:8 → 8 hour eating window and 16 hour fast

• 18:6 → 6 hour eating window and 18 hour fast

• 20:4 → 4 hour eating window and 20 hour fast

I have tried many versions and I continue to experiment, but as long as I can fast 14 hours my body can usually do what it is supposed to do — provided I have not blown past my daily CSS.

Your takeaway → Think of your eating like a restaurant’s hours of operation. What time does the kitchen open and what time does it close?

Creating weight loss magic.

CR, DR and TR are all needed for successful weight loss to occur.

But the art is finding the perfect blend of all three that will create weight loss magic for you.

That’s it for today. 🙏 Thanks for reading.

Much love my friend,

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