Transcript
Speaker: It is time for that weekly episode as we always have each and every week. Before I get into that, just a reminder, continue to leave reviews if you can. Share this with people who you think it gets in value. Continue to grow this show to get this information out to more people who can use this to live better lives, look better, feel better, all that good stuff that we all want.
Speaker: It is time for another Q&A episode. So I have five different questions that we are going to go through questions that I get from you guys questions that I get from social media. Questions that I get from clients or people that I talked to in the gym. And so let's get into these five questions. They will be what's the biggest mistake people make after losing weight.
Speaker: How do you know if your calories are too low during a fat loss phase? What's one fitness habit that gives people way more return than they realize? That's great question. Fourth question is, do you have a lot of loose skin from losing so much weight?
Speaker: Spoiler alert, I do not. And I'm going explain some reasons why and what you can actually do if you have a lot of weight to lose. And the fifth question is, how do you handle weekends without undoing all your progress?
Speaker: Great questions. So let's just jump right into this. Question number one, what's the biggest mistake you see people making after losing weight? Well, the biggest mistake that I see people making and one that I also made myself is that after losing the weight, they go back to the same lifestyle that they were living before. So when I got into this whole process, I lost 75 pounds after about 15 months of dieting.
Speaker: And then after I lost that weight, I kind of loosened the reins a little bit, which a lot of people do. They end up putting some weight back on without ever realizing it. or something else that happens quite often is people diet so hard and for so long that once they come out of their dieting phase, they can't help but rebound. So they eat a lot more, exercise less, they can't keep up the things that they were doing. And so they inevitably end up putting on some weight. So I had the same exact thing happen to me. And the crazy thing about it is like when this happened to me, I didn't even realize that it was happening until one day I stepped on the scale after I had lost all this weight and also just started seeing some pictures. And I just noticed that that scale was up like 20 to 25 pounds. I don't remember exactly what it was, but it was somewhere in the ballpark of I gained 25 to 30 pounds back after losing my original 75 pounds.
Speaker: And so the thing that you really have to understand as you are doing this, there's two main things. Number one is just to understand that if you are trying to lose a substantial amount of weight, or even if it's just 20 or 30 pounds, you have to understand that the way that you get that off and the lifestyle that comes with that is something that you're going to have to do, not just while you're losing the weight, but you're also going have to continue that same lifestyle do those same habits, all those different things that you use to lose the weight, you're going have to be able to keep those things up if you want to keep the weight off.
Speaker: Far too often, I see people taking a approach that I know is not going to be sustainable for them, like they're following a diet that they don't really enjoy. They're trying to work out way more than they're going to be able to work out on a regular basis. And if you can't keep those things up, the results that you get using those things,
Speaker: they may stay around for a little bit, but they're not going to stay around for months and they're going stay around for years. So you have to find habits, you have to find a lifestyle, you have to find routines, you have to find a diet that you can actually do for a long period of time.
Speaker: The second part of this is I would say the mental aspect of it. So anytime you are trying to like have some sort of transformation, losing a good amount of weight, trying to implement more of a fitness and healthy lifestyle, you have to understand that there's a mental shift that has to take place. And I've talked about this on other podcasts before, but the mindset that you take into this and the identity that you have to start to shift to has to change.
Speaker: So again, very similar in the way of the things that you're doing, the habits, all the physical things that you have to change, your mindset and the identity that you have also has to change along with it. So if you're a person who you don't really ever see yourself as that fit person you don't see yourself as that healthy person that person who prioritizes fitness and exercise you're going have to start to slowly shift that because we know if you want to keep the weight off you need to start to be a person who does value exercise who does value moving their body If you have always eaten a certain way and you haven't really cared about the things that you put in your body, you're going to have to start to shift that and start to think more about how can I eat healthier?
Speaker: How is this going to be something that is actually important to me? How is this something that I'm going to actually prioritize? Because if you don't make those internal shifts, if you don't have that mindset shift, if you don't start to shift your identity and how you see yourself, this stuff is going to feel way too hard and you're not going to be able to do it for a long period of time.
Speaker: Again, you can willpower your way through this for three months, six months, even a year, maybe even a couple years. But eventually over time, if you're not able to find a way to do this in a way that feels sustainable, in a way that you actually find somewhat enjoyable, in a way that you actually look forward to, it's not going to stick.
Speaker: the number one factor in successful weight loss is adherence meaning can you do this stuff for a long period of time so the way that you eat the way that you exercise the way that you live has to be something that you can consistently do and the best ways to do that is to find a system that actually works in a system that you actually enjoy doing because there's a difference between wanting to lose a little bit of weight to go on vacation or for a wedding or for a specific reason Like if that's your goal to just temporarily lose weight for a short period of time, then you can approach this totally different. But if you want to lose a certain amount of weight and actually keep that off for a good amount of time, you have to use things that are going to be sustainable because sustainable methods is going to lead to sustainable results. So when losing the weight, just periodically go throughout different times throughout this process and just ask yourself, am I building habits that I can keep up for a long period of time? And am I learning the things that I need to learn? in order to keep this weight off for good.
Speaker: Because if you follow some fad diet and lose a bunch of weight, but you know that's not something that you're going to be able to keep up, that's not really going to do you a whole lot of good. If you're just blindly following some meal plan and you don't really understand how macros work and calories work and what your body needs and portion sizes and all that stuff, what's going to happen when you stop following that exact meal plan?
Speaker: and you don't have the knowledge that you need in order to keep these results you're going go right back to where you started so understanding there's some habits that you want to build when you break down weight loss it's a complex problem but it's actually pretty simple when you start to think about this from a more broad and general view like there's some certain habits that you can look at people who have lost a lot of weight or people who are just fit in general, there's certain things that they do. So they exercise regularly. They walk quite a bit. They learn how to not overeat and manage their calories a little bit better. They typically eat more whole foods and higher protein and a good amount of fiber. A lot of people who lost weight or are more fit, they meal prep pretty frequently.
Speaker: They understand some basic things as well. A lot of this whole process And something that I really try to stress a lot, and it's the entire reason that I do this podcast is to educate people. Because once you truly understand how this stuff works, you can start applying it. And also, once you have that certainty that I'm doing these certain things, and this is actually going get me the progress, your buy-in for these things is so much higher.
Speaker: Lots of people have certain general understandings of how to lose weight. Like everybody has heard the phrase, move more, eat less. Everybody knows that, but not everybody knows things like what energy balance is. Not everybody knows things like how many calories their body needs. Not everybody knows things like how many calories are in certain foods. Not everybody knows what macros are or even understands what foods have proteins and high carbs and high fats. Not everybody knows what an actual portion size looks like.
Speaker: Not everybody knows what foods make it easier to get them closer to their goals. Like everybody knows kind of general, Okay, this is probably a little bit more healthy versus this thing. But do you know what foods you can eat that help keep you full and satiated?
Speaker: you know what foods are going to help to get you to build muscle a little bit easier? What foods are going to help to promote your hormone health a little bit better? Like if you don't know these certain things, it makes it much harder to do this process because you're just blindly shooting in the dark.
Speaker: Once you understand some of these things and you spend some time approaching this the right way, you want to understand these things, learn these skills, then all this stuff becomes so much easier.
Speaker: I think a big part of the reason why I've been able to keep this weight off for a long period of time is because I understand this stuff a lot better than when I first started. When I first started this process, I didn't really know a whole lot. Like i had a little bit of a background from taking like some nutrition classes and stuff like that. But So much of this is just experiencing this whole process and also just being willing to learn, willing to make some mistakes, willing to find the information that you need and then start applying it and see what actually works for you so that you can get a really good understanding about all these things. and then after a while as you start to do these things and approach this with the right mindset you start to maybe track some food for a while so you can get a better understanding of what macros are and energy balance and get a better feel for the things that you need to be doing for your body maybe you follow a training program for a while maybe you get some accountability or work with somebody who can actually teach you some of these skills you start tracking metrics to see what things actually move the needle for you and what things
Speaker: aren't really worth your time you start trying maybe some different styles of dieting to figure out what it is is actually going to work for you once you do those things for a while then all this stuff is not really that difficult anymore and obviously those are a lot of different things and it takes work but if you put the time and effort into this let's say you put a solid year maybe even a couple years into this and you're able to lose 50 pounds 7500 pounds that is completely life-changing for the rest of your life and so yes it takes work Yes, it is kind of tedious at times. Yes, it is kind of frustrating at times to put so much time and effort into something. But I can't think of anything that's more impactful than your health, because if you don't have your health, you don't really have anything else, like nothing else matters. And so putting some good, solid time into this six months, a year, a couple years into really figuring this stuff out and learning what this system and what this process is going to look like for your body is so worth it, in my opinion.
Speaker: Question number two, how do you know if your calories are too low during a fat loss phase? So I think before getting into this question, one thing that you should understand is that different people can lose fat, can lose weight at different rates based on some different things. So where you are starting at will determine how much you can actually lose. And the reason that I wanted to get into this just in general in the first place is because I think a lot of people approach this with the idea of what is the least amount of food, the least amount of calories that I can eat so that i can make the most progress.
Speaker: That is not the best approach to do this. You actually want to eat the most food that you can while still losing weight. And the reason that I say that is because so many people struggle because they feel hungry or they're crash dieting or they're eating too little. And when you do that, you can do that for a little while. You can will power your way through it. You can do that for a few weeks, maybe in a few months. But eventually your body is going to start to fight back. You're going to start to really struggle with hunger and cravings and different things like that. And then like a lot of people, they rebound.
Speaker: And so when you can approach this in a little bit more moderate way and understand that just because somebody that you know is losing at a faster rate than you, that doesn't mean that you need to eat the same amount of calories or try to diet as hard as them or use the same amount of calorie deficit as they are using. So understanding these things that different people can lose at different rates, I think is important. So if two different people are starting from different spots, let's say for example, we have a person who's 300 pounds and then we have a person who is 200 pounds.
Speaker: Both of these people want to lose 50 pounds, but where they are starting at is going to determine how many calories that they can actually eat. So somebody who's 300 pounds, they're going to have a higher maintenance calories, meaning that their body needs more calories or energy just to maintain that 300 pounds that they have.
Speaker: for somebody who's 200 pounds they're going to need less energy to maintain their body so somebody who's 300 pounds let's just say for easy sake they maintain on 3200 calories and let's say somebody who's 200 pounds who also wants to lose 50 pounds they maintain at about 2200 calories Now, if I take 1000 calories away from somebody who can maintain on 3200 calories, that still leaves them with 2200 calories, which that's very maintainable. That's still a decent amount of food. Somebody could easily stick to that diet and not feel too hungry and not feel like they're starving themselves or
Speaker: those things that are going to make this way unsustainable. But somebody who's at 2200 calories, if I take 1000 calories away from that person, now they're trying to eat 1200 calories to go from 2200 to 1200 to be very difficult, like calories is not very much food So for that reason, you have to understand that when people are starting from different points, they're gonna be able to attack this at different rates.
Speaker: So it's important just not to compare yourself to other people from that way. Another thing that affects this is how much weight you actually have to lose. So if you only have 15 pounds to lose versus somebody who has 100 pounds to lose,
Speaker: That person who has 100 pounds to lose can typically be more aggressive with their fat loss. Somebody who only has 15 pounds to lose, they don't want to be as aggressive because they don't want to lose muscle. And as you get closer to your goal, it typically gets harder to lose each pound of body fat because you are getting leaner.
Speaker: You're don't have as much body fat to lose. And it's just a little bit harder to get that fat off. And so it makes more sense to take a more moderate approach to make sure you're not crash dieting, doing all those different things and take a more smart approach when it comes to getting that last 15 pounds off. And then the last thing that you need to understand too, is just,
Speaker: your past dieting history will determine how aggressive versus not aggressive you want to approach this with. And what I mean by that is somebody who has dieted in the past, who has experience with losing fat, successfully losing fat, I should say, not just somebody who has tried to diet in the past, somebody who actually knows what they're doing, who understands hunger, who understands how to manage cravings, who understands how to eat certain foods that are going to help them, who understands all those things that comes with dieting, they can be more aggressive So if I was going into a fat loss phase, I could be a little bit more aggressive than some client who comes to me who has never tried to lose fat before, because with dieting comes a lot of new things. There's a lot of things that you have to learn, learning to manage hunger, cravings, all those different things that I just mentioned.
Speaker: That all takes a learning curve. So if you try to ah diet super aggressively, that person who's new to this is going to feel extremely hungry, is not goingnna be able to manage all these different things. And it's probably not going to be successful with this versus somebody who has some past experience with this and who knows what to expect, who has all the skills. And so understanding those different things, I think is really important when getting into this question, because that is also going to determine how many calories you can actually eat. and also determine like how well you can actually manage your hunger.
Speaker: But with that being said, let's just say that you are wanting to take a moderate approach with your fat loss. Some easy things that you can look at to know if you are eating too little.
Speaker: The first one is if you're losing more than about 1% of your total body weight per week. This isn't a hard number, but for a general sense, most people, this works pretty well. So let's say, for example, somebody weighs 250 pounds. If they lose 1% of their body weight each week, that's 2.5 pounds.
Speaker: That would be okay. Anything 2.5 pounds and below is going to be just fine. If you start to get up to much higher than that, it's probably a good sign that you are in too big of a deficit, and that's probably going to lead to some problems down the line. Again, this isn't always the case because people who have a ton of weight to lose, they typically can lose more weight especially earlier in that process because a lot of that is just water weight inflammation body releasing water that sort of thing so they may have a couple weeks in there especially in the beginning where they're losing quite a bit of weight like four or five pounds just right off the jump and that is something that will happen but in a general sense for most people this just means you're wanting to stay somewhere in that like one to two pounds per week on average again
Speaker: not universal, but for most people, that's a pretty good rule. If you're somewhere around a pound a week, maybe even up to two pounds, or for people who don't have as much weight to lose, if you're like a half a pound a week and you're losing that on average over some certain time span, 10 weeks, 12 weeks, 16 weeks, something like that. And you're on average between that half a pound to about two pounds a week. You're probably in a pretty good space.
Speaker: The other things that you can start to look at is just what we call our biofeedback. So this is just a fancy way to say like, how hungry are you? If you physically feel super hungry all the time, that might be a sign that you are one, either eating too little or you need to start to implement some other things like fiber, like protein, some other foods that are going to help to keep you satiated.
Speaker: Some mild hunger is expected. Like if you're losing weight, you should feel some hunger at times. That's a good sign that you're actually in a calorie deficit. If you never feel hungry, you probably aren't in a calorie deficit or you're in such a small calorie deficit that you don't ever feel any hunger. And when you get into such a small deficit like that, it's really easy to not see progress because it's so easy to eat too many calories or have a mistake in your tracking or something like that. and then you're not even a calorie deficit. For example, if I'm only in a 200 calorie deficit per day, like that's so easy to overlook or to make some certain mistake, have a little bit bigger portion, eat a snack that I forgot to track, have a little extra sauce. And then that 200 calories is wiped out. So you want to make sure that you're in a deficit, but not so far in a deficit to where you're always feeling super hungry.
Speaker: And so even though some hunger is going to be expected, there's so many different things that you can do to help yourself out with this. Again, you don't want to feel crazy hungry. You don't want to feel ravenous. You don't want to be feeling like you're thinking about food all the time. And learning how to manage hunger is something that will come with dieting, especially if you're doing it in the right way. So including things like fiber, like protein. like high volume foods, like sticking to a regular eating schedule, like utilizing zero calorie drinks, like getting enough sleep, like all those things are going to help to manage hunger to make this process feel a little bit easier. You can also do other things like take diet breaks. So you could go three weeks in a calorie deficit, then maybe you take one week off, you could go four weeks on and then take a couple weeks off, you could go eight weeks on and then maybe take a month break. So there's different ways that you can kind of alternate this so that it doesn't feel so stressful and so that you're not always trying to battle this hunger. But if you're feeling super hungry, that's probably a sign that you may be eating too little.
Speaker: Another thing that you can pay attention to is just like your energy and your mood. So if those things are really off, like you're super low energy all the time, or you're just pissed off all the time or just irritable in a bad mood. that could be another sign that you are not eating enough calories. So if you've ever talked to anybody who's tried to do a bodybuilding show or just heard people talk about this, as they get closer and closer to their stage weight, they will talk about just how low energy they have and also just how irritable and easy it it is to piss them off as they get closer to that goal because they're at such a low body fat and eating so little that their body is just screaming at them to eat more calories. And with that, it starts to affect other things like energy, like mood, like all those different things that we should be paying attention to. If you're feeling some of those things, you should understand that, okay, maybe this is a sign that I need to actually look at what I'm doing. And if you're tracking your calories, this also makes it really easy to know because you can just look at your calories and see like, okay, based on my maintenance calories and where I'm supposed to be eating for my body weight, am way below that?
Speaker: If I am way below that, then I need to up my calories a little bit or start to play around with different macros, different foods so that I'm not struggling so much. I've done entire episodes on just things like managing hunger and setting up calories and different things like that too. And I know this is a lot of information. I'm trying to be super detailed in this question. So if you have specific questions like this, you can always ask me or just go reference some of those podcast episodes that I've done on this type of stuff. But that's another really good question.
Speaker: Third question is what's one fitness habit that gives people way more return than they realize? And again, this is another one that I've done an entire episode on, but I would say good relationships.
Speaker: There was a study that is still going on to this day, but it's a super long study. I forget exactly how long it is, but I want to say it's been going on for like 70 or 80 years now. And it's been passed over to multiple different people who have been running this study, but it came out of Harvard and they basically wanted to track people from a very young age all the way up in through relationships.
Speaker: the time that they died and then even continue on after that. So like there's been people who have passed away and then they've added new people to this study because they wanted to figure out like what are some of the things that what are some of the trends and some of the patterns that we can pick out for people who live the longest and have the happiest lives.
Speaker: What they came to learn from all this stuff was that the one common thing that all the people who live the longest lives had is they had really strong relationships. Something that I think a lot of people overlook is just the importance that relationships have on not only your mental health, like I think we all kind of realize that, but even your physical health. If you don't have good relationships, you typically have worse physical outcomes or deal with more health issues than somebody who has good relationships. So good relationships are going have better habits, better mood, you have better community. All those different things come with good relationships because you become like the people you're around. So you start to pick up habits from those people Typically, if you're surrounding yourself with good people, you have good, strong relationships, you're going to be better off.
Speaker: And so I think it's really easy to get super focused on just yourself and your own health and the things that you're doing and what you're eating and all that different stuff. But don't forget to invest in the people around you, like your friends, your family, if you have a partner or spouse. If you have a workout group that you can join, a run group, if you have a church group, if you have some sort of community club or whatever, like get around good people and really invest in those relationships because those are crucial to your mental health, your physical health health, how long you live, how much better you feel. All those different things are affected by the people around you. So don't neglect those things. And I think one thing i would throw in here too, just a little runner up is something that I don't think a lot of people really think about is sunlight or just getting outside.
Speaker: It doesn't take a ton of time, but getting some sunlight and getting outside is super great for regulating your circadian rhythm, which can help with better sleep. People who get regular sunlight typically have lower stress levels. They have better mood, stronger immune system. And there's a lot of data around this about the things that the sun and sunlight can do for just us as human beings. But I don't think a lot of people really understand that. And especially with the way that we live now, like most of our time is spent indoors.
Speaker: And when you think about that from an evolutionary perspective, that is something that is fairly new. And sometimes like you'll go entire days without going outside. Like if you live in a place that's super cold, like you're just going from your house to your car to your work, and you're not really spending any time outside. you're not really getting sunlight. you're not really getting that fresh air. and There's a lot of really good benefits with just getting outside, getting some sun, getting out in nature that I think a lot of people miss out on because they don't really think about this. And when you look at some of the health problems, like tons of people are deficient in vitamin D, which is something that you can get from the sun. And we know that vitamin D is essential to tons of our body's processes. So that's something that we want to start to emphasize as well. You can get some vitamin D from food, but a lot of it's going to come through just being outside and being in the sun.
Speaker: If you've ever lived in a spot and it gets super dark, gets cold, you don't really want to spend a lot of time outside, it gets kind of gloomy. And those seasons of seasonal depression can be very real. And I think we've all also had that experience where like you spend some time out in nature, maybe you're at the beach, at the ocean, maybe you're on a hike or doing something where you're just spending a lot of time outside.
Speaker: Maybe out in nature, fresh air, sunlight, all that kind of stuff. and You just feel better at the end of the day. Like you feel better physically, you feel better mentally, your mood is better, all those things. And so I think we all kind of know that we should be spending time outside, but I don't think it's something that a lot of us prioritize enough. so Super simple thing, just get outside daily. And if you can do it in the morning where you're getting some sunlight in those eyes to help with that circadian rhythm, that's something that's such a small, easy thing to do. Getting outside for 10, 15, 20 minutes a day can help with just your overall general health and also just how you feel.
Speaker: Question number four, do you have a lot of loose skin from losing so much weight? I've been asked this question so many times. And I think, I mean, it's valid. I understand like people who have a lot of weight to lose, they don't want to lose a bunch of weight and then have a bunch of loose skin. I think something that you have to understand is there's certain factors that you just can't really control, especially at this point.
Speaker: if you've been overweight for a long period of time the biggest factor in having loose skin is how long that skin that you have has been stretched out like if you've been overweight for a very long time five years 10 years 15 years that skin has been stretched out for a long period of time the likelihood that it stretches back or rebounds a little bit better is probably going to be less than if you were somebody who has only been overweight for let's say a year or a couple of years so the longer that skin has been stretched out the less likely that it's going to be to rebound so that's something to think about age plays a role so as you get older your skin is less elastic i think this is something that is pretty self-explanatory if you look at young people versus very old people the older you get your skin gets wrinkly gets more loose it doesn't really bounce back it's not as elastic so
Speaker: older that you get that also plays a role and then genetics play a role too like you can look at people you can look at females who are pregnant they can be the same age be very similar in diet and different things like that and some snap back super easily and you can barely even tell that they were ever pregnant and then some have a little bit more loose skin or have trouble with bouncing back or their skin is just not rebounding the way that they thought that it would and so genetics definitely does play a role here There are some things that you can do, especially from a weight loss perspective. The thing that I tell people that matters the most is to build as much muscle as possible.
Speaker: Lift weights and lift heavy weights. Focus on building a ton of muscle because as you lose that fat, you want to fill that skin out with something. if you don't have any muscle mass to help fill that skin out it's just going to leave you with a lot of loose skin a lot of flab not really having that full more toned look that most people want when they're losing weight so building muscle is such a crucial part of this entire process and i think Lifting weights is especially important. and i think that's a reason why I don't have a ton of loose skin is because I was an athlete and I was lifting weights. And that was a huge focus of mine as I was losing this weight was to build as much muscle as possible. And it's still a goal of mine is to build muscle, maintain muscle, all those different things. So lifting weights is important for that.
Speaker: Eating a high protein diet, obviously important for that. Eating lots of whole foods with lots of good nutrients. I think sometimes people forget you are what you eat. You literally become the foods that you eat. And so you want to be eating high quality foods, foods with lots of nutrients, because that's important for your skin too. Your skin needs protein, your skin needs nutrients. And if you're eating a bunch of junk all the time, that's not real great for your skin. So you want to eat a high protein diet with lots of whole foods.
Speaker: Second thing I would say is just to take your time losing the weight. If you're losing very, very quickly, oftentimes we're hearing now people who are using GLP-1s or even people who don't use GLP-1s and they just crash diet without lifting weights, they are losing a ton of muscle. And that is not good for your metabolism. That's not good for how you're going to feel. And that's definitely not good for how you look. Because again, if you lose a bunch of weight, but you don't have muscle underneath, I can promise you, you're not going to look the way that you want to look. So Take your time losing the weight so you don't lose a lot of muscle. And also at the same time, give your skin a chance to bounce back a little bit.
Speaker: You can lose fat at a much faster rate than your skin can bounce back. So even if you're losing weight, don't be so quick to think that you're just absolutely screwed with having a bunch of loose skin because that skin can bounce back a little bit, but it does take a little bit more time. So be patient with that.
Speaker: And then the last thing that I would say that you can actually do, I haven't done any of these things, but these are things that I've just researched and things that I've talked to other people about. So There's like different lotions and like collagens and things like that.
Speaker: I never used any of those things if I'm being completely honest with you. And from what I've looked into, there's not a ton of evidence with these things with like the lotions and the collagen and different things like that. And maybe they do have some validity, but I think to the extent of if you're losing a lot of weight and you have quite a bit of loose skin, I don't think these things are going to make a big enough noticeable difference to where you don't have that kind of loose skin. The only thing that has been A huge difference maker that I've seen for a lot of people is to get surgery, to get skin removal surgery.
Speaker: Obviously, there some things that you have to consider with this. It's expensive and insurance doesn't cover those things a lot of times. So you're just paying out of pocket for these things. And then obviously the recovery that comes with this, like you're literally cutting skin off your body.
Speaker: And then there's just a whole process with this. You have to get all that sewed up. You have the recovery time. I know that there's like pumps and things that they have to install because you're losing a lot of fluids and different things like that. Like I've seen people post about these on social media. And so it doesn't look like a super enjoyable, pleasurable process. But again, maybe going through that is worth it for some people and getting that skin off and being able to have more of that body type that they want.
Speaker: It's just something that you kind of have to weigh the pros and cons about. So there's things you can control, things you can't control. But the last thing that I'd say about this and something that I always say when people ask me this question is if a little bit of loose skin is the price that you have to pay for losing a bunch of weight and being able to live a healthier life. being able to live a longer life, being able to live a more high quality life full of all the things that you want to do and not being held back physically from your weight or from poor health or from super big health problems or different things like that. It's totally worth it, in my opinion. So nobody wants to have a ton of loose skin. But at the end of the day, if that's the trade off that you have to make, I think it's worth it every single time.
Speaker: In the last question that we have for this Q&A pod, how do you handle weekends without undoing your progress? This is a great question because we just hopped into football season and with football season often comes a lot of extra social events. You have some, maybe some drinks, maybe some snacks, maybe some good food, all that good stuff that we like to do around football season. The biggest thing that I can tell you is to plan ahead and I'll go through some specific strategies that you can use. But having some sort of plan before you go into this social event or the weekend or whatever the case may be, is your best bet. If you don't have a plan and you just try to wing it, you're probably not going to do very well. So have some sort of plan going in. So some things that you can actually do. This first one is called weekend calorie cycling.
Speaker: So if you know that the weekend is coming up and you tend to eat a little bit more on the weekend or you know you have some sort of social event, you're going to a game, whatever, and you just know that you want to eat a little bit more, what you can do is to calorie cycle. So basically you just think of this as budgeting.
Speaker: But with calories. So let's say, for instance, you're a person who to maintain your weight and you can do this with just maintaining your weight if you don't want to gain a bunch of fat throughout the football season. or you could also do this same exact strategy if you're somebody who's trying to lose fat, too. You can calorie cycle with both of those different scenarios. But let's say you're a person who you want to.
Speaker: just maintain your weight and you can maintain your weight on 2,500 calories. We're just going to use that for easy math sake. Monday through Friday, I'm going to eat less than 2,500 calories so that I can bank some extra calories that I can use on the weekend. So instead of eating 2,500 calories Monday through Friday, I'm going to eat 2,000 calories Monday through Friday. And that gives me 500 extra calories for those five days. So calories that i can now allocate to the weekend. So instead of having to try to fit my calories, try eat pizza and have snacks and have some drinks and fit that into 2,500 calories on Saturday and Sunday. Now, because I ate less from Monday through Friday, I now have that 2,500 calories that I can split and add to Saturday and Sunday. So instead of eating 2,500 calories Sunday, now can eat 3,750 calories on Saturday and Sunday.
Speaker: And the cool thing about this is my calories are equal throughout the week. So I think a lot of times people only think about calories from a daily perspective, but you can also think about it from a weekly perspective.
Speaker: If my calories are equated for those seven days out of the week, it doesn't really matter too much if I'm eating the same every single day or on some days I'm eating a little bit more, some a little bit less, or two days I'm eating a lot more and five days I'm eating a little bit less. As long as those are equal at the end of the week, I'm still going to be able to either maintain or if you're trying to lose fat and you're hitting those calorie goals, lose fat. So you don't have to just think about it on a daily basis. You can budget your calories a little bit, save up for Saturday, Sunday, have a little bit more food on the weekends and still be completely fine.
Speaker: Another strategy that that you can use, and this would be like a same day type of strategy, so maybe you're not budgeting the entire week, but for that same day, is just to simply skip a meal. And this is something I'll do.
Speaker: I will say this doesn't always work for everybody because sometimes when people skip meals, they just end up eating a ton more at the other meals. So this doesn't work for everybody, but if you're somebody who doesn't have an issue just skipping a meal, and then you can just still...
Speaker: eat things in moderation. This is a really easy strategy. So instead of eating breakfast, maybe on that Saturday, you wake up and you just don't want to have breakfast. And then you've saved 500, 600, 700 extra calories that you can now have for lunch or dinner or for some drinks or snacks or whatever the case may be.
Speaker: Another strategy that you can do within that same day is just to have two super high protein, low calorie type of meals. That way you're just banking a bunch of extra calories. So for example, breakfast, let's say I wake up, I have 300 calorie yogurt Greek bowl. So I have some protein powder, some Greek yogurt, throw some berries in there. So I get some protein, some fiber. It's going fill me up a decent amount, but it's only 300 calories. And for lunch, I have a huge salad, throw some chicken in there, tons of vegetables, maybe a little bit of sauce. That's 400 calories.
Speaker: So between those two meals, I've only had 700 calories. And if I'm somebody who I'm only trying to maintain and I have 2,500 calories for that day, now I still have 1,800 calories that I can have for dinner or for snacks or for drinks. So you're just finding little ways to play with your calories a little bit so that you're not going way over or that you're not just eating a ton so that you're gaining a bunch of fat or never really seeing the progress that you want to see.
Speaker: And then the last couple of things that I would say about this is like, if you don't want to use those things, just have some rules going in. Whether that be, I'm only going have one small plate of snacks, or I'm only going have four or five beers, and that's going to be my limit, or I'm not going to have seconds on anything. I'm just going have one round, like have some sort of rules going in so that you're, again, just not trying to wing it. Because if you try to wing this stuff, I'm telling you, like once the food is there and you see all the food and all that kind of stuff, it just doesn't work very well for most people.
Speaker: And then the very last thing that I would say about this is you always have the option to use low calorie swaps. This is one of my favorite things to do as well. So finding macro friendly recipes. And now with social media, you can find quite literally any type of good tasty snack that you could ever want, you can find a lower calorie, higher protein version of this. So whether it's like nachos or burritos or pizza or burgers or any other type of weekend fun food that you would want to eat, you can find a lower calorie version that actually tastes really good. just by using something like Instagram or TikTok or even AI. Like you could chat type this into a chat GPT and find different recipes or whatever. Like there's tons of different things that you can do out there to help yourself out. you just have to make a little bit of an effort. And then just sticking to some lower calorie drinks or
Speaker: lower calorie snacks, different things like that. Like if you're going drink alcohol, stick to your light beers, your seltzers, maybe some hard liquor with zero calorie mixers or some snacks that are going be lower calorie. There's always little things that you can do to help yourself out. Again, you just have to make the effort and then just plan ahead. If you plan ahead, make a little bit of an effort. It's really not that difficult to control your weekends a little bit better and not maybe have so much damage. Like you do really well Monday through Friday and then the weekend hits and then you just go completely overboard. Like there's little things that you can do. And if you have a plan going in, you're going to lot better off. So try some of those things, see what works for you and then just go with that. And I think you'll be a lot better off with that. So you're able to actually still enjoy your weekends, but not completely blow your calories out of the water, not gain a bunch of fat, not ruin all your fat loss progress just by trying out a few of those different methods.
Speaker: And with that being said, that is the five questions. As always, I really appreciate you guys listening, continuing to share these episodes, leave reviews, all that good stuff. The one-on-one coaching link is in the show notes if you do want some help with this stuff. I know those first couple of questions that I covered, tons of information in those and some of this stuff can be a little bit hard to figure out. by yourself. So if you have some goals around fat loss, build a muscle, building better habits, making sure this weight loss is going to be sustainable, you can always check out the show notes for that. But I appreciate you listening, and we will see you next
