Calories Out > Calories In

Which “diet” is the best to follow?  Easy answer!  The one that you fits into YOUR life and that you can stick with for the duration of your life.

I am often asked, what diet works best:  Low-carb, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins, Ornish, Paleo, Vegan, Gluten-Free, Sugar-free etc.  The answer is that they all can work because they all focus on caloric deprivation of one kind or another.  But can you eat THAT way for the rest of your life? 

Losing weight is about creating a deficit or difference in the number of calories your body burns vs. how many calories you eat.  At the end of the day, you’ve got to eat in a way that is sustainable for you, allows you to lose weight in a reasonable time frame and also that allows you to feel physically and emotionally satisfied.

Another question that people often ask me – Can you lose weight without exercising?  You can lose weight without exercising!  However, it will be a much slower process and your body will physically not look as good.  Once you lose excess fat, it is nice to have a little muscle definition to balance out your body shape.  Think of a thin person that does not exercise and how they look in tight pants.  Their butt may be small but it is not firm.  Their legs are straight but show no definition to accentuate their hips and waist.  Working out is like the icing on the metaphorical weight-loss cake! 

I will use myself as example.  This is my daily caloric differential graph from SparkPeople.com.  In my case, my basal metabolic rate (BMR) or the calories I need to maintain my body, my current weight and basic daily activity = 1,667 calories.

 What I eat is my caloric intake (CI).  I aim to eat about 1,200 calories every day.

NO EXERCISE  1,667 (BMR) -1,200 (Caloric Intake)     467 (Differential) If I have a difference of 467 calories a day, I know I should lose 1 pound every 7.5 days. 3500 (calories in 1 Lb) =  467 calories per day   7.5 days to lose 1 Lb

EXERCISE – 250 calories/day  1,917 (BMR + exercise) -1,200 (Caloric intake)     715 (Differential) If I have a difference of 715 calories a day, I know I should lose 1 pound every 5 days. 3500 (calories in 1 LB) =   715 calories per day   4.9 days to lose 1 Lb

I don’t know about you, but I would rather lose a pound every 5 days vs. every 7.5 days.  It just means you have to give up a little bit of your time to make it happen!

It my personal experience, it does not really matter what you do regarding diet or exercise, as long as you keep a daily caloric difference great enough to keep you satisfied with YOUR weight loss.  Of course, you should try to eat clean, real, unprocessed food.  However, if I ate 1,200 calories of Snackwell cookies every day, I would/could still loose at about the same rate, my body just would not look or feel as good (physically, mentally or emotionally) as it could on 1,200 calories of healthy stuff.  You just have to figure out what you can sustain long-term and find YOUR perfect balance between healthy eating, exercising and feeling like you can still occasionally indulge in your favorite foods.  What works for you will not be a great fit for others and vice-versa.

In the end, weight-loss is all about creating a grand science experiment with your body.  You need to record what goes in (food) and what goes out (exercise).  By doing so, you can make small changes and adjustments to keep losing or to maintain a weight loss.  It was not until I started charting everything that I was able to make the connections and to fill all of the voids that had sabotaged my weight-loss and fitness efforts in the past.