There seems to be a mystical thing around losing weight that makes it seem more difficult than it really is.

I am going to try and make it as simple as possible.

Your goal is to be in a caloric deficit and that’s it.

How do we do this? simple you will need three things an app called myfitnesspal, a food scale, and a scale to weigh yourself.

Myfitnesspal

Myfitnesspal is a food tracking app that allows you to scan in your food and see how many calories you are consuming.

First we need to see how many calories you need to eat on a daily basis to lose the weight you want. 

Go to this calorie calculator https://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html and type in your details.

Here is an example:

I would choose either mild weight loss or weight loss as you want to make this sustainable. 1lb a week of weight loss is great as its very sustainable. However its entirely up to you which one you go for you can lose weight quicker or slower depending on your goals.

Now all you have to do is weigh each food you eat and scan the barcode of the food with myfitnesspal. This will give you the total calories of your meal.

make sure you add your daily calorie goal so you can see how many calories you have left for the day.

weigh your self daily first thing when you wake up after using the bathroom and log your weight into myfitnesspal the scale always fluctuates so don’t worry about not seeing the weight go down daily the point of this is so we can see the weekly trend of weight loss.

and thats it! that is literally all you need to lose weight. Very simple right?

What about exercise?

The great thing about exercise is one it makes you feel good and two it burns calories this means whatever you burn you can add on to the foods you eat a day or just experience faster weight loss

Example: your daily calories to lose weight is 2000 and you burn 300 from exercise you can now eat 2300 calories and be on the same track as if you ate 2000 without exercise or you can simply experience a faster rate of weight loss as you’ve burned 300 and ate 2000 so total for the day would be 1700 calories. I personally go for the more food as we all love being able to eat more!

How do we track the calories we burn from exercise?

Things like apple watch and fitbit allow you to track the calories burned also a lot of the exercise equipment in gyms like treadmill, exercises bike etc these aren’t always 100 percent accurate but they do the job and you can see by your weight on scale if you are losing weight at a satisfying rate.

What do I do if the weight loss stops?

Sometimes your body adapts and holds on to the weight make sure you don’t judge this by your daily weight give it around a week or so to see if its really stopped and it if has eat 100 calories less a day or burn an extra 100 calories a day through exercise this should help kickstart it again.

How long will this take me to get to my desired weight?

This all depends on your goal

if you want to lose 12lbs and your eating the calories to lose 1lb a week then 12 weeks

if you want to lose 12lbs and you are eating the calories to lose 2lbs a week then it will take 6 weeks

Is this difficult to do?

Not at all the tracking your food becomes a habit and is really quick to do once you’ve done it for a few days. As for the diet this is the easiest way to do because no foods are off limits as long as you are hitting your correct daily calories for your goal you can eat whatever you want.

Can I have cheat meals?

As mentioned above the amazing thing about this is no foods are off limits so instead of having a cheat meal or cheat day just schedule in some of your favourite foods daily and just make sure they are within your calorie goals.

I accidentally went over my calorie goals what do I do?

Life happens! we are all human don’t worry about it just return to your goal calories the next day. Just like we don’t lose lots of weight in a day we also don’t gain lots of weight in a day. Don’t try to eat less the next day just return to the goal calories.

Can I go out to eat?

Of course! lots of restaurants are actually in myfitnesspal so you can log them in ahead of time and if they aren’t in there you can choose something similar from a similar restaurant and then continue with your daily calorie goals. We often overestimate how much we eat out, there has been times when my brain is telling me its going to be difficult as I eat out often where in reality it was usually once a week and all I had to do was log what I had to eat into the myfitnesspal app.

What about Protein, fats and carbs?

In terms of losing the weight you want, calories are the main thing you want to focus on. Now if you are wanting to get into working out and achieving more muscle on your body protein can be your second focus to make things simple. Aim for around 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight then fill the rest of your calories with carbs and fats. A quick note on fats try and keep it at or above 50g which most people do without trying, this is for hormonal health. So make sure you don’t cut out carbs and fats during this process as they are important.