As a trainer/nutritionist, I get the complaint that "losing weight cost too much" a lot. I often hear this from chronic dieters trying to give 'healthy eating' a try but was never successful.
What they don't realize is that A) healthy foods do not necessarily leads to fat loss, B) healthy foods aren't really that healthy as they are only marketed that way (1, 2) and C) most diet programs out there doesn't work (1, 2, 3), even the expensive ones.
Let me explain.
As I've already touched on this before, to change one's body mass (gain or lose), one has to manipulate energy stores. The more you store, the more mass you put on. If a person were in a surplus caloric intake while following a resistance training program, a good chunk of that mass gain would be muscle gain. A fat reducing overview can help you construct a clear summarize of what you require to focus on to achieve your fat burning target if you're a novice; or serve as a reminder for these who are at an intermediate or more boost step of their weightloss plan. Following are seven steps that can serve as tips for your own weight loss plan. The first thing that one must understand is that losing weight and losing fat is not the same thing. Many weight loss applications have tricked people into considering that it is the same, but most diets and weight loss programs only work by resulting in a person's body to eliminate more muscle tissue and water than actual body fat, more help please visit The Fat Loss Factor. which is good in the long run but if this person were to remain sedentary (the trend of America), this gain will be mostly fat.
This is simply the law of thermaldynamic and there is no way around it.
So how do we add more activity without costing us a penny?
Well, luckily we are burning calories all the time, even when we're sleeping. This means you don't have to join a gym, add more cardio, buy expensive fat burners, or get lipo. You literally have to do nothing to lose weight.
Here's the catch. I'm implying "not eating" or "not eating as much" as part of doing nothing.
Just stay out of the kitchen and the drive thrus and use your own body fat as fuel to help you sustain life. As long as you meet essential nutrients to maintain good health and not get too hungry (lots of protein, fat, variety of vitamins and mineral from fruits and veggies), you can be at a pretty good energy deficit without compromising your health.
find out what are essential nutrients and what's the minimum we need to get while losing weight here.
Walking is still free right?
Eat More to Boost Metabolism
You might ask, what about slow metabolism? aren't we suppose to eat more and frequently to increase our metaoblism? well, that's a myth and logically speaking, it's completely backward. Why would our body wants to or needs to burn more calories from fat cells when we're pouring more energy into our body?
Read this if you're still confused.
Clean Food is Expensive
What about healthy, organic food? it helps cleanse our body and boost our sluggish metabolism right? No. What truly boost our metaoblism is semi-starvation (fasting), taking stimulants like caffeine, or acute physical or mental stress (exercise and job interviews.)
The concept that "clean eating" is suppose to correct defected metabolism back to normal is basically saying that our body doesn't know what its doing and our liver and kidneys are completely useless. This is a way over-simplifed version of how the body works. The people who will tell you this are the ones that wants to sell you juice blenders, supplement powders, and fictional novels.
Every cell in our body naturally works hard to reach homeostatis, constantly. The best way to accerlerate reaching this balance is to not disturbing it in the first place (inflammation, stress) and give it time (sleep, breathe, meditate, and fasts) to balance itself out.
I am not avocating a Twinkie or McDonald diet here (although both work in the short term for fat loss when calories are controlled) I'm simply making a point that fruit juices, protein bars, fibers pills, and organic everything is NOT going to help someone lose weight. Most of them aren't even healthy in the first place. People are paying more for the marketing.
The bottomline is, the quantity of food (energy) will always matter more than the quality of food (clean or dirty) when it comes to manipulating body mass.
Healthy eating is completely different. Consuming the majority of our caloric allowance from whole food (unprocessed) is probably a good idea for longevity and disease prevention but by no means equates to fat loss. If we eat like our ancestors (wild sources and with variety), we're probably going to have less matabolic diseases like them. This applies not just on the quality of food but the quanity (macro ratio and total calories) of food as well.
Let's Math it Out
So if a dieter were hoping to lose 40lbs in the next 6 month to get the abs she so desperately desires. She needs to lose 6.66lb a month. If a pound of body fat is around 3,500kcal, this person will need to use more or conserve less energy at around 777kcal/day relative to her maintenance.
You can estimate your maintenance here.
Let's say we are working with a shorter 5'2", sedentary female who doesn't have the money to join a gym, the time to add more cardio, nor the interest to play a sport or pick up a new outdoor hobby. We can safely assume she burns around 1,700kcal a day. Let's just say she burns exactly 1,777kcal/day to make the math easier. This means she will only need to take in 1,000kcal/day to hit her targeted fat loss by the end of the year.
Let's assume her favorite food is Pepperoni Pizza from Pizza Hut (thin crust).
1 slice of a 12" pizza is approximately 250kcal. She will need 4 slices to cover her daily allowance. If a whole pizza has 8 slices and is $8.99 plus $1 tip for pick-up. That's $10 for 8 slices which will cover 2 days of her energy allowance.
That's $150/month on average.
And no, she won't suffer any major nutrient deficiencies from only having pizza for 6 months. It's bread, oil, pasta sauce, meat, herbs, cheese, tomatoes, and add some veggies in there if she likes. There is nothing wrong with each individual ingredients and there's nothing wrong with combining them altogether.
Now if you're like her (size & activity level) and hope to drop 40lbs in 6 month who just happens to love pizza (who doesn't?) that's how much money you'd need to spent on food.
Look at your monthly spending on grocery and eating out and see how much you'd be saving on my pizza diet!
Here are some statisics.
An average American, singles, spents about $112.25 per month on grocery and about $225 on restaurants ($1083 if you live in Austin!).
$112.25 + $225 = $337.25
If you have 80lbs to lose, that's $4,047 a year!
Read this post on what are some cheap yet nutrient dense foods you should shop for at the grocery store.
Perspective
So, in terms of eating less to lose weight, the obvious answer is that you'll save a lot of money when you get on a diet. This is assuming you don't buy into the organic, whole foods, and gluten free fad/story out there. $3 an apple? No thanks.
You should look at your excess body fat as an energy bank that you could use when food (or money) is scarce. The ten pounds of extra buns you have on you trunk will help you thrive for a good 3 weeks before you have to eat anything if total starvation were to actually occur.
Now that I just saved you so much money switching from your lean, oatmeal/broccali diet to my Pepperoni Pizza diet, the least you can do is 'liked' this article and forward it to friends who you think might enjoy pizza binges as much as I do.
Here are some great articles on how you can lose weight while maintain a healthy relationshiop with your food choices.
1. http://jcdfitness.com/2010/09/clean-eating-false-beliefs-and-pulling-the...
2. http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/
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