Gaining weight/muscle and losing weight are pretty much the same thing...except we do the opposite. To lose weight, we have to consume fewer calories than we burn. To gain weight, we have to consume more calories than we burn. The macronutrient ratios are also slightly different for losing and gaining weight. If you are interested in gaining weight and building muscle, make sure to read How to Gain Weight and Build Muscle...Guaranteed (Bulking Diet)!

The Most Important Part Of Losing Weight

Losing weight comes down to nutrition and exercise. But before we talk about either of those, let's talk about the single most important aspect of a diet: adherence.

It's important to come up with a plan that we can follow for the long run. If we find the perfect fat loss plan but don't enjoy it or it doesn't fit into our schedule, we will give up pretty quickly and gain all of the weight back. So we shouldn't be looking for the "perfect" plan, we need to find a pretty good plan that we can stick with for a long time. So that's what we're going to do.

Nutrition

Let's start with nutrition (the most important factor in fat loss), and then we will discuss workouts afterwards.

The most important aspect of nutrition is our calories. To lose fat, we need to consume fewer calories than we burn.

To consume fewer calories than we burn, we will find our maintenance calories (use this calculator) and then subtract 500 from that. Use MyFitnessPal to track calories and be sure to eat about 500 calories fewer than your maintenance calories. As long as we keep losing weight, we can keep the caloric intake the same. If we stop losing weight, we can either exercise more or consume fewer calories (or both). But we will implement refeed days (which I talk about later) which will help prevent our metabolism from slowing down too much and allow us to keep losing weight easily.

That's it. That's all we need to lose weight. But if we want to go a little more in-depth and learn how to make an easy to follow program that will burn the fat right off (as well as keeping the muscle we have or even building new muscle), then continue reading.

In order to make an easy to follow program, we will want to follow these steps in order:

Calories

The first couple of weeks, only focus on counting calories and eating 500 fewer calories than your maintenance calories. We want to focus on calories only until it becomes easy to hit our calorie goal so that we don't get overwhelmed by trying to focus on too much at once.

• Find our maintenance calories and subtract 500.
• Download the MyFitnessPal app to track our calories. Make sure we are hitting our calorie requirements every day for a couple of weeks before we move on to the next step.
• Only when eating the correct amount of calories has become extremely easy should we move on to the next step.

Macronutrients

Once counting calories becomes easy and we are able to hit our calorie goal everyday without any problems, we will start keeping track of our macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fats). These will help ensure that we keep muscle on, feel energized throughout the day and during our workouts, and recover properly.

• First, remember that every gram of protein and carbs is 4 calories and every gram of fat is 9 calories.
• Eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of bodyweight. However, if we are pretty overweight, we probably don't need to eat more than 180-200 grams of protein a day for males and 120-135 grams of protein for females (but it won't hurt us any if we do eat more).
• 20% of our calories should come from fats
• The rest of our calories should come from carbs

These numbers are not definitive numbers and if we are within 5% of them then we will still be on track!

Example of Macronutrients

Below, I will lay out a sample diet for someone who weighs 150 pounds and calculated their maintenance calories to be 2500.

• First we subtract 500 calories from that, so the calorie goal is 2000.
• Protein: 150 grams (1 gram per pound of body weight)
• Fats: 45 grams (multiply 2000 calories * 20% (the percent of our calories that should come from fats) and this will give us the amount of calories that should come from fats (405 in this case). Now divide 405 by 9 (the number of calories per gram of fat) to get the amount of fat (in grams) that we will need to consume.
• Carbs: 247 grams (fill the rest of our calories with carbs)

Micronutrients

Once again, we don't want to move on to this step until we have been tracking calories AND macros for a couple of weeks. The goal here is to make sure we don't overwhelm ourselves.

So once tracking calories and macros has become easy and we are hitting our goal everyday, we will start keeping track of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). These are pretty easy to keep track of.

• Simply eat 1 serving of fruit and fibrous vegetables (pretty much any green, leafy vegetable) per 1000 calories. For example, if our caloric intake is 2000 calories (like in the example above), eat 2 servings of fruit and fibrous veggies per day. If our caloric intake is 2800 calories, eat between 2 and 3 servings per day.

Just by following these simple micronutrient and macronutrient guidelines, we will be getting enough vitamins and minerals, but if you are worried that you still aren't getting enough vitamins and minerals in your diet, then any regular multivitamin would be fine.

Supplements

I'm sure many people are curious about which supplements to take for maximum muscle gain, and I wrote the Ultimate Fitness Supplement Guide for that very reason. Make sure to check it out before you buy ANY supplements!

For a normal person (not a serious bodybuilder), this diet will be absolutely perfect and we will lose fat, retain muscle, and look amazing! But, if we happen to be a fitness fanatic and want to know about nutrient timing and supplements, then read the Ultimate Fitness Supplement Guide and The Importance of Meal Timing.

Follow these steps in order (and don't jump to the next step until the previous one is easy!) to ensure that we are able to adhere to our diet for a long period of time.

Refeeds

I almost forgot to talk about refeeds! These are everyone's favorite day of the week.

If you are following a diet and trying to lose weight, I strongly recommend implementing one refeed day a week. A refeed day is one day of each week when we increase our carb intake (while keeping protein the same) so that our total calories consumed for that day equals our maintenance calories (or slightly above). Fats can be slightly increased on refeed days as well, but most of our extra calories should come from carbs. *Remember that when we are losing weight, we are consuming 500 calories fewer than our maintenance calories. So on a refeed day, we will add about 500 calories so that we are eating at maintenance calories.*

This will help keep us from going insane and completely giving up on our diet, and it will also help prevent our metabolism from slowing down too much which prevents us from losing weight.

For more information about properly implementing a refeed day in your diet, read The Importance of Refeed Days (aka Cheat Days).

Workouts

If we are hoping to build (or maintain) some muscle while losing weight, we will need to workout.

Any workout program that has us focusing on compound lifts and working out each body part at least twice a week will work great. But if you want a little help finding a workout program, choose one of these to get started: Starting Strength, StrongLifts, or Jim Wendler's 5-3-1.

Or, if you really, really don't want to do any of those three workout programs I mentioned above, then you can find my personal favorite workout program here.

Remember, adherence is the most important aspect of losing (and gaining) weight. We have to enjoy our workouts and our "diet" to ensure that we won't fall off the wagon and return to our old lifestyle.

And if we do happen to have one or two days (or even a week) where we completely forget about our diet and workout plan, that is completely okay. Just get back into the routine and continue moving towards the goal. A bad week is far better than a bad life.

Cardio

The best kind of cardio for weight loss is the cardio that we enjoy doing. However, if we are truly looking for the most effective cardio for weight loss and retaining muscle mass, look into HIIT.

HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) is when we do some form of cardio full force for a short period of time, and then tone it down for a short period of time. Then repeat this cycle for however long our cardio session is (HIIT sessions typically last 15 - 20 minutes). Some examples of HIIT are:

• Playing basketball or soccer
• Jumping rope really fast for 15 seconds, then jumping rope slowly for 30 seconds. Repeat.
• Sprinting full speed for 10 seconds, then jogging for 60 seconds. Repeat.
• Biking really fast for 20 seconds, then slowly biking for 60 seconds. Repeat.

We could also do steady-state cardio which is doing some form of cardio for a set amount of time (i.e. running 2 miles, biking for 20 minutes, etc) at a steady speed. Once again, if you like steady-state cardio more than HIIT, PLEASE DO STEADY-STATE! Adherence is key!!

Sleep

A commonly overlooked aspect of losing weight is sleep. Getting enough sleep has been shown to help increase fat loss and improve recovery from exercise.

So don't forget to sleep 7-9 hours per night!

If you would like me to set up your weight loss diet and workout plan for you, just let me know and I can do that no problem. However, I have laid out the steps to take if you would like to take matters into your own hands!

Next Steps

Be sure to read The Ultimate Fitness Supplement Guide, The Importance of Meal Timing, The Importance of Refeed Days (aka Cheat Days) or Whey Protein vs Whole Food Protein for more fitness information.

If you have been following this structured weight loss plan and are still struggling to lose weight, read Why You Aren't Losing Weight.

Stay Hungry. Stay Humble.

Connor V.