eat whatever you want. really.

When you think of dieting, the first thing that comes to mind is likely restriction. No sugar, no bread, no delicious creamy sauces or desserts, etc. Well thinking like that is why I struggled my whole life with trying to lose weight. And why I failed every time. After analyzing my countless diet failures, I saw some patterns. The biggest one being restriction. When you don’t allow yourself to have something that you want, the desire gets stronger and stronger, until you can’t resist it, and that’s usually when the diet goes to hell. So, I decided to not restrict myself from any food. And I lost 145 pounds so far!

Now, I don’t live in a magical universe where one can eat mountains of junk food and still lose weight.. you do need to practice some restraint, in the form of a calorie budget. Once you start looking at the calories of every food you consume, you quickly start to learn a lot more than just calories. If I eat 100 calories of oreos (2 cookies), I will be hungry in approximately 10 minutes. If I eat 110 calories of Lily’s milk chocolate chips, it holds me over for 2 hours usually. Paying attention to things like this will make your job of staying within a calorie budget even easier.

Let’s say your calorie budget is 1,800 calories. You can have eggs, turkey sausage, an english muffin and hummus for breakfast for 480 calories. As a snack, 100 calories of nuts, or chips, pretzels, whatever you like. For lunch, two wraps with chicken, veggies and dressing for 400 calories, and for dinner you will have 820 calories left over. You could use this to have a nice meal with carbs, meat/fish, veggies, some sauces, etc. OR you can go to Mcdonalds and get a Big Mac and small fries. The choice is yours, and the results stay the same. How? you ask. Calorie. Deficit. The only two words in diet culture that I like to talk about.

It doesn’t matter which diet you do. Pick any diet under the sun, and I can tell you, for 1000% certain, it involves creating a calorie deficit. Because science. If you consume less calories than you burn, you create a deficit. This deficit accumulates calories. One pound equals 3,500 calories. Once your accumulation hits 3,500 calories.. you lose one pound. It’s that simple. and it’s the ONLY way to lose actual weight (not water weight or toxic sludge caught up in your plumbing) but of course, nothing is ever THAT simple.

The human body consumes calories every moment it’s alive. Breathing, thinking, swallowing, seeing, etc. all burn calories. We can estimate how many calories our body burns by calculating our Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR. This will depend on your height, weight, age, and activity level. You can google a BMR calculator for an approximation.

Once you have your BMR, you can calculate your total daily energy expenditure, or TDEE. This is easier to do by yourself than the BMR calculation, but you can also use an online calculator to figure it out. Your TDEE is the number you need to determine your calorie budget.

Let’s say your TDEE is 2,400 calories. Thats how many calories you must eat per day to maintain your weight. Any day that you consume less than 2,400 calories, you will add the difference to your calorie deficit.

for example: your TDEE is 2,400. you eat 2,000 calories per day. Every day 400 calories accumulates in deficit and after 9 days you will have lost 1 pound. That is assuming you do not do anything at all throughout the day. Any calories burned by walking, talking, eating, working, exercise, etc. will add to that deficit. So let’s say you average 300 calories a day in additional expenditure. Your calorie deficit deposit is now 700 calories daily. With that, you will lose 1 pound in 5 days.

This can be manipulated any way you want, that works best for you. However, be careful of the limits of your body, do not consume too little calories, as that can have a reverse effect and cause your body to start holding on to any calories it gets, thinking that food sources are scarce. Doctors recommend the daily minimum caloric intake for adults is 1,200 calories. Don’t be like me and also try to manipulate this by exercising 800 calories off and only eating 1,200 calories. If you do, I promise you will regret it when your body starts to rebel and shut down, as mine did. (Read more about that here).

Losing weight quicker is always super tempting, but after experiencing both fast and slow weight loss, I can tell you, slow weight loss is better for a number of reasons. Personally, my big ones are 1) your skin has time to adjust to change and therefore shrink so it’s not as saggy. 2) there is less stress involved in eating and exercising when you make your budget a little higher and don’t push yourself too hard to workout and meet strict calorie burning goals. 3) you are WAY less likely to give up or get discouraged when you fully enjoy your routine and lifestyle. This is a lot easier to obtain and maintain with more relaxed budgets.

It doesn’t matter if you lose 100 pounds in 6 months, if you are miserable during the process and then gain it all back once you stop your routine. It would do you much better to lose 50 pounds in 6 months, while enjoying and savoring every day and building a stronger mindset to support your new lifestyle, therefore keeping the weight off and continuing to reach your goals.

In my experience and the experiences of those I’ve helped on their weight loss journeys, when you first start to change your lifestyle in this manner, it’s great because you can still enjoy the “junk” foods that you may be accustomed to or get take out whenever you want. But as you become calorie conscious, and conscious of satiety after eating all of your meals, you will start to gravitate subconsciously towards things that are just a little healthier, or have a little more bang for their buck in terms of calories or satiety. With little to no effort at all, you will start to change your mindset and accelerate your weight loss just by eating better subconsciously. And you can still have junk food! And take out! And whatever you want to eat! And it won’t stop or reverse your weight loss!