Nicks no BS guide on how to lose weight (fat) There is no such thing as a clean or dirty food FACT I have taken

n it upon myself to explain to you, in the most understandable and detailed manner possible, exactly what it is that is making weight loss such a burden for the vast majority of people who attempt it. You are likely one of those people yourself, so please, I implore you do yourself an honest favor and listen to every single word Im about to tell you as if you were paying me to talk, because what you are about to learn will quite likely change your life for the better. There wont be any BS talk here. Im not going to rely on anecdotal evidence, or on the latest weight loss advice, gossip I heard from a magazine or a friend. Im going to back everything I say with evidence, and make sure that you understand everything completely regardless of your current level of knowledge on the subject. Again, please dont get discouraged if something seems complicated to you at first glance. I ll explain everything as plain as possible. What Losing Weight Actually Means (not as obvious as you think) Whenever someone says that they want to lose weight, what they actually mean is they want to lose fat, so not just any type of weight. You wouldnt want to, for example, want to lose muscle, which can happen if you take the wrong dieting approach (Ill explain more later). And this goes for both men and women. Why not? Forget about looks for a moment, and the fact that the majority of people would prefer to have at least some visible muscle on them once they are done losing fat something that is not going to happen if you lose too much muscle mass on your cut. In case you didnt know, your muscle requires quite a bit of energy (calories) to sustain (stay). This means that the more of it you have, the more calories your body burns on average per day, and this will result in a faster fat loss rate. What this means is that if you were to go on about your business with only weight loss in mind, without regard to preserving muscle, your fat loss rate would keep dropping (scales) down significantly over time, as you lose more and more muscle and therefore your bodys energy expenditure is reduced more and more. Do this long enough and you will end up being skinny-fat, meaning youll have no muscle at all, but still quite a bit of fat A smaller version of what you are now. Calorie Deficit The Only Universally Valid Approach (Fact, Proven Science) Now that Ive (hopefully) convinced you that its not a good idea to starve yourself or consume extremely low amounts of calories as your going to not just burn fat but a lot of muscle mass (weight) to, let me explain to you the right way to do things.. Your goal is to create a so-called calorie deficit. What I mean by this is that you will need to determine exactly how many calories your body burns a day (ill explain how soon), and aim to consume less calories than that. Let me demonstrate this with a quick example for you:

Suppose that youre total daily calorie expenditure is 2,000 calories. This means that, in order for your body to function properly and for it to be capable of performing all of its functions, and stay the same weight, it needs to be supplied with exactly 2,000 calories per day. All good so far? Now, imagine that you were to eat 1,500 calories a day instead of 2,000. Your body would be lacking a total of 500 calories (2000 that it needs minus the 1500 that you are eating) for optimal performance, and it will want to, no, it will NEED to get those calories from some other place. And where do you think its going to get those missing calories from? Your fat deposits. Thats what it is there for after all. You have fat deposits so that your body can use it as an energy source in case you do not provide it with all the calories it requires (2,000 in this case). In the example above, by consuming 1,500 calories, you have created a 500 calorie deficit in your diet. Youve deprived your organism of exactly 500 calories, and are thereby forcing it to tap into your fat reserves (burning fat/losing weight). Thats what a calorie deficit is. And here is the good part most people aint got a clue about: for the purpose of weight loss, it doesnt matter whatsoever what the source of those 1,500 calories are! Your body does not care (nor see) whether you provide it energy through eating chicken breast, a Mc Donalds, a tuna salad, fruits, pizza, or whatever else. What will matter to it is the total amount of calories that is contained within the foods that you eat, NOT what these food actually are. Now, I know that this might be somewhat shocking to you, as the vast majority of fitness magazines will tell you that you need to consume certain types of food while avoiding this or that, and that otherwise you wont be able to lose weight.. Ok so lets look at this.. Below clinical trials, published in the NCBI (National Center for Biotechnology Information). This trial was conducted to examine various issues associated with body weight loss, however this does not concern us. What does concern us is the methodology used by those scientists to induce weight loss in the trial subjects for the purpose of their experiments. So.. Long-term effect of weight loss on body composition and performance in elite athletes http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21896944 The part I want you to notice is this (look at the part Ive bolded out only, the rest is irrelevant to the point Im trying to make and probably a bit to much for you to take in)
When weight loss (WL) is needed, it is recommended that athletes do it gradually by 0.5 -1 kg/wk through moderate energy restriction. However, the effect of WL rate on long-term changes in body composition (BC) and performance has not been investigated in elite athletes.

You see what they are doing? They are not talking about the type of foods that the trial subjects need to consume, only the term energy restriction is used.

Do you see the point Im trying to make here? Its all about energy restriction, energy restriction and again, energy restriction. Not the type of foods you eat, but how many calories you consume relative to the amount of calories your body burns per day. You need to restrict your calories (meaning to eat at a calorie deficit, which Ive explained above) if you want to lose weight (fat). I can imagine your thinking.. But if this is common knowledge/fact in the scientific community, than why am I being told and reading constantly that Im supposed to consume this or that specifically if I want to lose weight? Well its simply because they would lose your business and well earned money. I mean, think about it: if they simply told you that all you have to do is count your calories and you can then pretty much eat whatever you want and youd lose weight, would you go on buying all their products, all their magical weight loss supplements? Would you even consider going on such a boring diet like, say, Atkins for example? I bet you wouldnt. And they know that, so they need you to believe that you need their specific product if youre going to lose weight.

The bottom line is if you want to lose weight, follow a diet with calorie restrictions. I will explain to you in a moment exactly how to set one up, but first I want to address one last thing regarding diet myths. Im sure you either know, or heard of, someone who has managed to lose a nic e amount of weight following an Atkins type diet. And you might want to find out how is it possible in light of what Im telling you here. Well the Atkins diet, in and by itself isnt a bad diet. Its simply a list of foods that you can and cannot eat, mostly carbs / grains are not allowed which isnt harmful not to eat anyway (unless youre into endurance sports). However, whether it works or not is going to depend entirely on how much food (calories) you eat, and this is a problem because the diet itself tells you to eat as much of the allowed foods as you want. And this is why it tends to work for some people, while not for others: For the people it does work are the people who just happened to consume less calories than their body burns, meaning they unintentionally followed the calorie deficit (energy restriction) rule. However, since the vast majority of Atkins diet followers are not in the habit of counting calories, this will be mostly a hit-and-miss scenario. Some will be lucky enough and eat below their maintenance (maintenance is staying the same weight) and lose weight, others will eat right at maintenance (TDEE ill explain what this is later) and wont lose any weight, and some unlucky ones will eat over their maintenance and end up gaining weight and will then go onto another diet.. So now you know(I hope) that weight loss is purely a result of you eating at a proper calorie deficit, I must ask why would you want to be on a diet that restricts what you can eat? Wouldnt you prefer to eat the types of foods you like and still lose weight? So now its up to you now, just keep in mind that whatever diet you follow or whatever foods you eat, no weight loss will happen unless the energy restriction rule is met.. Yes, I know, Im repeating myself hopefully this makes you realize just how important (and simple) this whole calorie counting thing is. So whether you want to take this advice or carry on buying endless amount of supplements or magic fat loss pills or keep on this chicken and broccoli diet your on and probably not seeing any change, its completely up to you.

So How Do You Lose Weight (fat)? Step by step Now Ive nailed down the theory (well factual science), Im going to tell you how you can put all of this knowledge to compose your own weight loss nutrition plan, according to your liking: Step one: Figure out your TDEE (Total Daily Energy Expenditure) NOT your BMR (Base Metabolic Rate) as BMR is the amount of calories your body burns a day if you were doing absolutely nothing (literally comatose). Now you are probably asking. Why are they so many BMR Calculators online? Well its because these sites assume you are going to do the math and times (multiply) your BMR by your activity level (table below) (this is what TDEE is) which is basically the amount of activity you do a day which includes work, gym routines and all other activity you do each and every day.. Which for nearly every person is different and this is why BMR calculators are or was more popular. But now people are getting lazier in doing work for them selves and want people/ programs to do it for them. So thats why TDEE calculators are now available (and you will see become more popular) in which it will multiply your BMR by your activity level which will then give your TDEE for you.. All you have to do is input your age, weight, height and activity level (see table below) by ticking a box

So You have 2 choices.. Use a BMR calculator what figures out the amount of calories you need to stay the same weight if you was to sleep all day and then multiply this number by your activity level ( = TDEE) (table above) which will range either from 1.2 all the way to 2.3 Or you can just be lazy like I am and head to Google and search for a TDEE calculator which you just need to click a ticked box for what your activity level is and it will tell you your maintenance calories (the amount of calories you need to eat a day to stay the same weight while doing your every day activities, work, gym) the best site Ive used and found most accurate is this http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

Example of Above Method

Finding out your BMR and then multiplying it by your activity level to find your TDEE (maintenance staying the same weight)

Example.. So lets say that you have a desk job, but do a little exercising twice a week. What you would do is take your BMR of 1843(example not yours) and multiply it by an activity factor ( = tdee) of anywhere between 1.2 and 2.3, according to the table above. In this example, Im going to go for 1.35, as this is the category most people fall in.
(1.35 = Desk Job, a little walking here and there, light exercise 2 to 3 times a week)

1843(bmr) x 1.35 = 2488(tdee). - 2488 is the number that if you was to eat daily, you would stay the same
weight

Therefore, 2488 is roughly the amount of calories a person at your age, with your weight and height, and with your daily activity level, will burn per day therefore stay the same weight Now, please keep in mind that this number does not have to be 100% accurate, and its possible that the real number might be a little higher or a little lower though its generally very close If you want to make sure though, try eating exactly 2488 +/- 30 calories per day for 2 weeks, and monitor your weight. If you gain weight after the two weeks, this means that your actual daily energy expenditure (maintenance) is a little lower than 2488, so go down by 150 calories and see what happens. If you lose weight, then you are already eating at a calorie deficit, which would mean that 2488 is a little less than your actual daily expenditure(tdee). If your weight does not change at all, or barely changes, then BOOM You have found your Maintenance - TDEE So what do you do with that number? Simple! Just create a calorie deficit to start losing weight. I would suggest starting with a 500 deficit (meaning you would eat just a little below 2000 calories in the example above [2488-500=1988]) and see how your weight changes. Wait 2 weeks before stepping back on the scale (1 week is generally not enough, but thats a whole different story you can ask me amount ha!). A safe and healthy weekly weight loss: From experience and a lot of people I know I would aim to lose 1.5 2lbs a week, so adjust calories as needed. Also to note there are 3500 calories in 1lb (1 pound) of fat, so to shift 1lb of body fat, you need to lose 3,500 calories yeah? Which if you do the math is 500x7=3500. So to drop 1lb of fat a week you would have a 500 calorie deficit a day( - 500 calories from your tdee) = drop 1 pound of weight / fat a week - try it.. Keeping Track Of Your Calories I realize this might seem like the tough part to you, however let me ease your mind. There is a tool that you might have heard about, called MyFitnessPal. It allows you to very easily keep track of everything youve eaten on a given day, it has a huge database of products along with their calorie values and everything else you need. Theres even a mobile version for iPhone and Android and more, so you can keep track of everything while youre at work or where ever are - it now also has a barcode scanner! All of this might sound hard at the moment, but believe me that once you get used to it after a week or so, it wont take yo u more than 10 extra minutes a day to keep full track of every single calorie you consume. Its well worth it, I promise you that.

My Final Words Ive now given you all the advice and tools you need to lose weight in a healthy and permanent manner. It is up to you to take advantage of this now. One thing I want you to understand though: you will not find another way to get rid of your weight, not in our lifetime. This is the only real and honest way to go about it. If you want results, you know what to do.. Nick Lyne A little extra reading to 100% make sure what your losing weekly is FAT and NOT MUSCLE.
More for people actually going to the gym

Preserving Maximum Muscle Mass So Ive described so far is everything you will ever need in order to lose weight. However, there is one last thing I would want you to consider, particularly if you are interested in maintaining as much muscle mass as possible, and that is your Macronutrient (protein, carbs, fat) split and exercise routine. I dont want to make this any more complicated than it has to be, so Ill keep it quick: 1. Do your best to lift weights heavy, 3 times a week, following a tried & proven weight lifting routine that is designed for someone of your fitness level (beginner, intermediate etc.). I strongly recommend that you not try to come up with your own workout plan, as you will more than likely mess it up. Just do a Google search for Weight Lifting Routine For Beginners and youll find a load of good ones. 2. Try your best to consume 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass. To figure out what your lean body mass is, you will have to know your body body fat% You can use this tool to get a rough estimate : http://www.weightrainer.net/circbf.html or use this image and guess http://www.builtlean.com/2012/09/24/body-fat-percentage-men-women/ If your weight is, for example, 200 pounds, and the calculator tells you that your body fat level is 25%, this means that you have 50 pounds of fat on you (25% out of 200 pounds total), which puts your lean body mass at 200-50 = 150 pounds. You would therefore want to consume 150 grams of protein per day as part of your daily target calorie count. 3. Try your best to consume a minimum of 0.4 grams of fat per 1 pound of total body weight. This will keep your hormone levels up, keep up brain functionality, keep your skin health and free from drying up and also keep your sex drive up. PLEASE remember, Fat (peanut butter, nuts, other high in fat foods) does NOT make you fat. What makes you fat is eating more calories than your body CAN burn a day. Good Luck!