## "Just eat less and exericise more"?
No. You can't never win against hunger, and you can't tap into your fat reserves if you haven't.
## First: How to waste your time (don't do this)
Conventional wisdom says that you should eat less and exercise more if you wish to lose weight. The theory goes that if the total calories you consume are less than the total calories you spend, then weightloss will occur. A typical method is to estimate your daily caloric need (using a [TDEE calculator](https://tdeecalculator.net/)), and then consume 500kcal less than this every day. Mathematically, this should cause you to lose 1lb of fat per week (as a 500kcal daily deficit equals a 3,500 weekly deficit, and as 1lb of fat is roughly equivalent to 3,500kcal). On top of this, exercise is often also mandated.
The problem is that for many people, this just doesn't work. I stuck rigourously to such a protocol myself for three months in early 2023, but found myself unable to lose a lot of weight. Hunger, cravings and lethargy set in after a while anyway, and I abandoned the approach.
But I was so disappointed in the results -- I did try very hard to lose weight! -- and determined to find a strategy that worked, that I ended up spending hundreds of hours researching the topic to find a better way. I did find such a way, and successfully lost a significant amount of weight (50lbs+, or around 20% of my starting body weight) after adopting a much better strategy.
Many of my friends noticed my significant weightloss in such a short period of time, and were curious how I had accomplished it. A dozen or so of them ended up copying the strategy, with great success on their own.
I didn't come up with any of this by the way. But I found something that worked, and my goal is to share a scientifically sound weightloss strategy with you that you can actually follow, and that actually works.
## Why the above doesn't work (for most people)
Eating less than your body consumes is a *necessary but not sufficient* condition for losing weight. There are additional factors that, if not taken into account, can completely sabotage your weightloss if you don't pay attention to them. These are:
- The body's *willingness to give up fat*, which is dictated by how much insulin is circulating in your blood stream. Ensuring low insulin levels is crucial to letting your body tap into its fat reserves, and therefore crucial to your weightloss.
- The body's exceptional *ability to regulate your hunger levels*. When the body detects food deprivation, it will 1) slow down its own energy consumption (which reduces the caloric deficit you are trying to have) and 2) spike your hunger so that you consume more, again reducing your deficit. While you can probably win against hunger in the short term (through sheer willpower), fighting hunger is guaranteed to be a losing battle over the long term.
Failing to take the above two into account will make your weightloss process both inefficient and grueling. In the end, you may even give up. Don't! Instead, simply follow a diet that ensures your insulin levels are kept low. Doing so will solve the problems listed above and make the rest of your plan easy.
## An evolutionary perspective
Our bodies were designed to help us *survive* during periods of starvation, which more than likely frequently faced our ancestors. The body does this by storing a sufficient amount of fat, and then holding onto that fat dearly in case such a period of starvation or food deprivation were to come along. This means that losing fat just for fatloss' sake is not natural to our bodies, and it's important to realize this. You need to trick your body into thinking it doesn't need the fat, and that it's not facing starvation despite you eating less.
This does not apply to everyone equally. If you are lucky, perhaps your body does not think it needs a lot of fat, and perhaps it's less worried about starvation. In those cases, you may be OK by simlpy following a simple "eat less and exercise more" regime. But for most people, especially those who have repeatedly try to lose weight and failed, this article will be highly applicable to you.
## Core Principles for Effective Weight Loss
The following are necessary conditions for weightloss:
- **Maintain low insulin levels**: This encourages your body to release stored fat.
- **Don't fight hunger**: You can't win this battle in the long run.
- **Have some sense of how many calories you are consuming**: You need this data in order to troubleshoot your approach if it is not working
In addition, the following are also helpful:
- **Track your progress**: Track your weight and waist measurements frequently.
- **Be accountable**: Involve other people in your process and get encouragement from them too.
### Maintaining low insulin levels
You might think that paying attention to your insulin levels is something only diabetics have to do. This is incorrect: *high insulin levels are the enemy of fat loss*, and if you're struggling with weightloss, chances are the your *insulin levels are high* and that insuling is the culprit.
One way to tell if you have a problem with insulin is if you stand up and then look down, and you can't see your feet. In many cases, that means you also have high insulin levels. You would also likely be suffering from something known as [insulin resistance](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cUXSPIi5mE0).
Having high insulin levels (or being insulin resistant, which is when your body has produced so much insulin that your body has gotten desensitized to it) means that your body is constantly in "growth mode". If your body is in growth mode, it's in the mindset of storing fat, and not giving up fat. *This is crucial to recognize and combat* as high insulin levels make weightloss exceptionally difficult.
Every time you eat a meal that contains carbohydrates (or protein), your insulin levels go up. Let's study a quick example of why that is, so we know how to fix it:
1. Let's say you eat a piece of white bread (which is high in carbohydrates)
1. Your digestive system breaks this bread down into glucose (a type of sugar)
1. This glucose gets absorbed into your bloodstream, which raises your blood sugar levels
1. Too much sugar in the bloodstream is dangerous, and your body carefully regulates these levels
1. To maintain appropriate blood sugar levels, your pancreas produces insulin
1. The insulin allows the glucose in your blood to be absorbed into cells (which lowers the level of sugar in your blood)
1.
1. Any glucose that you don't use immediately will be converted to fat and stored in your fat cells
1. If you have followed a diet rich in carbohydrates (or sugars) for a long time, your cells will have become de-sensitized to insulin over time
1. This means that your pancreas will have to produce *more and more insulin* for a given level of blood sugar
1. This can result in your insulin levels being permanently high. Permanently high insulin levels is also known as *insulin resistance*
1. If you are insulin resistant, losing fat becomes very difficult.
1. This is as your body is in permanent *fat storage mode*, as opposed to *fat loss mode*. In essence, it makes it harder for your body to tap into its fat reserves for energy
1. High insulin levels and high body fat levels create a *vicious cycle*, as they lead to more hunger, which leads to more fat stored, which leads to higher insulin levels
1. You *must break this cycle* if you wish to lose weight
## How to break the vicious insulin resistance cycle
Fat is the only macronutrient that does not induce a significant insulin response. For example, if you ate a tablespoon of butter (which is 100% fat), the commensurate insulin response would be near 0. If you consumed mostly fats for a few days (such as avocados, bacon, macadamia nuts, salmon, fatty ground beef, oils, heavy cream, etc.), *your insulin levels would decrease drastically* and set you up for successful weightloss. This may be counterintuitive -- can consuming fats really cause me to lose fat? -- but it's the way the body works.
A diet high in fats, moderate in protein, and very low in carbohydrates is known as a *ketogenic diet*. The reason behind this name is that such a diet causes your body to enter a state known as *ketosis*. Once in ketosis, *your body will start to use its fat reserves* (rather than blood sugar, or glucose) for its energy needs. The reason for this is simple: that there is simply nothing else it can use, since your blood stream will not have sufficient glucose to use as energy anymore. The only exception to this is the breakdown of muscle, which can also function as a source of energy (but we will discuss preventing muscle loss separately). If your body has lots of fat stored, muscle loss is less of a concern.
It follows that for successful weightloss *following a ketogenic diet is crucial*. Simply counting your calories (and eating less food) will not suffice, for two reasons:
1. Your insulin levels may be high, which generally prevents fat loss
1. If you restrict your calories while your insulin levels are high, your body will instead downregulate its caloric needs, to the point where the 500kcal caloric deficit is rendered useless (as your body will strive to use fewer calories instead)
To recap, a diet high in carbs (especially sugars) causes high insulin levels, which cause an unwillingness for your body to give up fat, which stalls out your weightloss while instead driving your hunger up, which will be a losing battle.
The second highly recommended -- but not strictly necessary -- condition to break insulin resistance is *eating fewer times per day*. Every time you eat, there is typically some level of insulin increase in your body. This is as most foods contain some amount of protein, and often carbs (both of which induce insulin). After a meal, assuming your insulin levels go up, *insulin levels will stay elevated for a few hours* following the meal.
If you eat every three hours, your insulin levels will therefore stay high throughout most of your day. This is not conducive to weightloss. If you instead only ate once a day, also known as following the *OMAD protocol* ("one meal a day"), your insulin levels would only be high for a few hours per day, while staying *low for the remainder of the day*. You want your insulin levels to be *low as possible for as many hours per day as possible*, and it therefore follows that you should simply eat less often.
Eating less often is known as *intermittent fasting*. A common approach to intermittent fasting is to:
1. Skip one meal per day (typically breakfast, but can be any meal)
1. Completely avoid snacking
If you skip one meal day, for example if you have your dinner at 8pm, skip breakfast the following day, and then have your lunch at noon, you will have gone without eating for 16 hours. This means that you can count on your insulin levels being low for at least 12 hours, or possibly longer. Skipping one meal a day (whether it is breakfast, lunch or dinner) and avoiding snacking *ensure a longer window of low insulin* than otherwise, which significantly helps fatloss.
To recap, to lose weight, it is recommended that you:
1. Follow a ketogenic diet
1. Skip one meal a day while avoiding snacking
1. Count your calories so that eat less than your body consumes
The third step may not be strictly necessary (the other two are powerful enough o their own), but it *is* still advised, at least in the beginning. You will want to have some sense of your caloric intake so that you don't eat too much. But after a few weeks of tracking your calories, you may find you no longer have to as it will have become more intuitive.
If you follow the above, you can also expect to experience **significantly reduced hunger levels and cravings**. As mentioned earlier, fighting hunger is a losing battle, and if you are insulin resistant, your body will almost always trick you into eating more, which is counterproductive to weightloss. Some people are able to fight hunger for a period of time, but eventually may resort to binge eating, thereby undoing any past weightloss. You want to **re-gain control of your hunger**, and not let your body trick you into eating when you shouldn't be.
## What about exercise?
You should view exercise as something you do for **health reasons**, and not for the purpose of losing weight. The above strategy (which specifically does not prescribe exercise) is more than sufficient for you to lose a significant amount of weight in a short time period, measured in weeks / months, and not years.
## Achieve Weight Loss Without the Struggles, Like
- Working out like a maniac (or at all)
- Fighting hunger (most likely a losing battle)
- Missing your goals
## A Proven Strategy for Success
1. **Keto diet**: Limit to a maximum of 20g of carbs daily.
2. **Intermittent Fasting**: Consider skipping a meal for insulin management.
3. **Monitor intake**: Initially, count calories and carbs.
4. Avoid processed foods and fruits. But, consider a multi-vitamin.
5. Stick to this plan **consistently** for two weeks.
6. Witness tangible results to fuel further motivation.
## What You Stand to Gain
- Rapid weightloss (20, 30, 40, 50lbs) over a period of 2-3 months (though this depends on your initial weight)
- Initial water weight loss
- Reduced appetite and cravings, improved mood and energy. Some risk for headaches the first few days
- Better fitting clothes and compliments from people around you
- Alleviate certain weight-related health issues (like sleep apnea).
## Insulin
Insulin is the enemy of fatloss. When you eat (especially carbs), your insulin levels go up. When your insulin levels are high, your body enters "fat storage mode" and it becomes exceedingly difficult for it to shed fat. You want your body to be in fat-shedding mode, which it will enter only if your insulin is low.
You can keep your insulin levels low by doing the following.
- Eating <20g of carbs per day
- Eating only a moderate amount of protein (as protein also spikes your insulin)
- Eating plenty of fats (this "mutes" any insulin impact from non-fats)
- Skipping 1 meal per day (typically breakfast)
## How to count calories and carbs
I recommend using
t.me/TeamSlimBot. I especially recommend doing this with a friend or two and creating a
group chat for you to track your progress.
