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In this article, I’m going to address a question about weight fluctuations: why do you gain weight when you’re actually trying to lose weight?

Why am I covering this?

Because I’ve gotten this question many times.

Clients want to know how NOT to be disappointed and why they shouldn’t just throw in the towel when they see their weight spike up when their expectation is that their weight is supposed to go down.

I know. I get it.

It can be frustrating.

It certainly was for me, until I learned what to expect.

So it is my hope that after this video you’ll be able to keep a level head as well. 

But first, I’m Coach Rome, and I have one mission.

To teach you that building muscle and getting lean is easy, and that there’s only two steps to get there.

Step 1, put your body in a calorie deficit, and keep it there.

And Step 2, prioritize the 2 P’s, protein and progressive overload.

And that’s it.

But videos like these and my body transformation course, are meant to educate you on the finer details of these 2 steps.

So, let’s get to it.

Before we get into why your weight fluctuates, it’s important to realize the most important thing of all.

If you’re trying to lose weight, you must be certain that your body is in a calorie deficit.

You can’t know if your body is in a calorie deficit unless you have a good estimate of your maintenance calories and are diligent at tracking all the food you eat to ensure you are eating fewer calories than your maintenance calories.

If what I just said confused you, be sure to check out my video titled, “How to Get Rid of Belly Fat (The Truth).”

If you don’t have at least 2 weeks of good data to be certain you’re in a calorie deficit, that’s the first place you should start.

You won’t lose weight if you’re not in a calorie deficit.

The second important concept to realize is important is there’s a huge difference between gaining weight and gaining fat.

Fat is literal tissue.

Meaning, a physical manifestation of stuff in your body.

If you cut yourself open, you can touch fat.

If you’re confident that you’re in a calorie deficit you can be 100% confident that when your scale goes up, when you know it should be going down, you did not GAIN a pound or more of fat overnight.

1 pound of fat is mathematically about 454 grams.

It’s the amount of fat in about 4 sticks of cooking butter or the amount of liquid fat you’d need to fill up a 16 oz can of soda.

You’d have to eat 41 Krispy Kreme donuts to get that amount of fat in you in one day.

Even if you’re not in a calorie deficit, I’d argue that it’s hard to gain 1 pound of fat in a day.  Fat is accumulated over a period of days because the dietary fat you eat must go through a few metabolic processes before eventually ending up in your fat cells.

So, you can rest assured knowing that you can ignore any idea that when your scale fluctuates overnight, it’s not the weight of added fat.

It’s your total body weight, which is just your total body’s mass multiplied by gravity.

You got it?

Great.

No more freaking out thinking you’ve gained 2 to 3 pounds of fat overnight. It’s not going to happen.

You’ll probably get sick in an attempt to eat 454 grams of fat, way before you can put that much in your body in one day.

454 grams of carbs? Now that’s easy. But fat, not so much.

But now that we’ve covered those two prerequisite concepts, that you must know you’re in a calorie deficit and therefore is unlikely to be gaining fat when your scale goes up, let’s cover why your weight fluctuates up even when you’re confident you’re in a calorie deficit.

There are three huge contributing factors why your weight fluctuates.

One of them should be a sort of a non-brainer, and the other two not so much.

What’s the no-brainer?

Food

Food has mass.

Any food that you add inside your body is going to add mass to your body.

And if the food that you add into your body weighs more than the amount of fat tissue that is lost on a daily basis, your weight is going to increase.

This is especially true if you don’t take a poo for a few days.

All your food will be sitting in your GI tract until your body processes what it needs before it eventually excretes the rest as waste.

So, the amount of food you consume is a huge culprit for weight gain.

Until your body gets rid of it, you’re going to have added mass.

And unless you eat the same literal mass of food every day, you’re always going to have some sort of weight fluctuation.

I hope this makes sense.

If you’re in a calorie deficit, just trust this process. It’s not added fat.

Eventually you’ll lose enough fat mass that will compensate for the food you eat, and it will reflect on the scale. Just not overnight.

Sweat

Another contributing factor to weight fluctuations is the amount of fluid you lose when you sweat or perspire. Sweat is made almost completely of water and your body begins to sweat as a response to it heating up.

Your body wants to maintain your body temperature around 98.6 degrees or 37 degrees Celsius. But when it gets hot your sweat glands produce sweat in an attempt to cool your body down.

The more you exercise, or the hotter a given day, the more you will sweat.

Some people sweat more than others, which means some people’s weight will fluctuate more than others.

It’s the reason why those stupid “sweat bags” or stupid sauna suits can claim they help you lose weight. They’re a giant scam and waste of money and can actually do more harm than good. They heat up your body and make you sweat more, and as a result will make you lose water, which brings down your weight. It’s not fat.

If you lose too much water, you can risk dehydration.

So why force your body to lose more of its cooling protection than necessary. Anyway, the sauna suit is a story for another video.

The bottom line with sweat is, if you don’t replenish fluids you lose after sweating, you’ll see a fluctuation in your weight on the scale.

Water Retention

Now, the next huge contribution to weight fluctuations, and by far the biggest contributor of fluctuations is “retained water.”

What do I mean?

When your body “retains water” it means your body is holding extra water and the extra water is hanging around in your tissue cells.

And when I say water, I literally mean the water that comes from the liquids you drink and the water that is extracted from the different foods you eat.

All foods have varying amounts of water.

And what does water have?

Yep, water has mass, which is reflected on your scale as added weight.

But wait?

What are the reasons your body would want to hold on to or release varying amounts of water, thereby causing your weight to fluctuate?

Here’s a few causes of water retention:

Carbohydrates

Generally, the more carbs you eat, the more water your body will retain. A spike in weight isn’t a huge issue for someone who eats about the same relative amount of carbohydrates daily, but a spike will be significant if you go from eating a day of low carbs and follow it by a day of high carbs.

This is what I mean.

Every 1 gram of carb you eat requires about up to about 4 grams of water to process and store it.

Let’s say you eat a potato that contains 40 grams of carbs.

That’s 160 grams of water that can be potentially stored and retained by your body.

160 grams of water is about 5.5 ounces, or just under a half of a pound.

Now imagine going from one day of low carb to the next day of high carb, because of a birthday party or just a diet break.

If you consume 200 grams of additional carbohydrates from what you normally eat, that can make your body retain about 800 grams of water, which is 21 to 28 ounces of water, or almost 1.5 pounds.

And, yep, that’ll be reflected on the scale.

Salt

Water retention from salt depends on how much salt you normally consume.

If you normally eat home-cooked meals with very minimum salt added but follow one of these days with a day of take-out or microwave-ready meals, you’ll add a significant amount of salt from one day to another.

And studies have shown variations in salt meals from low to high can add up to 2 pounds of retained water.

If you add the mass of the water retained by salt and a high carb day, with the added amount of mass from food, you could easily gain 5 pounds from day to day.

But it’s important to keep in mind that it won’t be fat.

It’ll subside over time.

If you’re in a calorie deficit, just trust the process is working.

Sex Hormones

The next cause of water retention, comes from variations in sex hormones.

This is especially true for women.

Studies have shown that 92% of women experience water retention the week before their period starts.

And although the amount varies, this water retention can add about 5 – 10 pounds of retained water, which doesn’t begin to go away until menstrual bleeding begins.

Pregnancy and hormonal birth control can also affect water retention in women.

Cortisol

Last is cortisol, which is a hormone that mainly helps your body regulate its response to stress. All sorts of things can cause cortisol levels to rise and fall throughout the day, but chronically elevated cortisol may also lead to an increase in water retention.

Cortisol levels can rise and be chronically elevated because of sleep deprivation, psychological stress, restricting calories or even strenuous exercise.

It’s not exactly known how much water will be retained, but it happens.

If you’re trying to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit so it’s not like you can stop restricting calories or exercising, so the only thing you can attempt is to get better rest and minimize the stress in your life.

Other causes of weight fluctuations:

There are other temporary events that may cause your body to retain water, too, such flying in airplanes, standing or sitting too long, or even certain medications like OTC pain relievers or blood pressure medications.

The point is, you can easily gain 5 – 10 pounds in weight fluctuations from one day to another, especially if you’re a woman.

Anytime I have a fried catfish, hush puppies, and French fries’ as a meal from the local Kajun restaurant, I just come to expect a jump in weight the next day.

Here’s a great example:

So, how do you deal with these weight fluctuations?

Well, if you’re confident you’re in a calorie deficit, just know that weight fluctuations are part of the game.

Make peace with the fact that it’s not “fat” you’re gaining.

What you see on the scale is the added mass from your daily variations in the different masses of food you’re consuming, the sweat you’ve lost, or the amount of water you’re retaining.

All of these factors can make your weight go up, and after subsiding, will make your weight go down again.

So, just stick with what you can control.

Do everything you can to ensure you’re in a calorie deficit so you can lose the fat you want to lose.

This means consistently weighing your foods and burning around the same number of calories each day.

And if you are so inclined you can also try to keep the number of carbs that you eat each day fixed.

But these are really the only things you can do.

If you’re in a calorie deficit, again, just trust your weight loss process.

Hopefully you can now be at peace knowing that weight is just going to do its thing. It’s not fat. So don’t go off the deep end and ruin your diet because of some stupid number.

Anyway.

Got any other tips?

Help others out by leaving a comment.

How do you deal with weight fluctuations?

I hope this article helped you.

If it did, shoot me a quick comment letting me know.

I love to read my comments.

When you’re working towards a weight loss goal, your aim should be simple. You should want to lose weight, lose fat, build muscle, and get lean. The only way to know if you’re making progress is to have measurement data that backs it up.

So, you’re going to need to measure and keep track of your progress overtime. Luckily, Cronometer, if you use it, makes this easy by allowing you to add your biometrics right into the app. To add body metrics to Cronometer, just choose “Add Biometric” instead of “Add Food.”

For your initial measurements, you should to take the following biometrics:

1. Weight
2. Waist
3. Chest
4. Biceps
5. Thighs
6. Body Fat
7. Picture

Always take your body weight measurements first thing in the morning, after you void yourself. Your weight fluctuates during the day based on what you eat, how much sweat you lose, and other things. So, taking your measurements in the mornings will get your best readings. Also take them naked or in similar underwear. 

When you take other measurements of your body take them using the measuring tape and calipers and in millimeters. Millimeters is a better indicator than inches when you’re trying to measure small changes.

1. Step on a body weight scale and add your weight.
2. Pull your measuring tape around your waist, making sure it’s parallel with the ground and over your navel and take your reading.
3. Pull your measuring tape around your chest, making sure it’s parallel with the floor and over your nipples and take your reading.
4. Pull your measuring tape around both biceps, making sure it’s vertical and over your peaks and take your readings.
5. Pull your measuring tape around both your thighs. Try to start your measurement halfway between your groin and knee, but wherever you start it, take that measurement so you can be consistent in future measurements. Make sure the measuring tape is parallel to the floor and take your measurement.
6. For body fat, you’re only trying to get a measurement of your progress. It won’t be an official percentage number since there are many ways to calculate a body fat percentage using calipers, including multisite measurement calculations. And depending on who is doing the measuring, the number will be different. For your purpose, you only really want to see the fat around your waist go down over time. So, you’re going to pinch the fat around your supra-iliac region while with your body relaxed and then take a millimeter reading of your fat.
7. Take a relaxed and front-facing flexed picture. Take as many as you want but take at least one and try to keep the lighting the same over the course of your transformation. You don’t want to lie to your future self so, it’s good to have both types of pictures for your starting point.

And that’s it for measurements. You shouldn’t have to take any measurements for complicated than this. If you have access to a facility with a DEXA machine, which I’ll discuss in the next article, then I would make it a primary measuring device. Otherwise, the body measurements above works well to track over your body transformation time frame. 

The measurement device I highly recommend if you have access to one is a DEXA Scan. It’s really one of the only few ways to truly measure whether you’re truly building muscle and losing fat at the same time, or just losing muscle or fat when you’re dieting.

A DEXA Scan is a painless medical imaging test that’s primarily used to measure how dense your bones are. Some facilities, however, have created a business out of using them to measure and provide the results of your body’s fat and tissue composition.

But a facility that made this modification is what you’ll have to look for. Just because a medical facility has a DEXA scanning machine, it doesn’t mean they’ll use it to measure your body fat.

But if you go to a facility that primarily serves this function, if it’s set up correctly, every time you get a scan, you’ll have a record of your full body results over time so you can objectively measure your changes.

DEXA stands for dual x-ray absorptiometry. As I said, it can differentiate between fat and muscle tissue, providing an analysis of your body composition.

The DEXA scan is the gold standard for estimating body fat, boasting an error rate as low as 1-2%. Other body fat tests may result in a 3-5% error rate even under optimal testing conditions.

And if you’re trying to get an estimate from a body weight scale that also supposedly measures body fat, or one of those handheld devices at the local gym, forget about it.

All of them have consistently given me large errors from one reading to the next, even when the readings are minutes apart. This is why I recommend the DEXA scan.

The test takes place either in a medical facility or by a sports facility who is licensed to provide the testing. The technician who administers the test must also be licensed.

The procedure is non-invasive and painless and, in total, lasts about 6 minutes, not including the immediate follow-up consultation. You just lie on your back on an x-ray table.

Once the test starts, you must remain completely still while the technician commands a computer to move a large scanning arm over your body. The test is very safe with minimal radiation exposure.

After the scan, the DEXA computer program gives you a reading of your body fat percentage, percentage of lean mass and your bone mineral content. It also gives you a regional analysis of your body fat and lean mass in five regions of your body: arms, trunk, belly, hips, and legs.

Last, it compares the right and left sides of your body to look for imbalances in muscle development due to injury or usage.

The biggest reason to get a DEXA Scan, if you can, is because it’s going to help you see what’s going on when your body weight scale doesn’t move. And it’s going to happen, especially if you’re lifting weights.

When your body adds new tissue because it’s building muscle, the weight of the new tissue can mask the weight of fat that you lose. So, it can be frustrating to think you’re not losing fat when you are.

DEXA Scans help you see when you’re gaining muscle, which is a good thing, instead of worrying that your diet isn’t working.

So, again, I highly recommend you find a facility to get a DEXA Scan if you can. Get a baseline measurement, and then try to get one every four to six weeks.

I’ve made a lot of points in the articles I’ve written on this blog so far. The main point is, eat as much food as you can while keeping your calories low and your protein high so you can stay full.

So before getting to foods that you may want to eat on your journey, let’s talk about foods that are marketed as healthy but contain a very high calorie count, which ultimately leaves you fewer calories to eat.

Foods that come to mind are many that are very high in fat per gram and can be addictively delicious.

Peanut butter

Once serving size of peanut butter is typically 2 tablespoons (33 grams) and contains about 190 calories. Only about 28 of the calories are from 7 grams of protein. Many of the calories come from 16 grams of fat, which is about 144 of the 190 calories. Two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, without the bread and jelly, can easily eclipse 400 calories.

It’s best to find a substitute like powdered peanut butter.

Nuts

Nuts are very high in fat. Most contain way more fat than protein. And eating nuts with salt makes them addictive for most people. So even a 19.5-gram, 100 calorie snack pack can be dangerous. It contains only 3 grams of protein but 6 grams of fat, but because they are salted, it’s hard to eat only one pack. It’s best to avoid them.

Choose snacks from the high-protein, low calorie snack list I put together in the Build Muscle Get Lean program, such as protein bars, Greek yogurts, cottage cheeses, etc.

Butters, Oils, Sauces, and Salad Dressings.

Butters and Oils usually contain 120 calories per ounce or tablespoon. All their calories usually come from fat.

Takeaway: Swap Regular Condiments for Sugar-Free or Low-Sugar

The take-away here is to switch out condiments that contain sugar and fat for sugar-free and fat-free or low-fat options. Not all sugar-free, fat-free, or low-fat options are created equally, but most contain way fewer calories than their regular counterparts.

For example, a regular serving size of syrup contains 100 calories, but a regular serving size of sugar-free syrup contains only 15 calories. Once tablespoon of sugar itself, which is about 21 grams, contains roughly 120 calories, but a zero-calorie like Splenda contains, well, 0 calories. These switches alone can save you lots of calories.

I don’t like all zero-calorie sweeteners. I prefer Splenda. You may prefer Stevia. Try them all. But whatever you do, during your 90-day challenge, don’t use pure sugar in anything. That goes for honey, cane sugar, vegan sugar, or any sugar flavoring that has calories. If you must sweeten your coffee or foods, use a packet or two, or three, of a zero-calorie sweetener.

Hopefully you now have a great understanding why calories matter more than anything, especially since you now know your number. You no longer have to be tricked.

I like to say, “don’t drink calories” and I have an expression that goes, “friends don’t let friends drink calories.”

It’s easier for me to say “don’t drink calories” than to say, “minimize the calories you drink” because if I use the term “minimize” it gives you permission to drink sodas, alcohol, full-fat milk, full-fat and sugary lattes, and all sorts of high calorie drinks if you “minimize” your drinking.

The word “minimize” is subjective and means different things to different people. But now that you have context, I can now discuss why I say don’t drink calories as it relates to your maintenance calories.

Let’s say your calorie requirement to get lean is to eat no more than 1800 calories and to eat at least 180g of protein daily. Because protein contains around 4 calories per gram, this means you need to get 720 calories worth of protein. This leaves 1,080 calories remaining for fats and carbs. This can either feel like a lot or a few calories depending on the types of foods you eat and drink.

Regular Soda

For example, here is the nutritional label for a 20 ounce bottle of regular Coke:

Given that 1 regular Coke has 65g of carbohydrates (65 of which comes from the carbohydrate, sugar), and each gram has 4 calories, you’ll quickly end up consuming 240 of your 1800 calories after one bottle of Coke. This means you’ll have only 1560 calories remaining without having any food or protein. The solution is to easily swap a Regular Coke with a zero-calorie alternative like Coke Zero or Diet Coke. I prefer Diet Coke over Coke Zero. Take your pick.

Regular Orange Juice

Here is the nutritional label for an 8 ounce glass of Simple Orange, orange juice:

Given that it has 26g of carbohydrates (65 of which comes from the simple carbohydrate, sugar), and each gram has 4 calories, you’ll quickly end up consuming 104 of your 1800 calories after one 8 oz glass, which doesn’t leave much room for other foods. You’ll have 1696 calories remaining without having any food or protein to work towards getting you full. The solution is again to find a zero-calorie alternative. If you need vitamin C, consider taking a vitamin C supplement rather than drinking 23 grams of sugar.

Alcohol and Mixed Drinks

Finally, let’s talk about alcohol. Fruity drinks are probably the worst. First, alcohol is neither a protein, fat, nor carb. It contains 7 calories per gram and usually about 120 calories per ounce, depending on what you drink. A typical cocktail contains about an ounce and a half of alcohol, and probably more if you make homemade cocktails.

Let’s say you have a cocktail with 2 ounces of alcohol. That’s going to be 240 calories, before adding a sugar sweetener. Adding just 4 ounces of Margarita mix adds another 120 calories, for a total of 360 calories minimum. Most people have at least 2 cocktails when they drink.

Beer? A typical 12-ounce IPA contains 110 calories. Some beers contain many more calories. But remember, many of the calories also come from alcohol, not any of the other macronutrients. So, you’ll still have to fit in your food if you truly want to hit your macros.

If you must drink alcohol, drink something you can track in Cronometer, like spirits with no mixers or beers. Try to stay away from cocktails.

The point is calories matter, but the calories from fats and added sugars add up super-fast without the benefit of making you feel satisfied and may not leave you enough room to get all your protein. This is why I suggest that you simply try to avoid drinking calories. Period.

Remember, “friends don’t let friends drink calories.” The easiest way to wean your body off sugary drinks is to switch to calorie-free, sugar-free products!

Take your pick! We are now fortunate to live in a time where there are hundreds of zero-calorie sweetener drinks options, if you must have something sweet. My beverage of choice is diet-Coke, but not diet-Pepsi. I don’t like the taste of diet-Pepsi at all. You want to preserve as many of your calories as you can for more high-volume foods, lean proteins, and for the occasional sugar-free snack. If you normally drink 40 ounces of regular soda every day, a simple switch from regular to diet can save you 480 calories per day!

In conclusion, you should strongly consider not drinking calories. It’s way too easy to get close to your maintenance calories without feeling full. So, drinking calories can can derail your weight loss progress and goals.

Before getting into to how to eat, it’s important to realize the first step is to plan and track what you eat. If you don’t plan and track what you eat, you can end up eating far too little or too much. Always remember that eating to lose weight, get lean, or lose fat only matters in the context of your maintenance calories.

How to Track Your Food Intake

I highly recommend you Cronometer to plan and track your food.

When you weigh your foods, always convert your scale to grams to weigh in grams. Also, always weigh your food raw when possible. You may be able to find a cooked version of a food in the Cronometer database, but not always. You can almost always find the raw equivalent food.

Furthermore, food loses water when it is cooked. Food that is weighed after cooking will have a different weight than before it is cooked. If you mistakenly use the “raw version” of a food in the database to plan cooked versions, your daily calories will be off by many calories.

How to Eat — Prioritizing Macros and Calories

As stated in earlier articles, you WILL lose weight if you eat below your maintenance calories. But the question is, will you stay full and satisfied? This answer will always depend on the source of your calories.

To stay full and satisfied while losing weight, how you eat should be prioritized in the following order.

1. Hit your protein goal.
2. Hit your calorie goal.
3. Prioritize your carbs over fat.

To be clear, I want you to hit all these goals. I only added a prioritized list because I don’t want you to leave your protein up to chance. If your protein goal is 200 grams daily, I want you to manage your meals so that you try to get an equal amount of protein at each one. For example, if you feel you need to eat five times per day, each meal should contain at least 40 grams of protein.

Technically, you don’t have to do this.  However, I’d rather you reach your daily calorie requirement by hitting all your protein than to reach it by eating too many carbs and fat. If you eat too many carbs and fat without properly managing your protein you can end up with only a few remaining calories for protein.

To hit your calorie goal, you may sometimes overeat your carbs while undereating fat. Or you may sometimes do the opposite. You may sometimes overeat fat while undereating carbs. This is okay. What’s not ok is going over your calorie goal, missing your protein goal if you’re trying to keep or build muscle, or undereating fat all the time. Try to always stay within plus or minus 10 grams of your fat. Remember, dietary fat helps you digest your food.

What to Eat — Finding the “right” Foods

To hit your goals, technically, the easiest approach may be the traditional bodybuilder approach of eating chicken, broccoli, and rice, if you add enough fat. But I want you to take a more sensible approach that allows you to eat foods you’re going to be committed to for life. So, in reaching your macronutrient goals, I want you to take what’s commonly referred to as a flexible dieting approach.

With this approach, if you hit your calorie and macronutrient goals, you can pretty much eat whatever you want. But there’s a caveat. Not all foods are created equally.

Focus of Feeling Full

Some foods you eat are not going to make you feel full. For example, the most popular carbohydrate choices are rice, potato, or pasta. If you want to feel full while minimizing the number of calories you eat, you should try to prioritize potatoes over pasta and rice. And next, you should prioritize rice over pasta, because pasta is way too easy to eat a lot of and it has a lot of calories for such a little amount of food. So, you should try to choose pasta last. But you absolutely can eat all three types of those carbs. I like to eat a lot of rice because I pair it with Chicken breast, and Chicken breast helps keep me stay satisfied.

“Trigger” Foods

Some foods are going to be trigger foods, meaning, you won’t be able to stop eating them. Only you know yourself. You can eat whatever you want if you plan for it, but if you find eating a certain food makes you eat more of it when you know you only want to eat a certain serving size, you probably should try to avoid it.

“Restaurant” Foods

Generic restaurant foods, as I discussed, will be way too difficult to track. If you must go to a restaurant, try to go to one that’s internationally recognized. Their calories may be inaccurate, but at least you’ll have some data you can use. But if you go to, say, a mom and pop’s restaurant you’ll have no way of accurately guessing the number of calories you’re eating.

If you must go to a mom and pop’s restaurant, it’s best to plan a day around it by having two small but filling protein meals before you go to these. And as I said earlier, try to go to them no more than once per week, try to have just one meal, and try to avoid any fillers like “chips and salsa” or “bread.” Remember, calories matter if you want to win this game.

Consider Avoiding Liquid Calories

Some foods will quickly take up way too many calories. Dieting and choosing the right foods is a lifelong game.

Like I said, you’re always going to be playing a game of “how can I eat the most amount of food, using the least amount of calories to stay under my maintenance calories, while also hitting my protein goals.” Here are two critical cheats that I want you to strongly consider:

The first is to stop drinking calories.

The second is to swap sugar with sweeteners.

Let’s talk just a bit about restaurant calories and macronutrients. Theoretically, you should be able to eat at a restaurant and use their menus to determine the number of calories and corresponding macronutrients in each food. But unfortunately, unless a restaurant uses measurements before serving your food, the probability of its menu’s nutritional information being incorrect is going to be high.

For example, have you ever eaten Chipotle? When you order guacamole, or even rice for that matter, the size of the scoop you get and therefore the number of calories you’re going to end up eating, is going to depend on who serves you. It’s going to be the same with any other restaurant, too.

Even restaurants like McDonalds and Chick-fila can’t be sure their employees are serving a consistent standard size of food. Almost everyone gets “bagglers”, or the fries that are “extra” in the bag.

And if you eat at Five Guys, forget about it. Don’t even try to count calories. I think they give you more french fries in your bag than they give you in your carton.

The bottom line with restaurants is it’s best to leave them alone while you’re on your journey. Even now, I sparingly eat at restaurants. When I do I plan for this. I usually eat two high-protein low-calorie full meals during the day that gives me about 1000 calories and 60 grams of protein. Then, I enjoy myself at the restaurant by eating my main meal but try to avoid table treats like chips and salsa, bread, and other appetizers that can easily make a meal add up to over 2,000 calories.

When you’re on a weight loss journey, I suggest no more than one restaurant meal per week. My go to restaurant meal is fried catfish with french-fries, because, well, I’m human. But I eat this at most, once per week.

If I must eat at restaurants while traveling, I only eat grilled chicken salads and I always ask for the lowest calorie version of dressings. Otherwise, I pick up groceries from the local Walmart and cook meals in my hotel room. But this is a lifestyle program, so eventually you’ll find what works for you. It may be fasting during the day just so you can have a large restaurant meal at night. It may be something else. Once you figure out what works for you, you’ll have the flexibility to do what works for your lifestyle, as long as you are aware of how it affects your maintenance numbers.

Macronutrients matter if you want to stay full, have energy, and lose more fat than muscle. There are three main macronutrients: fats, carbohydrates, and protein. There’s also a fourth macronutrient that many people don’t tend to think about: alcohol. Macronutrients are the large classification of nutrients that provide calories. Here they are briefly without going into a lot of science.

Fats

The first of four macronutrients are dietary fats. As we’ve already discussed, fats’ primary function is to act as an energy storage system.

Fat has on average about 9 calories per gram. Keep this in mind because fat has more than twice the number of calories than carbohydrates and proteins. You’ll see what I mean when we start looking at food labels in the next few videos.

Also, as we discussed, fat is either immediately used for energy or is stored as fat for later use for energy. The more fat you eat when eating more than your maintenance calories, the more fat you’re going to store.

Let me repeat that in a different way. The more fat you eat when eating over your calories, the more fat you gain.  It’s not because fat doesn’t like you. It’s just what it does. Your body wants to store as much fat as it can so you can use it later when you need it.

But for some reason, and for some time now, carbohydrates have been the macronutrient that has gotten demonized. So, let’s talk about carbohydrates.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are the second of the four macronutrients. You’ll most likely hear carbohydrates spoken as just “carbs.”

When we eat carbs, it breaks down in our body as glucose, or sugar. This is why you hear the term low or high blood sugar a lot. The sugar comes mostly from our broken-down carbs, and we have hormones like insulin and glucagon to regulate this sugar that remains in our blood.

Our bodies are primarily adapted to using carbs first for its fuel.  Meaning, our body wants to burn off carbs before it uses fat or proteins for energy. This essentially means if you eat a high fat diet and a high carb diet, it’s the fat that’s going to stick around when you eat more fat and carbs than your body needs.

And I know what you’re thinking. So, you should just eat fewer carbs, right?

Yes, but also no.

Again, carbs and fat only become a problem for weight gain if you eat more calories than your body needs. This is when excessive fat is stored. Furthermore, carbs provide fuel for your central nervous system. They also provide energy for working your muscles, which is why it’s important to eat carbs when lifting weights. You don’t want to suffer in the gym.  You want to be able to lift as heavily as you can so you can stimulate as much muscle as possible.

Carbs have, on average, about 4 calories per gram. Carbs are further classified as simple or complex, but for our purposes, whether the carb is simple or complex, it’s still a carb and both still contain about 4 calories per gram, unless it’s dietary fiber, which we’ll talk about a bit later.

For this program, and for life, I want you to care more about how quickly a certain type of carb increases your total number of calories and if when you eat them you feel full, more than caring about if the carb is simple or complex.

Proteins

Proteins are our third of the four macronutrients.  It’s the macronutrient that’s most important for building muscle. It also helps repair and create other new parts of your body such as your skin, hair, and nails.

Protein is essential for building muscle mass and is made of molecules called amino acids.  After we eat protein, it’s broken down in our body to make these amino acids.

Our body uses 21 amino acids, about a third of which are essential, meaning we must get them from our food because our body doesn’t naturally produce them.

Protein is commonly found in animal products, though it is also present in other sources, such as nuts and beans. But, as a side note, nuts are also very high in fat, effectively ruining their choice as a high-protein snack. Most nuts contain way more fat than protein.

That said, protein contains, on average, about 4 calories per gram. But as far as protein goes, I want you to eat solid and lean proteins. Solid means not liquid. Lean means low in fat, with low in fat meaning the food has more protein per serving than it has fat.

I say solid and lean because I’m not talking about protein powders or shakes. I’m talking about naturally filling meats that are low in fat or alternative sources of protein like tofu.

You want protein as the primary staple in your diet, whether your goal is to build muscle or not. In addition to building muscle and other new tissues, protein helps you feel and stay full much longer than the other macronutrients.

So, I prefer you get your protein from foods so your stomach can expand and signal to your brain that you’re full. I really don’t want you to use protein powders unless you must, like in a situation where at the end of the day you realize you didn’t reach your protein goal.

If you don’t get enough protein while dieting, you may lose a high percentage of muscle when you lose weight. You may also feel much hungrier than if you consumed mostly fats and carbs.

Alcohol

Alcohol is the fourth, but nonessential, macronutrient. It provides energy from its calories, but alcohol is not necessary to sustain your life. Alcohol contains about 7 calories per gram, so it sits between carbs and protein, which both contain about 4 calories per gram, and fats that contain about 9 calories per gram.

I don’t recommend consuming alcohol for various reasons, including because it slows down fat loss while dieting. But the idea of being aware of your calorie consumption is to have the flexibility to enjoy a normal life as you work towards your goals.

If having an occasional drink is a part of your lifestyle, then go for it. But, as with anything, moderating alcohol is crucial. And now that we’ve discussed calories and macronutrients, you can now put a number to what moderation means. Moderate, in the context of all foods means providing fewer calories than your body needs.

But even if you’re diligently tracking your alcohol, it can still impact your progress by negatively affecting your performance, recovery, and sleep. And it may also lead to overeating more calories than your body needs.

Now that we’ve covered macronutrients, I think you now have enough information to understand why all diets work. All diets work because they all reduce your calories below your required maintenance calories.

Weight Watches (WW)

Even one of the most popular diet companies, Weight Watchers, reduces calories. They just do it by assigning a point system to different foods while reducing a person’s points instead of calories. But at the end of the day, it just lowers someone’s calories below their maintenance levels. It’s not magic, right? Especially now that you understand what maintenance calories are and how to manipulate them to lose weight.

But I get it, for most people, it’s probably easier to track one small point number rather than one large calorie number, but you’re not most people. You’re cream of the crop. Besides, with today’s calorie tracking apps, counting calories really shouldn’t be hard. No one is counting the total number by calories or macronutrients themselves. It’s done by their phone or computer. In your case, you’ll just be putting your food into the the food planner app I recommend and if you purpose my program, my auto-diet template takes care of this addition and subtraction for you.

Lo-Carb

Some diets are even more popular than Weight Watchers. The ones I’m referring to reduce calories by restricting carbs. The Keto, Paleo, and whole food diets are the most popular diets that do this. Keto restricts carbs to about 50 grams per day which, as well talked about, forces the body to use and burn more fat for fuel. The fewer carbs you have in your body, the quicker your body will use them for energy and then begin using your fat.

But, although the diet may force you to burn more of your fat for fuel if you go this route, you’ll have more dietary fat in you. You must use fat to replace the carbs you are eating, because your body will still need calories to survive. You still must eat something. So, you can still overeat. If you eat too much fat by going over your maintenance calories, it’ll be much easier to convert this excess fat into body fat. 

But restricting carbs can be beneficial if you suffer from food addiction. Meaning, when you eliminate carbs, you have fewer options to eat highly addictive and processed foods like chips, Pop tarts, and pastries.

Keto, Paleo, and Whole Food

Keto, Paleo, and the whole food diets focus on eliminating processed and refined carbs. So, it’s much easier to lose weight when you eliminate binge-worthy foods like chips, candies, cakes, and cookies from your diet.

Unfortunately, when you restrict carbs, you also reduce the amount of water your body retains. And water has weight. Every 1 gram of carb you eat requires 3-4 grams of water to process and store it. So, when you reduce the amount of water you keep, your body no longer has this water in it. Therefore, restricting carbs makes you lose weight. But it’s not fat. It’s water weight.

People who follow low carb diets see a massive initial drop in their weight in the first few weeks. This gives them a huge reason to keep going and can make them fanatical about their diets being the diet that works. But as you previously learned, losing water-weight and fat are two different things. Losing water weight because of carb restrictions can be highly motivating but it doesn’t teach you how to eat for life and it’s only temporary.

Do you know someone who has followed a low-carb diet but then decided to take a low-carb break for a day or, worse, for an entire weekend? If you do, you have undoubtedly heard how their body weight may have shot up the next day.

Again, every 1 gram of carbohydrate requires 3-4 grams of water to process and store it. If they eat 50 grams of carbs in a weekend, which is only like 2 slices of white bread, that’s 150-200 grams of water. 1 gram is equal to 0.03 ounces, so 150-200 grams of water equals roughly 5.2 to 7 ounces of water, which is just under a half pound. This means their weight will go up by a half pound the next time they step on a body weight scale.

Now imagine a restaurant meal full of carbs such as 3 cups of cooked pasta and a slice of cake. They’ll get about 129 grams of carbs from the pasta and about 72 grams of carbs from the cake, for a total of 201 grams.

This equals about 603-804 grams of water, or about 1.3 – 1.7 pounds of water weight from those carbs. It won’t be fat, but just like it was very motivating to see a drop in water weight, it’s also very demotivating to see it return. This then forces a lot of people who experience this to give up on their diets. This doesn’t even account for the water the body will hold because of the increased sodium. This is why knowing how weight loss works is way more important than the type of diet someone is on.

Fortunately, we’re working on building muscle and getting lean, which means you’re going to need carbs, just not the ones that are high in calories like chips and cake. You can eat them, but you’ll need to recognize that they may quickly put you over your maintenance calories and affect how much weight and fat you will lose. I’d love to eat an entire family size bag of Doritos, but I can’t, so I stick to the 1-ounce bags I see at the grocery store checkout line.

Intermittent Fasting

The last diet craze I’ll address is Intermittent fasting. In this approach to dieting, there are supposedly hormonal benefits that help boost fat lost, but the biggest draw to many people is the idea that you can eat whatever you want without counting calories, if they only eat food within a certain window of time. The window can be as short or as long as they want, but four to eight hours of eating tends to be most popular.

Theoretically, if you can only eat food within a four-to-eight-hour window, you should eat less food, right? But we’ve learned that eating less food doesn’t mean eating fewer calories, although this is what Intermittent fasting helps people do. It’s certainly a useful strategy, but it’s not full proof. At the end of the day, you still must eat fewer calories than your body requires if you’re going to lose weight and ultimately fat.

I do a variation of Intermittent fasting myself, but it’s not because I want to intentionally eat in a specific time window. I just prefer having Black coffee upon waking up and sipping on it as I work through the morning. Then, I usually eat breakfast about 3 hours later.

What I’ve experienced as a danger in Intermittent fasting is if you wait too long to eat, you eventually will get ravenous. And when you’re extremely hungry, it’s much easier to lose control of how much you eat once you begin eating. Your ghrelin hormone, which is often called the “hunger hormone” takes over and ultimately, there will be a lag between when you begin eating and when your leptin hormone sends the “I’m full” signal to your brain. So, if you choose to use Intermittent fasting as a strategy, be conscious of this.

What I want you to ultimately shoot for is a diet that’s high in protein, high in carbohydrates, and low in fats because I want you to convert your body into an environment that’s primed for muscle growth. And of course, you’re going to eat this way while staying at or below your maintenance calories so you can lose fat. And you’re going to do this with a flexible approach to dieting, which I’ll write about later.