Why the Advice to ‘Eat Less and Exercise More’ Sucks for Anyone Trying to Lose Weight

You’re overweight.

You know it. Your friends know it. Your colleagues know it.

Weight has been a life-long issue for you.

You’ve tried various diets but nothing seems to work.

Once in awhile, someone clever says to you, “why don’t you just eat less?”

What a novel idea! Why hadn’t you thought of that before?

But this alone, is terrible advice, and here’s why.

Burning More Energy Than You Consume Does Lead to Weight Loss

There is a certain logic to eating less and exercising more in order to lose weight.

You do need a calorie deficit in your body to shift the pounds, and 3,500 calories roughly equates to a pound of fat.

That means that to lose a pound of fat in a week, you need a daily calorie deficit of around 500 calories.

But how do you know when you are in deficit, and by how much?

There’s No Such Thing as a One-Size-Fits-All Diet in the Real World

The most frustrating diets out there are the cookie-cutter diets.

They tell you to eat the same food as everybody else, whether you’re a 6"1 man in his fifties working a desk job, or a 5"2 female athlete in her twenties.

Even without the science, it’s easy to see why these two people, or any two people for that matter, shouldn’t be eating the exact same foods to get the results they want.

The best diet for you won’t be the same as the best diet for the next person. That is, unless the next person is exactly the same height, weight, age and fitness level as you. What an incredible coincidence that would be.

So before you start following your favourite Instagrammer’s diet plan, ask yourself, do you look like her or live a lifestyle that in any way resembles hers?

(That is, if you can figure out her lifestyle through all those Instagram filters.)

The Best Way to Lose Weight is to Eat More

You can’t eat more of everything and get away with it, but you can certainly eat more whole foods, lean proteins and green, leafy vegetables.

When you’re trying to lose weight, it’s important to keep hunger at bay, because hunger can unleash the cravings that make you give up and unravel all the good work you’ve already done.

Protein isn’t just filling. It keeps you fuller for longer because it doesn’t spike your insulin levels in the way that sugar does.

Protein also has a thermogenic effect, which means that it takes roughly 30% more calories to digest it than it does fats or carbs.

The other sage advice also holds true.

Eat more vegetables.

They are filling and nutritious and high in fibre, so they also keep you feeling fuller for longer for very few calories.

Just by building these two hacks into your diet, you’ll be 80% closer to eliminating those high-calorie foods that caused you to gain weight in the first place.

You Don’t Have to Feel Guilty for Not Starving Yourself Anymore

Growing up, maybe you learned that a successful diet required you to starve yourself.

In fact, starving yourself has the opposite effect, because long-term, it slows down your metabolism. When that happens, you have to eat even less every day to stay the same weight.

That’s the last thing you want.

Instead of starving yourself, load up on whole foods and lean proteins, which will fill you up with nutritional goodness and leave your body feeling satisfied, loved, and well taken care of.

By doing this, you might even avoid the guilt of raiding the cookie jar, because you’ll be too full up to even get to it.

Confidently Ignore Bad Diet Advice Forever

Even though weight has always been an issue for you, you know now that there is more you can do than ‘eat less’.

Although you won’t get visible results overnight, slow and steady will win the race.

Adopt your new diet and lifestyle choices with quiet confidence so that the next time someone gives you silly diet advice, you can simply smile and ignore them.