How I lost 14 pounds in under 3 months (3 Weight Loss Principles) || WBWL Ep 89

This is a great episode I made last year that people got a lot of values from. I wanted to put this one back on just in case you have missed this.
 
In this episode, I want to share with you 3 lifelong weight loss strategies that I used to lose 14 pounds in under 3 months.

I’ve heard of many fads out there, and I’m sure you’ve tried some with success but then the weight magically reappeared.

Or you have lost weight before, but it felt unsustainable and felt like you had to “suffer” to reach your goal.

I currently am sitting at a very comfortable body weight and under 12% body fat, while still enjoying my workouts, the foods I eat, and I do not restrict myself from foods I love. Name ice cream (LOL).

I think this episode is chock full of goodies to get your weight down and keep it there.

Transcript

0:02

Welcome to the Won Body Won Life Podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Dr. Jason Won lifestyle physical therapist. I talk about everything health and wellness related. So you too can have a more resilient body and a more fulfilling life. If you haven't yet, it would help me greatly if you can leave a five star rating on Spotify or iTunes. That way I can continue to grow the channel and push more free content to all of you. So today I'll be talking about weight loss, and I'm going to be talking specifically about my own journey. And how I was able to lose 14 pounds in under three months. Predictably I myself have been a person that used to be very overweight at a young age. I did start learning a lot about nutrition and exercise when I was just 11 years of age, actually sparked my interest opening up something called an encyclopedia. And now, nowadays, We're all going to fall into different traps and different weight loss fads like keto, and if it fits your macros and a bunch of things, but I want to share with you a very predictable strategy highlighting three primary principles that I've been using. So number one is first being able to understand what we call The total daily energy expenditure equation and being in a caloric deficit. Number two, I'll explain how strength training directly applies to that equation and what I'm exactly doing right now in order to not just lose weight, but also how to maintain and elevate my strength at the same time. And lastly, number three, I'll be able to share with you how to make your weight loss more sustainable instead of rebounding once you've been off a diet. So first let's explain what exactly total daily energy expenditure means to you and in general explain some of the math behind energy in versus energy out. So basically energy in is what you consume. So I always tell people that if you really want to lose weight, you can't just force yourself to do a lot of cardio or even a lot of weight training or any other activity. Because. That would be silly. If you only had to work out seven days a week and slave one to two hours in the gym or outside, that's not going to be very sustainable. That's also going to lead to a lot of burnout, and it can lead to actually what we call central nervous system fatigue, which is basically when the brain and the spine Are shutting down and therefore it leads to a lot of peripheral nervous system issues like unusual fatigue, inability to get out of bed a lot of soreness and pain. And maybe some of you guys have been there. I have actually been there myself where I thought I can just slave away at the gym and just lose as much weight as I can. But that's not actually the right way to do it. So calories in or energy in is basically what you consume and an energy out is basically what calories you burn on a daily basis. So for example, if energy in. equals energy out. That is what we call weight or caloric maintenance. And basically how we think about this is there is a specific formula in which you expend a certain amount daily. And I'm going to break that down into four parts. So the first part is basically basal metabolic rate or your BMR that accounts for about 65 to 75 percent Of the energy expenditure out now, we can't really determine this because this is based on our genetics is based on a number of factors. Our comorbidities is based on age. As we get older the ability to burn calories at rest does become a little bit slower. We do want to take that into account. This makes up for about 65 to 75%. of how much we burn. There is also exercise energy expenditure, which is counts for about 15 to 30 percent of that expenditure. Basically that comes in the form of any planned exercise like weight training, running, even playing sports like basketball, or doing anything that involves your attention like going for a planned hike. That makes up for about 15 to 30 percent. The reason why there is a range is because. Obviously some people work harder than others. And at the same time some people are putting more work in the gym, whether it's two days per week in the gym, or whether it's something like myself, which is I'm doing a five day split. So that's five days in the gym, along with some other extracurricular activities. The next thing there the next thing on the equation. So we went through BMR basal metabolic rates, as well as exercise energy expenditure. The next that we have is called NEAT, which stands for non exercise activity thermogenesis. In a nutshell, that's basically any non planned exercise. Even if it's something as simple as reaching for the remote, I also perceive that. Non exercise expenditure is also how much energy it takes to walk to the grocery store, do your daily groceries, and then walk back to the car. So that's also not considered a planned exercise. That's just the energy that you burn throughout the day. Even just listening to this podcast, driving home, or even typing at your desk, that also accounts for energy. non exercise activity thermogenesis. So this will vary considerably. This accounts for maybe even 10 to 50%. The reason why is because if you're somebody that sits at a desk for 32 to 40 hours a week that might be on the lower end of non exercise because you're not really burning a whole lot just typing away and getting your projects done versus we do have people That are contractors, they have a very laborious job or very labor intensive job. So that energy can account for a lot, right? That's a lot of non, non exercise activity in which that person is constantly burning a lot without even any planned exercise. Okay, and the last thing I want to tell you about the fourth part of the total daily energy expenditure equation is your thermic effect of food. Now, essentially what this means is the amount of energy you need to burn and digest food. So fats often, fats actually take up almost no energy to really assimilate versus if you eat protein. Protein is obviously a very Strong, a very thick constituents. And that actually takes a lot more energy to process and digest. So that is why I often tell my clients that if they're looking to not just like alleviate pain that's the main thing that I do, which is help people to alleviate chronic pain. But also if they want to alleviate chronic pain and they need, they know need, they need to get stronger in order to get there where you're not going to get stronger just again, by slaving away at the gym and lifting weights, you need to recover from the breakdown. As a result of those workouts through the ingestion of protein. So the more protein that you can ingest, the more that you're going to take advantage and maximize that thermic effect of food versus somebody that is severely under eating protein. You may try to cut down your calories, but still you're not going to be able to actually build muscle because protein is basically the precursor to. To muscle and that comes also in the form of amino acids, right? So that basically is the total daily energy expenditure in a nutshell. I want to highlight some things about this equation that you need to understand is that if exercise really only accounts for 15 to 30 percent of the total energy expenditure, You can't reasonably try to work out as much as you can and expect you to have sustainable weight loss. Again, it leads to burnout and it only really accounts for 15 to 30%. Even if you have a desk job if you know you have a desk job, then you need to make that up in some other ways. So you can try to like park really far away. There's certain strategies around maximizing your non exercise activity thermogenesis. I personally sometimes just. Go for a random walk outside. Sometimes if I'm doing groceries, I will park further away instead of taking the closest spot to Safeway or Trader Joe's, but also if you realize that the energy expenditure 65 to 75 percent is already predetermined based on your, again, height, genetics, comorbidities. So if you know that you can only reasonably maximize. Thermic effective food to an extent and exercise. Then the main thing you want to think about is how much calories you're actually ingesting, which is the other side of the equation. That's when we're talking about energy. And so basically being in a caloric deficit is by far the most important thing when it comes to weight loss. I personally. I am tracking my calories. I'm tracking my weight. I'm also tracking my food and how much I ingest. I'm constantly scanning the barcodes to see how much calories and I'm tracking these things. So T on a spreadsheet for some of you that are thinking that's not for me. I've heard plenty of people saying, I've done that in the past. It's not sustainable. I would encourage you to actually at least dive into the science of it and track for even a minimum of two weeks. Because let's say you track your calories, you track your weight for a minimum of two weeks, 14 days, that at least gives you some data points to figure out where your caloric maintenance is. So if you are eating for seven days, you're tracking your calories to a T and you're not losing any weight, Then, that you're basically at your caloric maintenance. If you are eating and that you're gaining weight then that's how you know, you're in a caloric surplus. And if you're tracking for seven to 14 days and you actually lost maybe 0. 5 to one pound, then you are already in a caloric deficit. So if you find basically the premise of. tracking for a minimum of 14 days is to try to find where your caloric maintenance is. And then what you'll do is you'll times that by 20 percent and you'll subtract that from your total amount of calories that you eat. So for example, if you eat 2500 calories, and that is your caloric maintenance. Then you'll times that by basically 0. 8, and that will give you your total amount that you need to eat throughout the day, which is 2000 calories. Or you can simply just, again, times that by 20%, which is 0. 2. And basically they'll say you have to subtract 500 calories from 2500, which equals 2000 calories. Another way to think of this, if you didn't want to try to track for two for 14 days straight, you can. Basically take your weight right now. So let's say if you're a hundred pounds and you times that by about 14 to 18. Okay. So 14 to 18, if you are a hundred pounds, which not a lot of people are, unless you're unless you're fairly skinny and fairly lean which we, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast in the first place, but let's say take that number because it's very easy, a hundred pounds times up by 14 to 18, if you are more active. And you do exercise a lot. You'll times that by 18, which would be a hundred times 18 equals 1800 versus if you do a hundred times 14, that accounts for a more sedentary person. That's not really working out a lot. And that would be 1400 calories. And that basically might give you your caloric maintenance. Once you find that caloric maintenance number by times by 14 or 18, or even 16, which is like the middle ground, then you'll simply again, take that 20%. Number and then subtract that from your caloric maintenance. All right. So hopefully that's helpful. Again, there's a lot of math to this. If you guys didn't know, I was actually a math major going into UC Davis. So I do like to put numbers and I think that it gives me the most predictable way of doing it. On tracking weight loss or tracking anything in life. So I always tell people what can be measured can't be managed. So if you're just constantly just thinking about eating clean, you're thinking about eating whole foods. I think that eating whole foods is better than eating processed foods and you can lose weight. But again, I like to put numbers to the equation and understand that if I track everything and I can see the actual numbers going down, it gives me confidence in terms of micromanaging my diet or how much. How many steps I need to get in or how much I need to decrease my calories even further could to continue to be in a caloric deficit. So hopefully these things are helpful and I know I sped through that. So if you need to rewind this, please do okay, so that's number one is just explaining the entire total daily energy expenditure equation. And so number two, I want to dive into the strength training aspects, why that directly applies that to this equation and what I'm exactly doing right now. So strength training. The premise around strength training is to actually build muscle. And there's a couple reasons why you want to build muscle instead of just trying to lose weight. So if you just try to be in a severe caloric deficit and you're working out a lot, one, I think that's a mistake because you're staying in a more catabolic state versus an anabolic state. So catabolic state is basically your muscles are just constantly breaking down and you're not rebuilding them enough in the form of sleeping soundly and also actually getting in enough protein. So if you're constantly in a catabolic breakdown, one, you're going to get very discouraged because you're going to be very sore. Again, second, you're going to potentially lead to that central nervous system fatigue that I told you about. And then thirdly, it's just going to be lead to lack of motivation. If you don't feel good, you feel constantly sore, you're going to really think this is not worth it. And then you're just going to rebound and then gain back all the weight. So being in a very severe caloric deficits without thinking about. Eating more protein and also strength training. That is a huge mistake. Another reason why you want to strength train is for people with diabetes. So I'm actually working with a number of clients that have chronic pain. They have, they might have peripheral neuropathy, like numbness in their hands, and they have confirmed type two diabetes. And I work with a lot of clients with type two diabetes and helping them to control their blood sugar better and to lose weight and gain muscle at the same time. So what I tell my clients to do is If you think about gaining muscle, there's only a few places that glucose can be shuttled in. So glucose is basically the types of like carbohydrates that you eat. Carbs is, carbs should not be demonized. So I just want to say that right now. Carbs should not be demonized because it's one of the main fuel systems to have a more effective workout. But if you have type 2 diabetes or you, if you have insulin insensitivity or metabolic syndrome and your body like is either Either able to not produce insulin as much or your body is less sensitive to insulin, you need to build muscle. This is why glucose, which is basically a feel, a fuel system coming from carbohydrates gets converted into the storage form, which is called glycogen. And that's via that's via many different enzymatic processes that we don't have to dive into. But basically that glucose. is shuttled in to two different places. One is your liver. So your liver holds a certain amount of glycogen. And then also glucose can be converted into glycogen and can be stored into the working muscle. So if you realize that your liver, which is This organ that keeps like enzymatic waste out of your body. And also helps to break down food. If your liver can only hold a certain amount of glycogen, because you're only born with this liver that really you can't work out. You can't make the liver larger in any way. Then where is, where can you find that potential storage of glucose so that your glucose is not swimming around in your bloodstream and then breaking down your vascular tissue and breaking down other areas of the body? Because that's essentially what happens. Glucose either breaks down your. Your vascular system or your glucose can get converted into visceral fat, which is going the opposite direction of weight loss. So that's why I tell people, if you really want to make this sustainable and not just lose weight, but also gain strength. And if you do have type two diabetes, it's how to reverse that slowly. Then you need to gain muscle. And how I can explain this because muscle can hold. a lot more glycogen than your liver can. So that's why you want to actually build muscular tissue so that glucose can be converted into glycogen and is no longer swimming around in that bloodstream and causing havoc around the body. Because diabetes is basically the precursor to almost all diseases that we know. So here's a great analogy for some of you guys that really don't understand this. Appropriately, if you're looking at basically like a local bank. So think about a super small bank in a small town or like a small city. So if you basically say, Hey, I want to open a bank account. I want to store this amount of money. I think of it like this bank can only store a certain amount of money because that bank is super, super small. Okay, and that's basically saying I don't work out at all, and I'm only going to rely on my liver and the little muscle that I have in order to store that glycogen. Now, think about if you put in a lot of work into the gym, you're going, let's say, two to five days a week. I personally go five days a week, and then you're basically, Now able to hold in a lot more glycogen. That's the analogy of basically converting that little small local bank into chase bank or the bank of America. So now it's this large global corporation that is now able to hold almost limitless amount of money. And again, that's almost like that money is basically glucose or glycogen. And now you are much healthier. And also when you are weight training, you do become more insulin sensitive. So now the insulin in your body is now able to more effectively convert that glucose into glycogen, not store it as visceral fat or not cause havoc in different parts of the body. So that is why you want to strength train, not just for the aesthetic purposes, but also for the functional purposes is going to keep you going. healthier in the long run, you're going to be able to do more active things as you get older. Plus, if diabetes is literally the precursor to so many different diseases out there in the world, it makes sense to probably gain as much muscle as you can and become as at and keep yourself as insulin sensitive as possible. So just to break that down, I, for my own sake, I have lost 14 pounds. The way that I've been able to do that over the past just three months is basically maintain that caloric deficit. track my calories, track the types of foods that I eat. And I actually have this on a spreadsheet and I am in the gym strength training five days per week. Alongside that, I occasionally do get in my run. So maybe one to two days a week. And I do play basketball as well, which also accounts for some of the cardiovascular purposes. So I am maximizing as much as I can. Energy expenditure as I can from an exercise standpoint. I'm also eating it at least 0. 8 to 1 gram per pound, which is a research based number. So I'm getting actually 1 to 1. 1 gram per pound of protein. So I can maximize also that thermic effect of food. And I am still basically in a caloric deficit at some point, though, which we're getting into number 3, which is when you start to When you hit that weight loss period, there's going to be a point where you either plateau, or let's say some people, they get off your diet and they rebound. I'm currently close to hitting a point which we call metabolic adaptation. Basically, for the amount of exercise that I get in currently, I'm actually burning less calories than I was when I was 171 pounds. I started this weight loss journey at 171. Currently I'm at 157 right now, which is almost exactly 14 pounds. But I got to realize that I'm actually, even though I've gained muscle and I've lost some fat, I still am carrying less of myself. Think about that, right? If I do a specific, like a one mile run. So I'm usually carrying 171 pounds of my body, which is burning more calories, but if I'm now like 157 pounds. I'm carrying much less of myself. So essentially I'm burning less calories with the same amount of exercise expenditure. Does that make sense? So why I have to calculate that in is if I eventually am hitting a caloric deficit and now I'm hitting a point where I like, now I'm hitting like caloric maintenance and I not burning as much while I have to make small little tweaks if I want to continue weight loss. So that's either being in a more caloric deficit or increasing the energy expenditure in some way or form. Or what I can do is I can say, Hey, I'm satiated with where I am currently. I'm happy with the weight loss right now. And that's where we start to hit that metabolic adaptation, where I'm hitting caloric maintenance at my lower weight. I'm doing a certain amount of exercise and now I'm no longer losing. So this is where. How to make this more sustainable, which is number three, how to make that weight loss more sustainable instead of rebounding back is one. I continue to track my calories. Now I may be a little bit more. Eyeball ish, which basically means that I can eyeball how much chicken I eat and I no longer have to put everything on a scale that allows me to make it more sustainable. So like when I go out to eat, I can overestimate my calories at a restaurant. And I you eventually will get really good at just pouring things or understanding like what specific calories, because you've been doing this for a while. That allows it to make it more sustainable. Another way of making this more sustainable is something called reverse dieting and essentially reverse dieting is I'm at, let's say I'm at a caloric deficit right now or caloric maintenance of let's say 2, 300 calories. So that's where I'm actually currently right now, 2, 300 calories is still a mild caloric deficit, maybe hitting that metabolic adaptation right now. So what eventually I'm going to do is I'm going to slowly increase my calories over a number of weeks or months. And my body will get used and become more energy efficient at burning those calories and burning that food. And I will still be able to maintain my, my weight. I won't be able to increase that weight. So you're going to have to teeter with that, where if I'm at 2, 300 calories, I can instantly just jump up to let's say 2, 600 or 2, 800 calories. I can jump up. And track that over a number of one to two weeks and see again if I'm maintaining that weight. And if I'm maintaining that weight, that's awesome because I've increased. Essentially 500 calories per day. And I'm still able to maintain the same amount of weight. If you increase three to 500 calories over a number of one to two weeks, and you realize that you're actually gaining weight then maybe you need to taper that back down a little bit, eat something a little higher than 2, 300 calories and see if your body is still becoming more energy efficient and maintaining that same weight. So this is, I think the mistake that some people make, which is they want to maintain that weight loss, they work really hard to lose all that weight and get to a point where they feel good at where they're at. But then they, so many people, I guess 80, 90 percent of people, they rebound. And the reason why is because I think they don't taper up the calories that they're eating. So then their body doesn't actually have to adapt anymore. They don't become more energy efficient. And I think that's something you want to do. You want to try to increase your calories as much as you can and see if you can maintain that same amount of weight. And if not then I think that's where you have to play with those numbers. That's why I think that I use a spreadsheet because I can see all my numbers from a bird's eye view. And if those numbers are not in front of you, then again, I think that it makes it less sustainable when you're not putting math to the equation. The other last piece is you can have a sense of intuitive eating. And what this means is. Don't be so restrictive during your weight loss journey. And don't be so restrictive even after you've lost a weight. So if you hit your weight loss goal, don't be too restrictive, have some flexibility and giving yourself the ability, the unrelenting permission to have the foods that you like. Even right now. I still maintain a caloric deficit, but if I know like I'm at 2000 calories, I still have 300 calories to spare. I don't mind eating a cookie or eating ice cream or eating the foods that I like, because if you restrict too much, that's like restricting a kid from video games, you restrict a kid from video game for 10 years straight, and all his friends are playing video games. 10 years down the line when he's out of the house, he's going to binge on video games. He might get even addicted to it. And I think that's what the same thing goes with weight loss is we restrict too much. We try to eat clean. We try to avoid all the guilt foods and all the the quote unquote bad foods. But I think there's not really a lot of bad foods out there. If you give yourself that permission that, Hey, I know my numbers. I know how much protein to eat. I know what my caloric weight loss number is. My caloric deficit, give yourself that permission to eat food. Give yourself permission to eat whatever you want. Once in a while, as long as you're hitting your protein numbers, as well as your caloric deficit number, give yourself that permission to eat, be a little bit more flexible. That's what makes it more sustainable because that way you're not After you're off this diet, you let loose a bit. You can slowly again, reverse that dieting process. And also at the same time, you can still eat the foods that you love. Your body will become more energy efficient. As long as you follow the rules in this podcast, which is like total daily energy equation, strength training consistently. So you're become more energy efficient. You become more sensitive to uptaking that glycogen and at the same time, follow these principles around the weight loss and how to not rebound. And I think you'll be good to go. The reason why I talk about weight loss, even though this is not my, direct cup of teas, because I have a lot of passion for nutrition. I actually teach a lot of my clients, not just how to relieve pain, but to also be more in tune with their nutrition, what foods to eat in order to feel that system for strength gains, and also how to get out of pain at the same time. And I've actually had this talk on many live streams, but I have had a lot of requests on saying this on the podcast. So people can repeatedly get this information in as they're on the road or just listening on their walks. But hopefully this was super helpful to you guys, just to recap on what I said, the three primary principles on how I lost 14 pounds in under three months. One is understanding to the T the total daily energy expenditure equation, being in a caloric deficit and tracking my numbers. Number two is I went through how strength training directly applies to this equation and what I'm exactly doing right now in order to not just lose weight, but also to maintain good strength and also to maximize all the different enzymatic pathways so that I'm not having to go through future disease in the future. And lastly, number three is how to make your weight loss sustainable instead of rebounding back and gaining all that weight back once you've been off the diet. So that's what I got for you guys today. If you enjoyed this episode, Definitely hit that subscriber follow button. I release new episodes every morning on Wednesdays, and I'd love if you can leave a rating, a review, or even some comments on Spotify or iTunes. So my content can reach more people who could benefit from the tips I put out. And you would be a huge part in growing my podcast. I have a huge vision to help as many people optimize their health, nutrition, get out of pain, get as strong as they can. And I preach what I teach. So it'd be great if you can leave a. Follow or subscribe and also leave a five star review. And if there's any feedback for me, I'm always open to hearing your feedback, good or bad, or future episodes that you want me to go through a certain topic. Feel free to send a quick text to 415 965 6580. Again, 415 965 6580, or email me at jason@flexwithdoctorjay.com also available on the DMs, Instagram, TikTok YouTube, leave comments. I reply to all my messages directly. And I will leave you always with these last words of advice. We only have one body, one life, make every action you take, be the one that makes you a better version of you. Take care.