I want to give you a really simple strategy for how to reach, and maintain a healthy body weight. I’ve used this strategy myself to lose weight, and I use it today to keep my own body weight at a healthy level, and to stay lean.
It’s not complicated – in fact, once you understand the key principles, it’s really straight forward.
Before we jump into the how, I want to explain why it’s so, so important to maintain a healthy body weight. There are three main reasons.
The first is longevity. It is well established, beyond any doubt, that being at a healthy body weight helps to lower the risk of chronic diseases – including cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers, and hypertension.
You don’t have to take my word for it. A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found a strong association between higher BMI (body mass index) and increased mortality. In the most extreme case, being very obese can cost you up to 13.5 years of your life. Even being just somewhat overweight, you can expect to lose 2-4 years of your life.
In short, you will live longer, and have less disease if you keep a healthy body weight.
The second reason is quality of life. It’s not just about living longer, it’s about having a good life. This is what someone like Peter Attia would call Health span. When you maintain a healthy body weight, you have less inflammation, better mobility and general physical function. This means it’s easier to do day to day things – move around, play with your kids, pick heavy things up, put heavy things above your head etc. At a healthy body weight, life just feels easier, better and is more enjoyable..
The third reason is mental health. I’ll use myself as an example here. I used to weigh 220 lbs. Whilst I wasn’t obese, I was kind of just overweight. At that time of my life, my energy used to be all over the place, and I was regularly tired. I also struggled with a lot of self esteem issues and anxiety.
Today I am 175 lbs and fairly lean with it. One of the biggest surprises to me has been how much better I feel in myself. I have more energy, more confidence and more optimism. I rarely have any anxiety anymore. For me, this has actually been the biggest and most obvious impact of being at a healthy body weight. I just feel a lot better mentally. I’m way more comfortable in my own skin,
I hope that makes it nice and clear why being at a healthy body weight is super, super important.
Before we jump into the how (we’re getting close!), I want to just quickly cover one more thing.
I suspect some people are reading this and thinking – this doesn’t apply to me. I don’t feel obese. I’m not obviously overweight.
I want to share with you two statistics that will blow your mind – and maybe even give you something to think about for your own situation:
1/ Two thirds of the adult population in the United States and at least half the populations of many other developed countries are currently overweight or obese. Yes, TWO THIRDS..
2/ A 2018 study found that only 12% of American adults fully met the criteria for being in optimal metabolic health. They measured metabolic health as having the following 5 things in a good place – blood glucose levels, triglycerides, cholesterol, blood pressure and weight circumference. This means that nearly a whopping 88% of people are metabolically unhealthy and failed on at least one of these metrics.
The reason I refer to these stats, is to highlight that the majority of people are indeed not at a healthy body weight. The majority of people are indeed likely to be metabolically unhealthy.
You don’t have to be obviously very overweight or obese, to find yourself at an unhealthy body weight. Like me when I was 220 lbs, you may just be carrying that extra bit of weight that you assume naturally happens as you get older.
If that’s the case with you, the good news is that you can absolutely change that and get some really big health, longevity and mental health benefits from doing it. In some cases, there may well be many years of extra life to be gained.
Now that we understand why maintaining a healthy weight is so important, let’s talk about how to do it.
Calories in vs. Calories Out
If you’re going to reach and maintain a healthy body weight, the first thing you need to do is to understand the principles of energy balance.
Energy balance is essentially calories in vs. calories out. This is what determines whether we gain weight, maintain our weight, or lose weight.
Let me explain a bit further.
Calories in (i.e energy intake) is the calories you take in every day by eating and drinking..
Calories out (i.e energy expenditure) is the number of calories you burn as a result of being alive, moving around your day to day business and any type of physical activity you do.
To understand how calories in and calories out affect body weight, you need to understand the relationship between the two.
If your calories in and out are the same – you will maintain your body weight. For example, if you consume 2,000 calories through food and drink, and also burn 2,000 calories through activity, your bodyweight will remain roughly the same.
If your calories in are greater than your calories out, you will gain weight. For example, if you consume 2,500 calories through food and drink, and burn only 2,000 calories through activity, your bodyweight will increase. This is called a calorie surplus, and In this case it’s a 500 calorie surplus.
Lastly, if your calories in are less than your calories out, you will lose weight. For example, if you consume 2,000 calories through food and drink, and burn 2,500 calories through activity, your body weight will decrease. This is called being in a calorie deficit, and in this case it’s a 500 calorie deficit.
It really is as simple as that.
Not all calories are equal
I want to address an argument that you might have heard before – not all calories are equal.
What I said about calories in and out and how that affects your weight is absolutely true. However there is something important to understand about the argument that not all calories are equal.
You can’t just ignore what types of calories you consume. For example, if you consume all of your calories through processed foods and junk foods, you’re going to struggle to achieve whatever goal you have for your weight. That’s what people, who use the not all calories are equal argument are getting at.
The problem isn’t that the calories in vs. calories out model is broken. That’s still the most important thing.
However, of the calories you consume, there needs to be a reasonable amount of protein and whole foods.
Why? Surely if it’s all about energy balance, as long as you run the numbers correctly, why does it matter what types of calories they are?
Well, when you are trying to gain, maintain or lose weight, protein is necessary to help you either preserve, maintain or gain muscle for those goals. If you skimp on it, your lean muscle mass is going to be low, which will affect not only your metabolism, but also how good you look 😉
Secondly, the body just operates more efficiently on whole foods. Your overall health and metabolism will be in a much better place, which will help you achieve your bodyweight goal more easily.
Lastly, protein, and the fiber that comes from whole foods is satiating. So, you’re going to find it a hell of a lot easier to regulate your appetite and consistently hit your target calories in, if you’re prioritising protein and whole foods.
Here’s Greg Glassman explaining this perfectly in under a minute.
You know this is true. Try and eat a four egg, whole food omelet. I can guarantee it will leave you feeling full for many hours. Compare that to eating some biscuits, and some chocolate of the same amount of calories. Sure, you feel full at first, but soon after you’re ransacking the pantry for more of those types of foods.
So, whilst calories in vs. calories out IS the most important thing, you have to pay attention to the quality of those calories. If you don’t, not only will you fail to be consistent with eating your target calories, but you’re also not giving your body the best chance to achieve whatever your body weight goal is.
So, in a way, both are true.
Calories in vs. calories out is absolutely the most important thing you need to consider if you want to control your body weight. But, you will fail if you don’t keep an eye on the quality of those calories. You should be eating a reasonable amount of protein, and sticking as many whole foods as you can.
OK, so we’ve covered quite a bit so far – a quick recap.
You should want to achieve a healthy body weight. It will help you live a better, and longer life. And the harsh reality is that more people are either overweight or obese, than at a healthy body weight.
To achieve a healthy body weight, you need to get your calories in and calories out in a place where it supports your goal – being in a calorie surplus to gain weight, being in a calorie deficit to lose weight, or eating the same amount of calories as you burn, to maintain your weight. Keep protein high and eat mostly whole foods.
So, the only thing left to explain is exactly how do you put all of this into practice?
The first thing you need to do is get to the point where you know what your maintenance rate is – essentially how many calories you need to take in to maintain your body weight. That will put you in a position to then adjust things to support your body weight goal.
When I started thinking about this article, I had a grand plan to explain in great detail how you could find your maintenance rate exactly. The problem with this, is it requires tracking your foods and activity in a very consistent and detailed way. As I thought about it more, I realised that if you haven’t done this before, it’s going to be very overwhelming. And actually, most people will either not do it, or find it really hard to do.
Instead of that, I’m going to give you a more high level, rough way of going about it which will definitely work. Then, once you’re into it, you can decide if you want to take it to the next level and get more specific about it.
Here’s what you want to do. You need to run a test for about 4-6 weeks.
To start with, don’t change anything about what you eat or drink (i.e calories in). Also, don’t change anything about the way you’re being active (i.e calories out).
Here’s what I want you to do. Once per week, weigh yourself and record the number. When you do weigh yourself, try and do it at the same time per week, so that the number you get can be a good comparison.
Do that for 4-6 weeks.
If your weight hasn’t changed much at all, then you’re pretty nicely maintaining your weight at the moment, through how much you’re eating and drinking (calories in) and how much activity you’re doing (calories out).
Regardless of what the specific number of calories in vs out is, you know if you keep things roughly the same on both sides of the equation, you’ll stay at the weight you’re at.
Let’s say you want to lose weight. You will need to make a small adjustment to either reduce the calories in (i.e less of what you’re eating and drinking), and / or increase the calories out (i.e more activity). This will put you in a calorie deficit.
If you do that and continue to monitor your weight once per week, you should see your weight start to decrease. Keep doing that, until it stops working (it tends to stop working after a while because you have achieved a new maintenance rate). When it does, you have to do the same again – until you reach your target body weight.
Like wise, if you want to gain weight, you just do the opposite. You will need to either increase the calories in (i.e more of what you’re eating and drinking), and / or, decrease the calories out (i.e less activity).
Again, if you do that and continue to monitor your weight once per week, you should see your weight slowly and consistently increase. Keep doing that, until it stops working. When that happens, simply adjust again until you’re at your target body weight.
There’s one last thing I’ll say about this. When you’re running your maintenance test, or indeed trying to maintain, lose or gain weight – you want to try and keep calories in and out consistent. Remember, we’re not meticulously tracking the exact number of calories in and out (i.e the overwhelming bit), so you are doing this more by feel.
My best advice for this is to try and stick to the same type of eating and drinking patterns (calories in), and try and stick to the same level of physical activity (calories out).
For example, if you’re running a marathon one week, and being mostly sedentary the next week – it just won’t work because there’s too much change at the same time. The same would be true if you were to be fasting aggressively one week, and then completely off the wagon the next week.
My maintenance rate
I want to wrap with an example of my own maintenance rate, and how I use this to either gain or lose weight. I think this will be some useful context that can help make everything even clearer.
I know my maintenance rate, based on how physically active I am, is 2,300 calories.
You might notice that in my case, I know my exact number. That’s because I went through a more detailed process of tracking my food intake (i.e using an app to track my calories), whilst at the same time keeping my level of physical activity extremely consistent (sticking to the same type and amount of workouts, and steps). It’s basically the same type of test as I explained above, but using real numbers for the calories in (i.e food and drink).
Broken down in a bit more detail…
When I weight train three times a week, do 2 hours of zone 2 cardio, and walk 10K steps a day – AND when I eat 2,300 calories – my body weight stays the same. I literally did this for 6 weeks and during that time my body weight stayed very much the same. I was kinda lucky it stayed the same, because it meant I didn’t need to go through any trial and error (i.e adjustment up or down) to hone in on my maintenance rate.
This information is very valuable to me. By knowing this, I can now precisely manipulate my body weight.
Earlier in the year, I wanted to lose some weight for my summer holiday. So, here’s what I did. I simply ate 2,100 calories – 200 calories less than my maintenance rate. I also swapped out one of my three weight training sessions for a conditioning workout (increasing my physical activity slightly). This put me in a calorie deficit of at least 200 calories, but probably more like 250 taking into account the increase in physical activity also.
What do you know, I consistently dropped weight over an eight week period – a total of about 10 lbs (just over a lb per week). It dropped off quicker at the beginning, probably because I got close to the maintenance level of my new weight towards the end. However, the overall result was exactly what I had hoped for.
Now that I’m back, I have the opposite goal – I’m trying to very slowly gain weight. So, I have increased my calories to 2,500, which should put me in roughly a 200 calorie surplus based on a 2,300 calorie maintenance rate. As a result, I’m now slowly putting on about 1lb per week.
Like I said, I’m tracking things in a much more precise way than the beginner way I described earlier. But, the concept is the same. You have to be able to know what it takes to maintain your weight when it comes to how many calories you’re taking in (i.e food and drink) and how many calories you’re burning (i.e how physically active you are). When you know that, you can simply adjust either of those to achieve any type of body weight goal you want.
Wrap up
I hope that’s useful and can help put you in a position to more easily reach and maintain a healthy body weight. I hope you also know now just how important it is to do exactly that – it will give you a longer, better quality life.
It’s worth reflecting on where you are on the spectrum of needing to lose or gain weight. And from there, consider running the maintenance rate test to figure out your maintenance rate – and then adjust accordingly for whatever your body weight goal is.
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