How to Avoid Weight Regain After Dieting(#61)

Lean For Life Playbook

It’s about that time of year when people tell me how keto they’re getting in the new year and how this time it’s going to be different. Everyone wants “the program” or they finally found the hack that’s somehow been hidden to them for years. Without getting too edgy, your problem likely isn’t anything external. It really does start with you and not the endless things we tend to blame for our weight loss (age, lack of motivation, environment, too busy, etc).

“There is nothing outside of yourself that can ever enable you to get better, stronger, richer, quicker, or smarter. Everything is within. Everything exists.”

Musashi

Weight loss is easy

Maintaining weight loss tends to be a challenge but the answer is simpler than people make it out to be. Would you bet $10,000 that you could gain 10 lbs of muscle in 4 weeks or would you rather place that bet on losing 10 lbs in 4 weeks? Would you rather do a presentation on quantum physics to nobel laureates or lose 5 lbs?

Compared to almost literally anything else that takes at least some effort, weight loss is pretty easy. I think that perspective helps rather than believing it’s an esoteric and monumental feat only the mentally strong can complete. The problem is, people compare it to things that don’t take effort (apples to oranges).

“Weight Loss is Easy” - Easily my most villainous quote that upsets the most people, but that doesn’t make it any less true.

Weight regain is a real problem but only because the initial action was likely wrong in the first place. Simply put, you chose the wrong diet. It was unsustainable. “If you can’t do it forever don’t do it for a day” is a good filter to run your diet through. It really needs to be a lifestyle change to sustain results rather than a quick fix. This doesn’t mean you can’t use quick fixes short term, but there needs to be another plan beyond that and there usually isn’t for most people.

The fact that people are regaining weight after dieting is actually causing headlines like the one below. In some respect it is true, let me explain. Low calorie diets that are not accompanied with resistance training and high protein will likely lead to muscle loss. As you lose weight you’ll lose fat and muscle but as you regain the weight back, you just get fatter since you aren’t training. Thereby putting on more fat, looking worse, and getting unhealthier.

How to Maintain Weight After Losing It

It starts with your lifestyle. You need a template for your nutrition that’s flexible and fits your daily nutrition. There are also other principles that I recommend following. If you aren’t training already, you damn well should be. You’ll notice a lot of ripped athletes have no problem eating junk and not storing weight. Muscle is active tissue and raises your metabolic rate, they’re also bigger in general which necessitates more energy intake, and they’re highly active. You don’t have to entirely reverse engineer an athletes lifestyle and physique to keep your weight down but success leaves clues.

Principles to Follow

• High Protein

• High Food Volume

• Nutrient Density

• Consistent Meal Frequency

• Train Heavy

• No Zero Days

• Plan

I created a 40-page ebook that outlines the exact templates I recommend clients use for their nutrition. They don’t require tracking, just a bit of tweaking. You can find the lean for life Playbook below completely free. If you actually want to get your body fat down and keep weight off, i’d highly recommend adopting one of these nutrition strategies outlined in the book.

I hope this actually is your year, if you’re going to do it, do it right.