Introduction

The trick to lose weight, in my humble opinion, has a lot to do with carefully picking what you're eating and keeping track of your calories and macronutrients. It takes a bit of effort to understand the logic behind it but one thing I'm sure of is that, once grasped, it works 100%.

1. Calories Deficit

To start with, we must highlight the fact that in order to lose weight, be it belly fat, double chin, fats in your legs, whatever- they all have the same molecular structure: adipose tissue- there must be a caloric deficit of 500 calories maximum. If you go beyond that, you would start feeling less energetic and have some undesirable unintended effects.

The science behind this is that your body has a Basal Metaoblic Rate (i.e how many calories it needs to be optimally functioning and going) that is determined by how heavy you are, male or female, tall, old, and active at day-to-day basis. Under the right conditions (more on this later), if you give your body 500 calories less than its BMR, it will start burning fat for energy to compensate for those 500 calories. And that's how, gentlmen and lurking ladies, you lose weight. But that's oversimplified. Because what you eat is what determines the "right conditions" for your body to start running on your fat tissue.

2. Rest days/Workout days

The second thing to bear in mind is to divide your days into 2 types: workout days and resting days (yeah if you don't lift gtfo already). For each type of day, you'll eat the same amount of calories in deficit. What changes, though, is the percentages of where you're getting your calories from.

  • Resting days: This might sound contradictory to some people, but on the resting days, you should get all of your calories (preferably) from fats. Fats are scientifically proven to improve the process of ketosis/gluconeogenesis and keeps you satiated for a longer period of time than carbs or proteins.

In the following paragraph you will find a short description of the biochemistry behind fats contributing in weight loss.

The monomer that your body uses/burns to keep its cells alive is glucose. Foods high on carbs are high on glucose. Fats do not contain glucose. So when you eat fats, they do not get metabolized for energy. They get stored as triglycerids (the actual fat tissue). No questions asked. But here is the rub: since you're not giving your body carbs or proteins to take energy from, your body will be breaking down the adipose tissue, forming glucose out of it, to keep on going. It'll be effectively breaking down the triglycerides into glycerole and free fatty acids and transform them in the liver into glucose or ketone bodies in case glucagon levels are significantly higher than insulin, which brings us to the next point.

Fats do not cause insulin release from the pancreas. When insulin is released, it primes your body to draw energy from the food absorbed during digestion. Insulin is released in great amounts when you consume carbs because carbs are directly digested into glucose. Glucose enters the body through glut proteins in your cells, and these glut proteins only work when insulin is bound to them (most of them).

So the trick is to eat fats in deficit. When you do that, the fats stored will be less than the ones burnt. Your body is indeed storing and burning fats at the same time. And furthermore, when you keep eating only fats, glucagon levels will eventually arise and will initiate gluconeogenesis (the process of creating glucose from TRG in the liver) and in longer periods of doing this, ketogenesis.

So when you only eat fats, you decrease the amount of insulin released, increase the glucagon, and force your body to run on your fat tissue. But what to eat, that's the question. So I will give a list of the stuff I'm eating, maybe it can help you:

  • Bulletproof Coffee: coconut oil (20g)+ grass-fed butter (20g)
  • Omelette (3 eggs) with cheese (30g) fried in coconut oil with fats remaining from bacon (60-80g).
  • 3 boiled eggs
  • Peanuts/almonds/hazelnuts (50g)
  • Sometimes I eat 100g of chicken breast or turkey.

All of these add up approximately to 1500 calories. My BDM is 2000. 500 calories deficit. Done and dusted.

  • Workout days: On your workout days, you should not workout after a meal. You should workout fasting (a) and (b) you should do cardio. I don't care how you do it: running on the treadmill, burpees, running outside, walking... Just get your fucking ass moving. And after you finish, then you eat.

The point of this is to run on your stored glycogen and once depleted, your body will switch to the adipose tissue again and cause weight loss. The difference between the workout and resting days is where you get your calories from as I mentioned in the introduction.

Unlike the resting days, you'll try to get 70% of your calories from fats, 25% from proteins, and 5% from carbs. All of these percentages give or take. The main point is fats> proteins> carbs. Why would you do that? Well, I hope the point about fats is clear enough.

You need to keep most of your calories coming from fats as to keep your insulin levels down and force your body to keep running on your adipose tissue. However, you need protein to prepare the damaged muscles from your workout. But eating a lot and a lot of proteins, say +50% of your calories are from proteins, your body will take what it needs to prepare the muscle tissue and transform the rest into glucose causing insulin peaks.

What do I eat on workout days:

  • 150g of chicken breast
  • 100g of turkey
  • 50g of liver
  • 40g of beef sausage
  • 20-30g of bacon
  • 3 boiled eggs
  • 50-100g of some nuts.

    I'm not saying that carbs are evil here. If you get less than 20g of carbs for a long period of time, you'll start losing muscle weight which is not good. What I'm saying is that it's all about moderation. Eating anything in excess will fuck you up no matter how healthy it looks. Just always try eating in the range of 500 calories deficit.

3. What to be aware of:

  1. If you see sugar, run the fuck away. Again. Do not eat sugar under any fucking circumstances. That shit has the same effect as ethanol from alcohol and is stored directly as fats. Your body doesn't burn it. It doesn't need it. If you eat sugar, you're practically fucked. Seriously, avoid it at all costs. That little chocolate bar you grab at the grocery or whatever is the devil in the details that keeps that belly hanging or those man boobs bouncing.

  2. Contrary to preconceived misconceptions, if your BDM is 2000 calories, and happened to ingest that amount of calories, it doesn't mean that you have to run for miles to burn all of those calories and lose weight. Actually, your body (your brain, your inner organs... Everything from the inside) will be burning 70-80% of the calories to. Movement and exercise only burn 6%-10% of the total calories consumed. So even on rest days you'll be burning calories like a mothafacka even without walking or doing anything.

  3. Water. Keep hydrated. Drink water until you piss it.

  4. Eating in a caloric deficit will leave you hungry. That's a fact. With fats, the hunger cravings will take much more time to occur. But it is inevitable. -500 calories will leave you craving food at some point, and guys, that's what separates people with abs and people with fats. That's when you should do your best to not eat anything as to keep the cycle described above up and running. For the last week, I fucked up when it comes to this point. I ate when I felt hungry late at night and didn't surpass my BDM. Results? Same weight throughout the whole week, even though I workout 4 times a week.

  5. Drop the alcohol and the energy drinks