Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - How to Lose Weight Without Counting Calories

Episode Date: May 17, 2018

If you’re looking to lose weight, chances are you’ve heard a lot about counting calories.Some people say it’s crucial for weight loss, others say it doesn’t work, and others still say it depends on your body and circumstances.Well, I want to start this episode with the following:Counting calories in and of itself accomplishes nothing, and is not vital to losing weight. Count all the calories you want, but if you don’t know why you’re counting them, and if you’re not planning your food intake properly, you’ll never lose any weight. And ironically, you also need to fully understand these same things to effectively lose weight without counting calories.So, then, let’s start with these fundamentals of weight loss, and how they relate to calories, and then we’ll look at 6 strategies for losing weight without counting calories. Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

This episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in. So instead I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, bigger,, Leaner, Stronger. Now, this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner,

Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth, so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS.

And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account and voila, you get to listen to bigger, leaner, stronger for free. Alrighty. That is enough shameless plugging for now, at least let's get to the show. Hey, Mike Matthews here from most for life and Legion athletics. And in this video podcast, we're gonna be talking about weight loss, how to lose weight without counting calories. So let's start by saying that while calorie counting is the most reliable way to lose weight, if you do it right, it guarantees weight loss. It does not in and of itself guarantee weight loss. Simply counting your calories or tracking your calories does not mean you're going to lose weight. Of course, in the end, you just need to maintain a calorie deficit. How you get there doesn't really matter. So whether you're

counting or not, if you can maintain a large enough calorie deficit over time, you are going to lose a significant amount of weight. Now, in case you're not familiar with it, the glycemic index is simply a scale that indicates how quickly a carbohydrate is digested and impacts your blood sugar levels. So for example, sugar, table sugar, sucrose is rather high on the glycemic index, whereas broccoli is rather low. The reason why calorie counting works so well though, and why you see so many people that are in very good shape doing it and recommending it is it simply makes it harder. I was going to say hard, but I'll say harder to overeat. In other words, it makes it easier to stick to your diet and maintain that calorie deficit. Now, if you're not sure what I'm talking about, calorie deficit, what does that mean? Why does it matter? Click the link to

the energy balance article down in the description below and read that article first and then come back to this video and it will make a lot more sense and be a lot more helpful to you. Okay, so now let's talk losing weight without counting calories. The first thing I want to say is that it's going to help a lot if you are also fairly physically active. If you can also exercise three to six hours per week, ideally you'd be spending most of that time doing resistance training. But if that's not possible for you, then any sort of exercise will do. But the more difficult that exercise is, the more energy it's going to burn and the more it's going to support your weight loss efforts. Keep that in mind. That is going to help a lot when you are trying to lose

weight without counting calories. Because again, in the end, you're going to have to maintain a sizable calorie deficit. And if you're not going to be strictly regulating and tracking the amount of calories that you're eating, you need to make sure you are burning a fair amount of calories. Otherwise, you run the risk of eating too close to the amount of energy that you're burning. And of course, that's going to result in little to no weight loss. And the reason for this is research shows that a high protein breakfast helps you eat less food later in the day. So it helps you eat smaller lunches and dinners, which of course, again, is what we want. We need to keep calories regulated, even though we're not going to be paying attention to them numerically, we need to make sure we are not eating too many calories. So anything that helps us generally eat fewer calories is going to help us lose weight

faster. Now, of course, this can be taken to the extreme and you can just starve yourself, but that's not what we're going for here either. Hey, quickly, before we carry on, if you are liking my podcast, would you please help spread the word about it? Because no amount of marketing or advertising gimmicks can match the power of word of mouth. So if you are enjoying this episode and you think of someone else who might enjoy it as well, please do tell them about it. It really helps me. And if you are going to post about it on social media, definitely tag me so I can say thank you. You can find me on Instagram at MuscleForLifeFitness,

Twitter at MuscleForLife, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness, Twitter at Muscle for Life, and Facebook at Muscle for Life Fitness. Now, the couple of papers that I've reviewed on this had subjects eating eggs for their high-protein breakfast, which is totally fine. If you like eggs, eat eggs for breakfast. If you don't like eggs, have something else that's high-protein. I probably would have, I mean, I actually like eggs, so maybe I'd do eggs, but if I didn't feel like having eggs, then I would just go to like a low fat, high protein yogurt, like Greek yogurt or my personal favorite skier, S-K-Y-R, Icelandic yogurt. And that brings me to my next point, which is just to eat a high protein diet in general. This is super key. You have to do this. If you don't do this, you are going to have a very hard time of

losing any significant amount of weight without counting calories. And the reason for this is protein is your absolute best friend when you are dieting. A number of studies have shown that a high protein diet results in more fat loss, less muscle loss, less hunger, and more satiety than a lower protein diet. And this is not surprising because protein costs a lot of energy to metabolize. About 25 to 30% of the energy in protein is used simply to process it. And it also is more filling than carbs and fat. And just to give you an example of how effective this is, in one study, increasing subjects' daily protein intake to about 30% of their daily calories decreased their overall

caloric intake by about 441 calories. That's huge. If you maintain a calorie deficit of about 400 to 500 calories, a daily deficit of about four to 500 calories, you can expect to lose about a pound of fat a week. And just to be specific here, my recommendation is getting 30 to 40% of your daily calories from protein. That constitutes a high protein diet. And a simple shortcut for that is simply four to five servings of 30 to 40 grams of protein per day. That's plenty. Now, if you're not sure how much protein is in various foods, so you have no idea how to do that, simply head over to calorieking.com and look up your favorite sources of protein and just familiarize yourself with them. So then you can

think with that when you are eating meals. All right. So the next tip here is to eat plenty of low calorie fibrous foods. These are your best friend when you are dieting for fat loss, regardless of whether you are counting calories or not. And specifically what this really comes down to is eating two to three servings of fruit and vegetables per day, a serving being about the size of your fist or about a cup of whatever the food is. And this is going to help you in a couple different ways. First, it is going to be very good for your body. The majority of the essential nutrients that our bodies need to stay healthy and function well are contained in fruits and vegetables. But it's also going to keep you generally feeling fuller, which of course is going to help you control your calorie intake.

Now, as far as which fruits and vegetables specifically to eat, you don't really have to micromanage this if you don't want to. I do because it's just the way I am. But if you eat two to three servings of the fruits and vegetables that you like, trying to include a bit of variety, you'll be good to go. Now, if you want to micromanage, then what I do personally is I have a banana every day, as well as some colorful fruit like strawberries or blueberries, because the pigment in particular in those fruits are very healthy. And as far as vegetables go, I make sure that I'm getting a couple servings of dark leafy greens every day. So these days it is spinach and green lettuce and red lettuce. I eat

a salad every day as well as something cruciferous because it provides our body with certain molecules that we just don't get anywhere else. So for me right now, it is broccoli. Previously it was cauliflower. And then before that it was Brussels sprouts. I just run through vegetables and I eat a bunch of them and prepare them in a bunch of different ways until I want to move on to something else. So these days I'm into this Asian stir fry that I do. And I also like to eat mushrooms every day. One, because I like them cooked at least. And two, because they are particularly rich in minerals as well as onion and garlic, because like cruciferous vegetables, they provide our bodies with some pretty neat

special molecules that you really just don't get anywhere else. Okay. So the next tip here is to reduce your high GI carb, your high glycemic index carb intake, but not for the reasons most people give. Not because high GI carbs are inherently unhealthy. They're not. Or because they interfere with fat loss. They don't. Or cause fat gain. They don't. The reason is twofold. One, high GI carbs, The reason is twofold. One, high GI carbs usually, at least the high GI carbs that most people like to eat are usually highly processed, nutritionally bankrupt foods that are very easy to overeat and are also usually very dense in calories because they also usually come with a lot of added sugar as well as fats. Now, when I say high GI carb, I'm referring to carbs that are at 70 or above on the scale. Those are generally considered high GI carbs. Low GI

carbs are those that are at 55 or below on the scale. And then in between 56 to 69 are considered medium GI carbs. Another reason why is research shows that the rapid absorption of glucose that occurs when you eat a high GI carb causes various hormonal and metabolic changes that result in a desire to eat more. And of course, what you have then is foods that make it very hard to maintain a calorie deficit. Now, if you have good self-control and you know how dieting works and you want to eat a high GI treat every day, let's say it's a 100, 150 calorie treat or something like that, that's no problem. But just know that the more high GI carbs that you eat every day,

the less likely you are to lose a significant amount of weight. And that's really true whether you are counting calories or not. All right. So the next tip here is drink plenty of water because research shows that increasing water intake is a very effective way to increase fullness and help control calorie intake. For example, in one study, just drinking two glasses of water before each meal had significant effects. And I'll link an article down in the description below if you want to know more about how much water you should be drinking every day and why. But the long story short is the Institute of Medicine recommends that we drink about a gallon, three quarters to a gallon of

water a day. And we get about, most people get about 20% of that from the food they eat, which means we still have to drink a fair amount of water to reach that baseline recommended intake. And one other little thing of interest, it's not very significant, but it's interesting, is that research shows that increasing your water intake also increases your metabolism. It causes your body to burn more calories, mostly because it has to heat up the water. But that doesn't mean that drinking cold water is more effective than room temperature water. Okay, so my last tip here is very much not the least one. It's very important. It is get enough sleep. For most people, this means about seven to eight hours of

sleep per night. And the reason why this is so important in the context of weight loss is inadequate sleep causes dramatic shifts in hormones that result in less fullness and more hunger. For example, in one study, subjects who slept just five hours had 15% less leptin levels and 15% more ghrelin levels than people who slept eight hours. Now, leptin, you could think of it as the fullness hormone. When you eat food, leptin levels rise. It results in a reduction in hunger, and it tells your body that it has energy and it's fed. It doesn't need more food. Now, ghrelin, on the other hand, is the hunger hormone, so to speak. As ghrelin levels rise, hunger rises. Ghrelin tells the body to go get food. Now, what we want when we're dieting then, generally speaking, is higher leptin levels and lower ghrelin levels. If we don't sleep enough, we are going to have the reverse. We're going to have higher ghrelin levels and lower

leptin levels, which means we are generally just going to be hungrier. We are going to be less satiated by the food that we eat. We're going to feel less full from the food that we eat, and we're just going to have a much harder time of controlling our calories. And this is why research shows that children who generally don't sleep enough have an 89% increased risk of obesity. And adults who generally don't sleep enough have a 55% increased risk of obesity. So make sure you are getting enough sleep every night. Hey there, it is Mike again. I hope you enjoyed this episode and found it interesting and helpful. And if you did, and don't mind doing me a favor and want to help me make this the most popular health and fitness podcast on the internet, then please leave a quick

review of it on iTunes or wherever you're listening from. This not only convinces people that they should check the show out, it also increases its search visibility and thus helps more people find their way to me and learn how to build their best bodies ever too. And of course, if you want to be notified when the next episode goes live, then just subscribe to the podcast and you won't miss out on any of the new goodies. Lastly, if you didn't like something about the show, then definitely shoot me an email at mike at muscleforlife.com and share your thoughts on how you think it could be better. I read everything myself and I'm always looking for constructive feedback, so please do reach out.

All right, that's it. Thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon. And lastly, this episode is brought to you by me. Seriously though, I'm not big on promoting stuff that I don't personally use and believe in, So instead, I'm going to just quickly tell you about something of mine, specifically my fitness book for men, bigger, leaner, stronger. Now, this book has sold over 350,000 copies in the last several years and helped thousands and thousands of guys build their best bodies ever, which is why it currently has over 3,100 reviews on Amazon with a four and a half star average. So if you want to know the biggest lies and myths that are keeping you from achieving the lean, muscular, strong, and healthy body that you truly desire, and if you want to learn the simple science of building the ultimate male body,

simple science of building the ultimate male body, then you want to read Bigger, Leaner, Stronger, which you can find on all major online retailers like Amazon, Audible, iTunes, Kobo, and Google Play. Now, speaking of Audible, I should also mention that you can get the audiobook 100% free when you sign up for an Audible account, which I highly recommend that you do if you're not currently listening to audiobooks. I love them myself because they let me make the time that I spend doing stuff like commuting, prepping food, walking my dog, and so forth, so much more valuable and productive. So if you want to take Audible up on this offer and get my book for free, then simply go to www.bitly.com slash free BLS. And that will take you to Audible. And then you just click the sign up today and save button, create your account and voila, you get to listen to Bigger, Leaner, Stronger for free.