I am looking for help with weight loss and keeping the motivation long term. I have been successful with IF and Keto and my body responds well to it. However, it's really hard for me to keep this going long term (6+ months) and I get de-motivated when I put weight back on (which is happening now).
I feel like I have a good plan in place (OMAD, steak & greens, water) but I think I need "external" help like a motivation app or even a coaching service that can help keep me accountable for the long term. I have tried asking friends for the accountability, but I guess I have flakey friends :)
Again, I am looking beyond the standard advice, I have the basics down. But are there any coaching services or other forms of help that you guys have found to be beneficial?
I would suggest if you are having problems with adherence that you change things, IF, Keto, OMAD are almost impossible to stick to for 99 percent of people in the long term.
I have been on strict keto for a year, became shredded, however it really impacted my training performance and I got cramps a lot etc. When I just strictly adhere to calorie counting, with a more balanced high protein diet, I achieved the same results.
Also there has been quite some recent research that shows that the positive effects of fasting and keto on weight losss have been exaggerated a bit.
Especially if you do strenght training more than 3 times a week, very low carb does not work for most people.
I would suggest reading books from Layne norton, Eric helms, they are reallly good and up to date, although focused on people who do strength traing.
IMO most coached suck and or are quite expensive
There are ample studies about the benefits of intermittent fasting and how healthy it is for your body. Secondly, weight loss can be condensed into two variables: calories consumed and calories burned. If you're in a calorie deficit, you're going to lose weight.
+SB. Seconded.
I am convinced that anyone can lose weight with IF and Keto. I lost a pretty good amount of weight doing this with zero exercise (other than walking the dog). Whether you can keep it going long term is another question. But there is little to no doubt that Keto/IF is a very, very reliable way to lose weight.
Yeah especially fasting seems to have a lot of health benefits according to research.
My point is that when focused purely on weight loss, the main thing is the amount of calories you consume and burn, like you mentioned.
IF and Keto can be tools to use for health reasons or enhance weight loss in a certain context, I have done both very strictly for a year and i saw benefits. However they are a lot harder to adhere to for most people in the longer term. Therefore i think people should mostly focus on calories and secondary on these kinds of things.
Carbon diet coach, RP Diet App. Both real good self-coaching apps for nutrition. Id recommend carbon first, other second
Unfortunately, this is what happens to almost all people who lose a significant amount of weight. Most popular nutrition advice obscures this because it's too depressing and demotivating. But it's well documented in the more serious academic literature.
The brain has a built-in, subconscious weight regulation system that's very sophisticated. It upregulates and downregulates the physical feeling of hunger, psychological cravings for food, and resting metabolic rate. But in some people (for strongly genetic reasons) this built-in system gets messed up by the modern processed food environment.
For virtually all of human history, obesity wasn't a serious problem but malnutrition was. So the brain's regulation system is much more optimized to counteract weight loss than to facilitate it.
The brain measures your body fat percentage by detecting the levels of hormones that are excreted by your fat cells. When you lose a lot of weight, these hormone levels drop and your brain responds by upregulating your hunger and cravings and downregulating your metabolic rate. This isn't temporary, either. It seems to last as long as the weight deficit does. There's a serious difference between a 6'-0", 175 lb. man who used to be 275 and one who's the same height and weight but was never fat. The brain of the former fat guy still remembers the old fat hormone levels and is constantly pushing him to get back to that level, via hunger, cravings, and decreased energy expenditure.
It sucks. Probably some people will throw monkey shit at this post and tell you to JuSt UsE WiLlpoWer, MoROn. But I think it's better to have an accurate understanding of what you're up against.
You are correct. I gave you a banana but will still be that guy saying “willpower / discipline is the way”. When I first lost a lot of weight, it wasn’t because I was insanely disciplined or anything. I did it because I wanted to hook up with as many girls as possible. It worked. Then, I stopped being a whore and gained weight because I had no external motivation to stay in shape.
A bit over a year ago I decided to try and improve every day after hearing Jocko on a JRE episode. I heard him speak and was like “this dude is balls to the wall - why am I being a pussy”. Jocko talks about discipline and how “extreme ownership” is key in achieving success in life, and I have found that to be true.
As a former fat kid and a current person who is in elite shape, I know how easy it is to gain weight back. I went from fat kid to college athlete to elite shape to dad bod back to elite shape. The hardest by far was returning to elite shape. I was at a point of complacency and knew what to do to lose the weight - I just didn’t want to do it because it was hard.
"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training. It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable." - Socrates
That quote rings true. Think back to hunter gatherer times. Men had to hunt, and a fat man was a dead man. Being in shape was non-negotiable, and most people never were fat to begin with.
I was a fat kid - my whole family is fat. I had little Debbie snacks every day at lunch, and every meal needed a dessert. I started tracking what I was eating the first time I lost weight and that was key.
Anyways, I know how hard it is to be in a caloric deficit for a long time. Working a desk job makes it 100x harder, and your ever-increasing age doesn’t help either. I tend to eat the same stuff every day, but I’ve expanded my diet to include a rotation of ingredients and meals that I know are all similar in macros. Having a social life will be a detriment to physical training, but the mental benefit of going out is arguably a net positive.
It took me a few years since I began training specifically to look good naked to realize that for me, I need to train to be healthy. I stretch over 5 hours a week. I do lots of mobility work, and I train my core until I physically cramp up. Some people say to treat abs the same as any other body part, but I’ve found that I feel strongest when I destroy my core every other day.
I’ve also upped my cardio. I care a lot about my heart health now. I’ve stopped drinking alcohol except for work outings and the once a month get together with friends. I wake up and hold my breath for as long as I can with my arms as high above my head. Stand up straight and try to reach the sky while maintaining perfect posture. It’s hard, especially if you’re trying to reach as high as possible.
I’ve been rambling again, but my honest belief is that you must declare war against yourself. There is no eating unhealthy food. Unhealthiness is the enemy, and this is life or death. No matter how much you want that cookie, you must want to be healthy more. It may be beneficial to have a cheat day, but personally I do the opposite. I’ll fast every other Sunday besides water. I’m already in a caloric deficit, so this is painful, but every week I’m able to get through it. Sure, I’m dizzy on squats Monday morning, but I’m not dead yet.
My goal is to hit 170lbs at 6’2”. I started at 225 dad bod a few months ago and am currently sitting at 200. I look juicy and hydrated (muscles are full), but I bumped my calories because I wanted to train more. Tomorrow I begin my next phase of training - I’ll be eating 2200 calories or so a day. To maintain at my current weight and training regimen, I need roughly 3800 a day. The weight will drop fast - I’m doing this for a month and then evaluating. I know I will feel like death, but I’m committed to this.
Last advice I have is to cook everything you eat if you can. Use only natural ingredients for the large meals - protein bars and such are perfectly fine, but ideally you want the majority of your food to come from actual food. Try and get a meal plan that fits your macros. I have a smoothie with fruit that varies, protein bar, and protein shake every day. My main meal ranges from beans or chickpea pasta with meat and veggies every day. It’s nice being able to switch it up.
I’ve never used a coach, but I’ve never competed in bodybuilding. I’ve never used steroids. I’ve trained hardcore since 2018 and feel that I have a great understanding of my body and how to tear it down to build it back.
Don’t be afraid to switch up training - sometimes on back day I’ll just pick up a DB and row for an hour. A month ago I warned up then did kroc rows starting at 90lbs for AMRAP. Did that all the way until I got down to the 20lb with 60 seconds rest after the alternate arm. Surprisingly, my core was the most sore the next day. I rarely get sore, but when I do it’s because I did a new variation. It reminds me I am not invincible. Some podcast or interview had a SEAL on and he was asked what weaknesses he had during his career. He said he had none, but there were areas he was better at than others. His response was that he could not afford to have any weaknesses as that would put the lives of his fellow soldiers at risk. Being weak was unacceptable - the minimum standard was strong. Of course this is next level, but it’s something that really hit me. If you have a weakness, do not accept it. Declare war on that weakness until it ceases to exist.
Doing all the above is not easy, but life is not easy. This response is both to the OP and the comment I am replying to.
I gave you an SB too and congratulate you on your impressive success. I hope that continues on into the future. That said, let me push back a little on certain things you said.
Regarding "willpower / discipline is the way": the question is...the way to what?. Is it the way to achieve an elite level of fitness for an extended period of time? Yeah, definitely. Is it the way for someone to lose 70 pounds at age 30 and then maintain that weight loss for the next 30 years? That's a tougher sell. I just don't think the empirical evidence supports that. There are exceptions who achieve that, but remarkably few of them. Without trying to be a dick, I note that the long-term weight cycling you describe fits the classic yo-yo pattern that I'm familiar with and that is the norm.
I agree that hunter gatherers have to work hard and that they were/are rarely overweight. But, as I understand it, they aren't usually at the very edge of starvation nor do they exert massive, continuous willpower to maintain low body fatness. They generally have more calories available to them than they actually consume. The real difference between them and modern Americans is that they live in an environment free of the ultra-processed addictive foods that surround us.
In premodern environments free of processed foods, the brain's natural, subconscious weight regulation mechanism actually functions properly. People only eat as much as they need to maintain a healthy weight, and doing so doesn't require constant white-knuckle discipline. The kind of discipline you describe is admirable, but it should be thought of as a kind of hack that partially and temporarily offsets a toxic food environment rather than a natural, normal thing. What's actually natural is for a person to subconsciously regulate their body fatness as easily as they subconsciously regulate their body temperature and blood oxygen level.
I'm motivated to post comments like this not because I want to discourage people but because I think that the obesity epidemic is a massive problem, but that it's not going to be solved until people have an accurate mental model of why it's occurring. And there continues to be a big gap between the best scientific understanding of the issue and the average person's understanding (not addressed to you personally).
great read
It's possible that the pharmaceutical industry may actually make a serious dent in the obesity epidemic. Until now, weight loss drugs have been pretty mediocre, with limited effectiveness and significant side effects. But there's a new class of medications called GLP-1 receptor agonists that seem to be much more effective than anything that's been developed so far. The most noteworthy one is called semaglutide, and the FDA approved it for weight loss last year under the trade name Wegovy. There are others in the pipeline. It's too early to tell for sure, but the clinical trial data is very impressive and specialist doctors who've been prescribing it have been giving it great reviews.
The true solution would be to change the food environment by severely regulating the processed/fast food industry, similar to the effective approach used on the tobacco industry. But that would require a massive political and cultural shift that isn't in the cards at this point.
An optimistic take is that these new drugs could do for obesity what statins have done for cholesterol. High cholesterol, like obesity, has its roots in diet and lifestyle factors. But tons of boomers who would have dropped dead of heart attacks in the 1970s now take their statins and live on as normal.
I have looked into those drugs and they certainly sound promising. However, yesterday I did a deep dive into Wegovy, which is supposed to be one of those GLP-1 drugs. The problem is that the long term effects are not known and potentially very harmful. If you look at their disclaimers closely, they know that it also caused a high number of thyroid cancer cases in mice. It's a bold disclaimer like 3 times in their documentation. More power to someone who wants to use it, do what you need to do, but thyroid cancer is not something I'm interested in.
Definitely worth weighing all the risks, but keep in mind that obesity is itself a significant risk factor for a lot of health problems, including cancer. Also, Wegovy is just the brand name they chose when it was approved for weight loss last year. The actual drug (semaglutide) has been out for maybe five years under the name Ozempic.
I'm not pushing semaglutide too hard; it's reasonable to watch for a while to see how it works over a longer timeframe. My main point was that there are a bunch of these coming out now. Several that are well along in clinical trials seem to be even better than semaglutide. So the range of options and prognosis for obesity could look a lot different in five years than it does now.
To add, your friends may be flakey, but you are flaking yourself. Also, you don’t have the basics down. Burn more calories than consumed = lose weight. Continuing this is the most basic. I know this sounds dickish but just want to provide you an extremely blunt analysis.
Of course, gotta relate it back to extreme ownership. Sure, friends can help be motivating factors. Life is hard - it helps having people who want you to succeed and push you towards achieving goals, but look for this after/as you work to establish your inner self.
Have you considered developing a meth habit?
Well, some of the "weight loss clinics" in my area are basically exactly that - lol! I guess they're all big on epinephrine (sp?) and if you read up on it, it's basically low level meth. I have no interest in doing that.
You could just go get an Adderall prescription
Edit: sorry didn’t see the part that you were looking for deeper advice than the basic, keeping comment up in case it can help someone else
Too many over complicate losing weight especially if you are doing popular type of diets (keto etc). Find your maintenance calorie needs (will take a little bit of trial and error) and create a small deficit (200-300) calories either through cardio (20 min incline walk at max incline is golden for me) or by eating a bit less. Make sure to consume ~1g per body weight. I love eating so my go to has always been adding 20 min incline cardio after my workouts.The next thing I focus on is just cooking everything I consume and focusing on macro friendly recipes that have a lot of volume to keep me full. I follow some accounts in ig that have great recipes with good macros that help me make my diet less boring (_aussiefitness, jalalsamfit, zack.chug, counting_zacros). Most of the time I keep it boring though because I don't mind eating the same thing and I love chicken and rice/oatmeal but whenever I want to switch it up those accounts have been super helpful.The main challenge of losing weight and keeping it off is finding something that won't make you miserable and allow you to be flexible for special occasions or the occasional drinks with friends without derailing you from your diet. My body has reacted very well to my flexible approach and I don't feel miserable whenever I'm cutting because all I'm doing is adding a 20 min incline walking session to my workout to create that calorie deficit.
I used an online trainer for ~6 months. He gave me calories/macros targets for rest and training days, workouts for the week (workout 4 days a week), and I gave him weekly updates over email (was available for phone/zoom if the client prefers). I got the best results I have ever had. I have a ton of training experience in my life and have studied and tried many diets. But not thinking or second guessing what I am doing every week was way easier to follow. Also, paying someone a few hundred a month and giving him weekly updates was a strong accountability mechanism for me.
This is very much along the lines of what I'm looking for. I don't necessarily need the macros, but I do need the daily calls and accountability - and even the punishment of losing money - to help me along.
How did you go about finding the coach? Was it a service of some kind? I don't want to commit to some long-term plan and find out the guy is an idiot.
If you want the specific person, feel free to DM.
I used to listen to a bunch of random podcasts, and he popped up a couple times on them. Had a very straight forward approach (caloric deficit and resistance training) that was geared toward the average person.
Avatar Nutrition app
That one seems interesting. Do you have to reach out to them for coaching or do they ping you and keep you accountable?
Both work. I have used it since 2017 so I am relatively accountable on my own. There’s levels of ‘accountability’. You can turn notifications on and allow it to ping you to weigh in, etc. There’s also coaching with chat and email support.
The accountability comes from repetition with this. The more you use it and the more times you scan a barcode to get the nutrition facts added, the more odd you feel when you DONT do it. It will become part of your routine. I’ve lost 20 pounds on it previously, gained back 20 of majority muscle through bulking, and am now dieting again to get some body fat loss. You can PM me if you have any questions too. For an app similar but much more rigid in terms of flexibility, the RP Diet app is good too.
I might look into this. I've been lifting for 3 years but I still appear to have a body that normal people would have, in spite of watching my diet and working out consistently. Is there any other online coach that anyone would recommend?
Not to monopolize this thread but pairing Avatar Nutrition or RP Diet for nutrition, and Hypertrophy Coach app for lifting is hard to beat imo
Kinda joking but also not really. Have a buddy call you fat consistently or go through a breakup. Really the only time I've seen people from fat to fit.
Revenge is a hell of a motivator
I'm not sure I'm looking to have anyone call me fat, but not too far from it either. Again, I got the diet stuff down, but a coach that calls me an keeps me accountable to the right choices and workouts each day? That's a service I'd pay for.
I'd say you're thinking about it wrong, because motivation and long-term are the same thing. Motivation is short-term; discipline is long term. What you're looking for is discipline; and no one can make you disciplined but yourself.
It seems like you're basically trying to offshore that discipline to someone else or some program. Do you want your friends to follow you around and tell you want you can and can't eat? If you guys all go out to eat together, you yourself know what you should and should not order, do you want your friends to tell you not to order something? Do that yourself. Same with a "coach", I don't think checking in the morning will make you stop eating bad the day/night before, because you don't have the discipline yourself.
You know yourself, what's your biggest hurdle right now; meaning, what do you need help with. You said you're putting weight back on, why is that? Too much snacking? Bad meal choices? Too much food? In my head, if you want this to be your long term, you can't look at it as a diet, has to be more of a way of life. That's where people get into trouble, they're basically holding their breath and then realize they can't hold their breath forever.
My advice would be to learn more about nutrition, how many calories in a gram of protein/fat/carb; how much protein do I need, what are "good" meal choices and what are not.
I see ads for Noom all of the time and I'm a sucker for advertising.
both parents went through massive weight loss, one relapsed, the other has kept it off
relapse - focused on diet and tactics
kept it off - systems. focused on creating a routine that he enjoyed following so even after the initial weight loss, it was easy to maintain
sorry I didn't give you what you want, I just don't believe much in tips or tricks, I believe in systems, which are harder to create and take more time, but ultimately more reliable
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