Long-term Weight Loss is A Skill to be Learned

You have been dieting long enough that you know ‘secrets’ to losing weight, but you still feel there’s no reward for the years of grind you’ve done? Yoyoing up and down because potato chips are finger-licking delicious and the oh-so-comfortable sofa doesn’t let you go? You keep falling for the bad options when craving for some sweet short-term pleasure. Losing tens of kilos just to gain it and then some for multiple times.

What if I told you can achieve your dream physique without thinking about it? Not to say you could eat your favorite cravings and still maintain the progress towards the six pack abs. Reaching your elite body would be a piece of cake (literally!).

A realization I had in 2016

Here’s the mindset shift I personally had in 2016 after losing motivation multiple times. I realized that I should consider weight control as a skill that I lacked but I could learn. I just needed to grind the EXP for it, because earlier I had just eaten whatever I felt like.

First, I started counting everything with a kitchen scale and put to MyFitnessPal with its barcode scanner. Initially I didn’t care about macros, just the calorie content, but a bit later I learned to calculate my day’s calorie consumption from the macronutrient labels. With an Internet macro calculator, I calculated what my daily goals should be and then aimed to be within 10% of those targets every day. In addition to measuring food, I started measuring my weight and waist every day in similar conditions i.e. in the morning after waking up and after a toilet visit.

Sub-skills of weight control to grind EXP with

So, how do these relate to the mindset shift and EXP grind for weight control? They are all actions that I needed to take and got me better at the skill of weight control by teaching me multiple sub-skills needed.

First sub-skill: Measure the food you’re eating

With the first sub-skill of measuring foods, I gained understanding how much calories and what macros different foods consist of. When I started, my guesses on weight thus macros were often off by 2-5x, which underlined to me why I had maintained the 120kg weight for a long time. Specifically, some foods like yogurt, chicken and potato surprised me positively, while others like pasta, salmon and eggs negatively. After years of measuring foods, now I can somewhat accurately estimate how much something weighs and guess the approximate calorie content of it.

Second sub-skill: Keep your targets as closely as possible

Keeping to a daily macro target, the second sub-skill, teaches you what you can and can’t eat in a day. Initially, aim to hit within 10% of your targets every day and when that feels easy, challenge yourself to be within 5% daily. To be within those ranges, you learn prioritisation of foods you want to eat, especially if you want to something specific. If you like a certain recipe, then you learn to tweak it so you can eat more of it in a day. For example, I love typical Finnish macaroni casserole which predominantly is made with macaroni, minced meat, onions, and eggs. However, the recipe isn’t that high in protein while high in carbs and fat. To achieve similar taste with better macros, I’ve substituted part of macaroni with more veggies and mushrooms, minced beef with minced chicken and eggs with egg whites. These substitutions allow me to eat two portions of my favorite without skimping on my favorite foods that I crave.

Talking about cravings, prioritising specific food into a day and then being creative with other parts allows you to have your cake and eat it too. I personally can’t live without pizza and chocolate, so I’ve spent many hours fitting them to a daily intake in moderate amounts without sacrificing the protein intake or going over the daily fat macro target. To do it, first add that to your day’s foods and then play Tetris with other foods to stay within the 10% of your daily macro targets. Anything goes when eaten in moderation and as long as it fits your macros!

Third sub-skill: Understanding your body through daily weight and waist measurements

Third sub-skill, measuring weight and waist, helps observe how your body weight fluctuates in response to different life situations and actually how much it actually fluctuates over a week. From personal experience, your body weight between different days can vary by as much as ±2kg due to e.g. water retention after eating salty foods, food content in your stomach, water in your bladder, dehydration due to sweating or alcohol. You learn that the fluctuations are normal and what matters is the trend over multiple weeks.

The sub-skills take time and mistakes, like every other skill

These sub-skills of measuring macros of foods and weight consistently, keeping to the macro targets, and being creative to fit your cravings compound into your dream physique over time. Of course, you will fail on some days with any of these, but remember that you are learning skills to last a lifetime. You can’t learn to play a piano, speak a language or drive a car without mistakes and failures, so keep at it and get slightly better every day.