How Do You *ACTUALLY* Achieve Your Body Composition Goals?
See how the changes you're looking for translate into real life shifts!
Hello, Friend! Happy Tuesday!
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Before we dive into any real logistics about body composition change, I want to issue a reminder that REAL and sustainable results can take time.
And that's okay! "Slower" results typically lead to more long-lasting and permanent results compared with faster crash-diet-type-results.
But how long are we actually talking about?? Let's put some real-life examples to this conversation:
If you lost an average of .25 pounds a week for a year, that is 13 pounds lost! Some people might look at .25 pounds as insignificant, or even as unsuccessful. But being 13 pounds down is SIGNIFICANT and potentially life-changing.
If you lost an average of .5 pounds per week for a year, that’s 26 pounds lost!
If you lost an average of 1 pound per week for a year, that’s FIFTY-TWO POUNDS lost!
Anyone out there willing to tell me that results like that aren't "good enough"? (This is not a rhetorical question! Email me back if you disagree; I want to hear your perspectives!)
Anyway, what’s the message here??
You may NOT lose weight every week, which is why I said averages above. But, if you’re consistently trending in the direction you’re trying to go, you could be down 13-52 pounds in one year! (Certainly as appropriate based on where you’re starting from.) That’s HUGE!
Understanding that weight loss (or gain, if that's your goal!) is a journey is important, and not something that will magically happen all of a sudden.
Understanding that any number of things can impact changes in your weight day-to-day is also critical. It’s important to know that those daily fluctuations are normal and that’s why we look for trends over time!
Here’s what you can do to help ourselves embrace this mentality and enjoy the journey:
Set reasonable goals that are important to you.
Commit to the process. Understand the timeline and have reasonable expectations.
Keep track of data relevant to what you care about. Yes, the scale can be a piece of that, but you should absolutely include other data points too (photos, sleep quality, energy levels, how your clothes fit, etc.).
Work on looking at weight simply as a data point, and not something that reflects your worth!
And while we’re at it with the reminders, here are a few more:
There is no magic pill. If that fat-dissolving-pill you see advertised on Facebook really worked (and didn’t negatively impact your health) WE’D KNOW.
With any goal you set, nutrition-related or not, make sure it’s something you’re excited about and actually willing to work at for an extended period of time.
Decide on your plan to work towards the goal and DO IT. Make sure that plan feels approachable and sustainable and like something you could do for a LONG time. And maybe consider creating some “dials” for you to use to turn up your effort when you have the capacity to do so, and also turn down your effort when needed. Aim to not stop moving forward completely unless absolutely necessary.
Avoid the temptation of quick fixes. You and the habits you’re creating are better off without them.
Remember, if you’re strength training, which I HIGHLY recommend, remember that that might cause you to technically weight more due to muscle mass gains, even if you’re leaner. It’s not ALL about the scale.
Get support if you need it. I’m here for you if you want to talk about your nutrition and body composition goals! This is exactly the kind of process I work with people to achieve their goals! Reply to this email with the word GOALS today and we'll talk!
So now, let’s translate some of this into “real life” examples and equate the changes to food/calories, so that she, and others, could benefit from a clearer understanding of what that actually means.
As you may already know, gaining or losing weight is a result of caloric intake vs. output, commonly known as Calories In/Calories Out (or CICO). (Yes, there may be other factors at play like hormones, experiences with weight loss, medical conditions, etc… but again, we’re generalizing and for most, this is a good place to start.) If we lose weight, taking in fewer calories than we’re putting out. If we gain weight, we’re taking in more calories than we’re putting out.
Before we dive in, I want to clearly state that this is an oversimplified way to look at a caloric deficit as there are SO MANY factors that can impact how many calories one person needs, how they burn them, and how that might change over time based on changes in body composition, BUT this can be a decent stating point for us to think about.
The conventional belief is that a pound equates to about 3500 calories.
So, if it were that simple, we could say that by decreasing our intake by 500 calories per day we'd lose a pound a week. By decreasing intake by 250 calories per day we'd lose .5 pounds per week. And by decreasing our intake by 125 calories per day we'd lose .25 pounds per week.
In real life, those 125 calories could mean skipping your daily serving of Oreos (160 calories for 3), removing the white bread from your sandwich (130 calories), or skipping your daily Coke (187 calories).
And, if that .25 pound weight loss is your goal, those are tremendous places to start! (If you don't include those exact foods in your food plan, you can consider where you are consuming calorically dense food products, and see where you might be able to decrease portion sizes by about 125 calories. This can also come from many different food sources per day.)
If you're open to looking more at specific caloric data, what you would do is keep track of what you are currently eating every day for ~2 weeks. Use an app to make it easy on yourself. Be as honest as possible. After those 2 weeks, do the math to figure out the average of your caloric intake for those 2 weeks, then subtract somewhere between 125-500 calories per day, based on your goals and also how much weight you have to lose, and make that your new caloric target!
For example, let's say you track your food for 2 weeks, do the math and figure out that your average intake is 2250. You want to lose .5 pounds per week so you subtract 250 calories, making your new daily intake target 2000 calories.
Here's where the "if it were that simple" pieces come into play. As I said, this idea is a decent starting point, BUT, we have to see what actually happens when you put those pieces into action to decide if it's appropriate for us. Because: all of us have different metabolic histories, different starting points as far as muscle and fat mass goes, different energy outputs each day, different sleep schedules, different balance of macronutrients each day, etc. And all of those elements matter when it comes to how what we eat ACTUALLY impacts us.
To that point, if you subtract those 250 calories and you end up losing 1 pound per week, that might be too much of a deficit for you!
We want to work in averages over the course of weeks or months because there are days where weight might drop or increase 1+ pounds… this does not necessarily mean that you’ve gained or lost a pound of body fat in one day. It could, however, mean that you lost water weight, or are holding onto extra weight, need to use the bathroom, did an extra challenging workout the day before, didn’t sleep as well, etc. I’d also be willing to guess that you didn’t decrease ~3500 calories from your intake or through your movement in one day. Let’s have some perspective on this too! These kinds of shifts are normalllll.
One more thing here… as we lose or gain weight, our metabolic needs shift, because there is more or less of us to support. So, this math WILL shift over time based on your new physical needs, your new activity level, weight, muscle mass percentage, balance across macronutrients, etc.
In other words, we can't just assume that removing those Oreos or those 125 calories per day will equate to .25 pounds weight loss per week indefinitely.
So, while it's a decent starting point for figuring out needs and adjustments, the actuality of what we see is really what matters most and can help us make further adjustments and decisions about our food plans over time.
With this all being said, in order to see changes over time, consistency with your efforts remains the MOST critical piece of the equation. Make sure whatever efforts you put in place for yourself are sustainable and that you're checking in with the equivalent data to support your efforts and make decisions.
In closing, I’m saying this once more: These perspectives are simplified generalizations and potential places to start. They are not recommendations or prescriptions of any kind.
As I believe I exemplified here, this stuff can be tricky and confusing, which is why having a coach who can help guide you, strategize with you, and support you can be helpful! If you're interested in learning more about what that would be like for you and your goals, I'd love to have a conversation with you; use this link to schedule a call to speak further!
As always, thank you for reading! If someone you know could benefit from reading this, please share! If you’re not already subscribed, click that button too!
xoxo,
Sara