Category: Nutrition

There are a lot of misconceptions about what it takes to lose weight or get in better shape.

Many people think they have to completely overhaul their current lifestyle to see results. This is what drives people to attempt to train hard every single day, or to go all-in on the latest fad diet.

If you’ve ever taken this approach, you know it doesn’t last for long. If you try to do too much exercise too soon, you get incredibly sore and fatigued. When you do inevitably miss a workout, you feel like a failure or weakling. Sometimes that’s all it takes for you to give up on yourself and stop coming to the gym altogether.

It’s also nearly impossible to change your eating habits in one fell swoop. You’ve likely been eating the same way for years – even decades. You have your go-to meals, you buy the same things at the grocery store, you reach for the same treats when you’re stressed out, and you frequent a regular rotation of restaurants.

For most people, these choices are largely automatic and deeply ingrained. It takes a lot of effort and attention to interrupt problematic behaviors and replace them with new, healthier habits.

Losing weight is simple, but it’s not easy (anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to sell you something or has never been overweight themselves). Why on earth would you make this process even harder by trying to change everything at once?

I’m happy to report that you don’t have to change everything you’re doing right away – or ever. Instead, I recommend you start by fixing the obvious leaks.

Just about everyone has one or two food habits that are obviously not ideal. Some of the most common ones I see: 

• Drinking pop or other high calorie beverages. This includes excessive alcohol consumption.
• Way too much snacking
• Bites, licks, and tastes
• Finishing your kids’ food
• Drinking shakes after your workout
• Regularly eating fast food
• Dessert every day
• Distracted, mindless eating (eg. not realizing you ate an entire bag of chips while watching tv)
• Eating peanut butter by the spoonful

Ask yourself, do I have any habits that are obviously not helping me achieve my goals?

Is there one that I am ready, willing, and able to tackle right now?

Pick just one leak to plug and focus all your attention on it for at least a week. Once that time has passed, evaluate your compliance and progress and see if you need more practice or want to add something else.

Does this approach really work?

When I work with clients, I use the concept of the minimum effective dose.

What is the least amount of stimulus or the smallest change we can make and still see results?

I’ve found it really doesn’t take much to get the weight loss train moving in the right direction. This is because plugging these leaks can remove a substantial amount of calories from your week, calories you probably didn’t realize were racking up in a big way.

Taking this “less is more” approach also makes change a lot more manageable. You don’t have to bend over backwards building something from scratch. You’re more likely to actually do the things you said you would, and sustain them without burning out.

The psychological benefits of this cannot be overstated. Instead of feeling overwhelmed, or like you’re a failure, you feel good about your efforts. Your confidence in your ability to change grows, and you’re better prepared to potentially make bigger changes in the future.

If you want to lose weight or get in better shape, you absolutely do not need to change your entire diet or build all-new habits. Instead, look for the leaks – those small habits that are costing you a lot of calories – and focus on fixing those first.

Want some help simplifying the fat loss process? You can apply for my online coaching program here.

One of the most pervasive ideas in the nutrition world is that carbs are bad for you, especially if you want to lose weight or change your body composition.

As a lifelong carb lover who has lost a lot of weight personally and coached clients to similar success, I’m happy to tell you that this claim is false.

You read that correctly – you can eat carbs and still lose weight and feel great.

In fact, many people may experience more success with their fat loss efforts and feel a lot better throughout the day if they increase their consumption of carbs.

How can this be true?

Keep reading below, where I bust four myths associated with the demonization of carbs.

Myth #1: Carbs make you gain weight.

Countless diet gurus have fed the public misinformation about the role of carbs in the body. This has led to the widespread belief that carbs are inherently fattening in a way that other foods are not.

Here’s the truth: we gain weight because we eat more calories than our bodies need. This happens because we live in an obesogenic environment where high calorie, hyper-palatable foods are everywhere we look. It’s incredibly easy to eat these foods, and it requires effort to resist them or make changes to long-standing dietary habits.

High carb foods are a part of this equation (more on this below), but they don’t tell the full story. In the end, it doesn’t matter if extra calories come from carbs, fat, protein, or alcohol – they will all cause you to gain weight if you consistently exceed what your body needs and uses.

There is no special property of carbs that makes them more likely to be stored as fat or more likely to cause weight gain.

Myth #2: Junk food = carbs

When I ask you to visualize junk foods, or foods you know you shouldn’t eat all the time if you want to lose weight, you probably think of things like ice cream, cookies, donuts, cake, pastries, chips, french fries, and candy bars.

It’s true that these foods contain lots of carbs, especially compared to other food sources like fruits, vegetables, and even starches.

However, if you take a close look at the overall makeup of these foods, you’ll notice that they also contain a lot of fat. Many of them actually get a much higher percentage of overall calories from far than they do from carbs.

From this perspective, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to think of these foods as carbs.

Foods like these are designed to be as delicious and easy to eat as possible. There are food scientists working in a lab right now to determine the perfect proportion of sugar (carbs), fat, salt, and consistency (creamy, crunchy, etc.) to achieve this goal.

Your inability to stop eating these foods has a lot more to do with the interplay of these factors than it does with their carb content.

Myth #3: You can look, feel, and perform your best without carbs.

My response to this myth is a little more nuanced because it does contain a grain of truth.

The human body can technically survive without carbs, as we posses internal mechanisms to convert protein and fats to energy if we enter a prolonged period of carb reduction. This was essential to our survival back when food was a lot more scarce.

However, just because our bodies can work this magic doesn’t mean it’s easy to do so.

Carbs are the preferred source of fuel for your brain, which explains why many people feel tired, sluggish, and cranky when they cut carbs.

Carbs are also the ideal fuel for your workouts, especially if you want to build muscle or look more toned as you lose weight. If you’re an active person who removes most carbs from your diets, your performance is likely to suffer.

Side note – the reason why some people who cut carbs drop a lot of weight really quickly is because they use up all the carbs stored in their muscles, which are paired with a lot of water. It’s not actually body fat.

If you have no energy, your workouts suck, and you hate the way you eat, how likely are you to stick with your low carb eating plan?

For most stressed out millennials, the answer is “not very.”  These people would do better to add more carbs back into their diet so they don’t feel like shit all the time.

There is definitely individual variance here. Some bodies do naturally burn fat easier than carbs. You probably already know if this is you, because you’ve likely felt better when you stopped eating as many carbs and started eating more fats.

But there are many people – probably a majority – who really do need to eat carbs if they want to feel good, perform well, and stick with a long-term nutrition plan. This is especially true for women, because carbs are more involved with our hormonal health than men.

Ultimately, you need to experiment to determine if you do better with high carb/low fat or low carb/high fat. Pay attention to energy levels, mood, cravings, workout performance, and of course, progress toward your big-picture goals.

Read more: My Thoughts on the Keto Diet

Myth #4: You have to cut carbs if you want to lose weight. 

As mentioned above, carbs by themselves will not make you gain weight. Therefore, you don’t necessarily have to remove them from your diet if you want to build a leaner body.

I believe the most important thing to do if you want to lose weight and keep it off is to build sustainable habits. It’s not about getting to the goal as fast as possible – it’s about learning to eat in a way that you can see yourself repeating forever. You will need to eat fewer calories while you’re dieting than you will when you’re maintaining, but the basic principles of your nutrition should be more or less the same.

What does this have to do with carbs?

It’s important to eat in a way that gives you energy, minimizes hunger and cravings, supports your activity levels, and is aligned with your bigger values around food.

Our discussion of Myth #3 showed us that many people will benefit from eating more carbs. If these people want to lose weight, they should consider cutting calories from fat as much as possible.

This can also be a more satisfying approach because you’ll be able to eat a higher volume of food (fats contain more than twice as many calories per gram than carbs).

It doesn’t matter where the calories come from: if you are in a deficit for a sustained period of time, you will lose weight. Cut your calories from somewhere else if you love carbs.  I hope this clears up some confusion about the role of carbs in a healthy diet or fat loss plan. Carbs can (and often should) be a part of your daily intake.

Read More: What Really Matters For Fat Loss

Are you struggling to lose weight and keep it off despite your best efforts? Join me in a free webinar to learn how to avoid the common dieting mistakes that are standing in your way.