Welcome to Wellness Wednesday where in-house nutrition coach, Coach Diana Leigh, answers YOUR questions about health.
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Let’s jump into it!
Q: What are the best methods for staying on track when losing or gaining pounds?
A: I’ve got a few topics I’d love to touch upon for this question, so I’m just going to get right to it.
Set realistic expectations
Understand what is possible from a weight loss and weight gain perspective so you can keep yourself in check.
For men, if you adhere to a strict and rigid diet, it can be possible to achieve 2-3lb weight loss weekly. With some flexibility in your diet, it’s realistic to achieve a 1-2lb loss weekly. For beginners working on rounding out their overall eating habits, it’s more realistic to achieve 1lb or less of weight loss weekly.
For women, if you adhere to a strict and rigid diet, it can be possible to achieve 1.5-2.5lb weight loss weekly. With some flexibility in your diet, it’s realistic to achieve a 0.5-1.5lb loss weekly. For beginners working on rounding out their overall eating habits, it’s more realistic to achieve 1lb or less of weight loss weekly.
For weight gain, it varies by experience level, and believe it or not the more experienced you are in the gym the harder it is to put on mass. Beginners can put on 1-2lbs of mass weekly, while advanced exercisers may only see less than 1lb of mass increase each week.
Choose the right strategy
That strict and rigid diet is tempting for the higher reward, but is unrealistic for most individuals. These two goals take TIME, so it’s important you choose something that you can do consistently over a long period of time.
This is ultimately why the classic diet doesn’t work – it requires a level of perfection to be maintained over long periods of time and eventually people lose steam and fall off. Even if they do reach their goal, they don’t maintain the habits and gain the weight back or lose the mass. My recommendation is to use a method that not only involves how much you eat but also what you eat and creates long-term sustainable habits you can do for the rest of your life.
Stop doing cheat DAYS
Especially if you’re in a caloric deficit for weight loss, cheat days will result in a caloric surplus for the week which then tilts the scale back into the wrong direction. If anything, you can use a cheat meal.
What I work on with my clients is using their nutrition knowledge from our work together to make good decisions even when they’re eating outside of their plan. Maybe you go out to dinner and opt to get a side salad with your burger. Or even if you opt to get the fries on the side, you eat slowly and mindfully and to fullness. This empowers them to make better decisions more consistently rather than binging on a cheat meal and destroying their progress.
Stop tracking only your weight on the scale
When tracking metrics, too many people focus only on the scale for results. The scale only tells a very small part of the story and can sometimes end up decreasing your motivation if you’re not seeing the numbers move.
Why might the scale not move?
- High stress increases cortisol levels which can lead to the body holding more weight
- High sodium intake can affect how much water your body holds, which increases your overall weight. Muscle soreness has the same effect.
- Daily fluctuations are normal
- For women, hormones can affect how much you weigh on any given point in your cycle
- You’re losing fat while gaining muscle, causing the scale to not move much but body composition changes to be more noticeable
Some other metrics I recommend my clients track include:
- Daily energy levels and/or energy levels at the gym
- Body composition through pictures (taken once a month)
- How your clothes fit
- How you feel in your body
- Quality of sleep
- Bowel movements
I’d recommend picking 2-3 metrics to track as well as tracking your daily wins. Writing down daily wins can help you see progress in your habits even if the scale isn’t moving.
Get accountability and support
People tend to be more successful when they enlist accountability and support from others.
Many of you don’t know this, but I used to be a smoker. I quit by joining a coaching cessation program. It required me to do a check-in with the doctor weekly to get my weekly allotment of nicotine patches. What really helped me quit though was I told all of my close friends that I was serious about quitting. When I craved a cigarette, my social circle stepped in and helped me turn it down.
In your health journey, it can help to have people support you in the journey. When you want to quit on your journey (it’s bound to happen at least once), it can be helpful to have someone on your team encourage you to stick with it. Working with a coach can also help. What I do for my clients is provide them strategies to help them overcome the obstacles they face along their journey. I help keep them on track with expert guidance and habit building techniques that ensure their long-term success.
IN SUMMARY
When you begin a journey to change your body in some manner, understand you have a long road ahead. You need to find a method that is truly doable for you over a long period of time. If you’re resorting to quick fixes and restrictive diets, you’re destined to fail. If you enlist realistic expectations, focus on changing your overall habits and nutrition, and enlist the support of others you can succeed.
Coach Diana Leigh is a Precision Nutrition certified coach who uses habit-based coaching to help her clients get stronger and feel amazing in their bodies without the restriction and overwhelm of dieting. For more helpful tips, follow her on Instagram @coachdianaleigh.
Want to work with Coach Diana Leigh? Fill out her application here.