You Can't Outrun Your Fork

Trying to outwork your diet is a fool’s game, so take control of your mass changes by gathering the necessary data and keeping tracking of your intake. #socialmedia

I lost 100lbs.

But I wasted a lot of time trying to lose that weight with just exercise.

When I finally started tracking my calories, the weight loss happened at a much faster rate.

As a bonus, I was also able to use this calorie control to gain muscle later on.

Despite what others want you to believe, a caloric deficit is key to reducing your weight.

It’s also key in increasing your weight (muscle, for example).

Trying to outwork your bad eating habits is an unnecessarily difficult task.

Think about it this way:

Imagine you have a bucket with a hole in its side.

If the water you put in goes over that point of the bucket, it’ll leak out of the hole.

An “outworker” will just put as much water into the bucket as they want because they can just clean up the spills with paper towels.

Now, they end up spending a lot of time and a lot of paper towels doing this, just to barely keep up, but they can totally deal with the excess water this way… right?

What I’m proposing instead is that you figure out:

• Where your bucket hole is

• How much water you’re putting in at a time

That’d be a lot easier than constantly cleaning up the mess wouldn’t it?

That being said, training does help with the overall process of getting into better shape, so definitely do that.

(P.S. If you want to make fitness into a flexible habit and save time, check out this course I made, and not just because I’m biased.)

But what’s the big deal if you don’t track your calories?

You will:

• Waste a lot of your time.

• Harm your overall progress because you’ll be unaware of what you’re putting into your body.

• Make the process of losing weight tougher and longer than it needs to be. Even the simplest of tasks can become difficult when using the wrong method.

What’s in it for you if you choose to become a nerd about your food?

You can:

• Have control over your mass (whether you want to decrease it or increase it) and the speed of its change.

• Take out the guesswork and reduce the anxiety of the weight loss process.

😈 DEVIL’S ADVOCACY 😈

In my time as a personal trainer, I’ve had many people explain to me how their body and habits are so special that they don’t need to concern themselves with the laws of thermodynamics.

Here’s some of the most common bullshit I’ve heard:

• “I don’t eat that much!” (If you aren’t aware of how much you’re eating via some form of tracking, how could you possibly know that?)

• “I just need to work out more.” (Your calorie budget already takes your exercise into account, so that’s not necessary. It’s actually true that you can exercise enough to lose a bunch of weight, but it would require an unsustainable amount. It’s a lot easier to just regulate what goes into your mouth to begin with.)

• “I can tell how much I’m eating.” (I put this to the test by asking them how many calories were in certain foods, and their answers were way off the mark. You’re not that good at guessing. Trust the math instead. It’s never wrong.)

ACTION STEPS:

1. Weigh yourself.

2. Gauge your activity level.

3. (Optionally, watch the rest of these steps in video form.)

4. Put this information into a calorie calculator.

5. Choose your intended pace of loss/gain to determine your deficit/surplus.

6. Get a dedicated tracking app/method to track everything you eat.

7. Stay under/over your your intended range.

8. Since you did the math, you can anticipate how long it’ll take.

9. Keep it up till then.

10. Rejoice!

Okay, bye!