This is my favorite tool for controlling weight loss

One of the main problems I had with diets was figuring out WHY I could only eat baked chicken breasts, sweet potatoes and broccoli. It’s easy to see that’s a pretty boring diet. There was no way I could sustain eating that everyday but I needed another system if I wanted to make a change. It took me years to figure out the simple truth to weight gain or weight loss.
Calories
That’s it. Knowing the number of calories eaten and a simple math equation is what makes all the difference in the body. If I ate a little more calories than my body needed and hit the weights aggressively then that would cause me to gain weight, hopefully mostly in the form of muscle and not fat. If I ate less than what my body needed then I would lose weight.
Maintenance calories is the number of calories our bodies need to well, maintain. To not lose weight or gain weight then eating around maintenance calories is all we have to do.There are multiple formulas and approaches available to get a general idea of your maintenance calories but I won’t go into detail about that in this article. Once figuring out my maintenance calories I was able to get some direction on my weight goals.
Lose weight with flavor
Unless you have a medical condition that causes weight gain then you could technically eat what you want and still lose weight. Of course, this isn’t the best idea for general health purposes but strictly speaking about weight loss then it’s just a numbers game.
An extreme example is the story of the “McDonald’s Diet”. A brave gentleman ate only McDonald’s for 60 days and lost over 35lbs.
“But I thought fast food makes you gain weight!” Yes, it does but so would strawberries if you eat more calories than your maintenance number of calories. My maintenance calories tends to be around 2800–2900 calories a day. A burger and fries could easily get close to 1,000 calories which doesn’t leave much room for other foods if I’m losing weight. Since I would have to eat UNDER the 2800–2900 maintenance calories to lose weight, eating fast food may not be a good idea. I can eat the burger and fries if I understand I probably won’t be able to eat much else the rest of the day.
The hardest part about dieting is controlling hunger.
So which would keep someone full for a longer period of time? A chicken breast, veggies, and potatoes or a slice of pizza? This is why the boring foods are recommended in most diets. They tend to keep you full longer and they also tend NOT to have a lot of calories.
Using the scale
A quick example would be looking at the nutrition label on a jar of peanut butter.

We come up with 190 calories for 32g or 2 tablespoons of peanut butter. Who doesn’t love peanut butter and jelly sandwiches? I don’t think there is one person in this entire world that doesn’t get a tingle in their body when in front of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. The problem is peanut butter is a calorie dense food. Fats in general are higher in calories compared to proteins and carb sources. Fats include avocados, nuts and seeds, cooking oils, peanut butter, etc. This does not mean I can’t eat these foods. It just means I have to make sure I know how many calories they contain.
There are some foods you can use measuring cups/spoons to get the serving amount but I’ve found that anything outside of liquids gives a more accurate quantity using a scale.
I like digital food scales since they’re really easy to use. You typically can choose between calculating grams, ounces, ml, etc. You can measure pretty much anything you need. If you treat every food AND drink as a source of calories you can calculate exactly how many calories you’re consuming per day. Once you have an idea of your maintenance calories from the calculation or method that works for you, you can start tracking your calories in the food you eat to get an idea if you’re eating for your goals.
As we saw before, peanut butter has 190 calories for about 32 grams. So if I make a sandwich and measure 16gr of peanut butter I would subtract 96 calories from my daily total since 190cal / 32g = roughly 6 calories per gram. Then I multiply the 16g of peanut butter I measured for my sandwich by the 6 calories per gram. Which equals 96 calories.
If I’m allowed to eat 2800 calories per day, the peanut butter leaves me with 2,704 calories left for the day. (2800 maintenance calories –96 calories from peanut butter = 2,704 calories)
Tracking foods this way may be a bit of a pain at first but you’ll notice the amount of control you gain over your weight by doing this.
The MyFitnessPal app is a life saver in keeping up with all of your tracking.
Tracking weight loss
When I’m tracking my weight I like to weigh myself everyday first thing in the morning before eating or drinking and after using the bathroom. I jot these weight numbers down in my calendar app and take the weekly average of all the weigh ins. Tracking this weekly average over the span of a few weeks lets me know if I need to eat more or less for my weight goals. Losing or gaining weight mostly is just a numbers game. Once I realized this everything changed.
Thanks for reading! :) If you enjoyed this story or found it helpful please share your thoughts in the comments section or just hit the 💚.
Also, you can find me @themacgregory on Instagram.
