It’s true. I lose 9 kilograms in 5 days through a combination of restrictive eating and carefully planned dehydration before each of my fights. It’s terribly hard, probably not healthy and definitely not sustainable; I put most of it back on in 12 hours. If you’re reading this article chances are you have a bit of weight to lose and wondering exactly how I do it. Unfortunately I’m not going to get into it – but I will tell you that you could just – Go to the toilet, take off your shoes, get a haircut. Get the idea?
Weight Loss vs Fat Loss
Weight loss means diddly squat (especially the type I aim for before a competition). What you’re really after is fat loss. Below, I’ll outline the 3 most important things I’ve learnt from dropping weight and how you can apply them to your own weight (fat) loss journey:
Make it real
At university I was a master procrastinator. Despite all the notification in the world, I left every assignment to the last minute – and, I always got them done. That’s because as the due date approached I knew the consequences of my action or inaction would become real. I would suddenly kick into gear, stop procrastinating and get to work.
People who successfully lose weight make it real in the same way – their health becomes something that’s important right here and now. It makes them do the things they already knew they should be doing.
If you want to create this type of experience for yourself, start with a detailed picture of what success looks like to you:
- How will your life change?
- What will you be able to do?
- Will you feel different? More confident? More outgoing?
- What will you see when you look at yourself?
- Will people treat you differently?
Measure
I measure absolutely everything during my weight cut – and when I think about it, any top performer, in any industry, measures – and you should too – especially since countless studies have shown that people who measure their food intake tend to eat less and lose more weight.
When you’re looking to lose weight, some of the easiest things to measure and control are types and portion sizes of the foods you eat in each meal. To take a note out of world-renowned nutritionist John Berardi’s book:
“One of the best tools you can use to measure these things is your hand.”
- Your palm determines your protein portions.
- Your fist determines your veggie portions.
- Your cupped hand determines your carb portions.
- Your thumb determines your fat portions.
If you aren’t measuring, you’re guessing.
Don’t ignore the science
When it comes to weight loss methods, popular media has made it easy to get lost in a clamour of conflicting advice – detox this, shake-weight that.
The funny thing is, science has reached quite a strong consensus on what leads successful weight loss and the results probably won’t surprise you: eat better and move more.
You can eat better by following the measuring guide I outlined above and you can increase your calorie expenditure by doing more of the following:
- Reducing your sitting time.
- Adding resistance training to your program (this is good for pretty much everything)
- Increasing the intensity of your training sessions.
If you want significant and sustainable weight loss – stop searching for the next magic bullet and start implementing the 3 strategies outlined above – I guarantee you’ll feel and look better for it.
