It's all about total calories.
As always, a disclaimer, I am not a doctor, seek medical advice from a licensed physician I can only tell you what I know and what I have done to be successful.
I used to think the same regarding overall calories, but it's far more complicated than that and I have learned so much over the last few years. I struggled to lose weight because of this thinking while now it is shockingly easy for me.
I'm fortunate I suppose because as a former athlete and wrestler, and growing up poor I often didn't have breakfast while I ran to school and played sports on an empty stomach. In essence, I'm used to weight swings so when I'm fasting my body even so many years later I generally respond with burning fat in short order. Not nearly as quickly as I used to, but probably better than the average person my age.
The key to eating to lose weight is about balancing your sugar spikes and insulin levels so that your body deals with any sugar after every meal and gets into a fat burning mode.
If you
eat ANYTHING, you get an insulin rush to deal with the sugar in your body, this spike is highest after heavy carb or sugar laden meals (breads, pasta, sugary foods such as soda etc) and
during this time your body will not burn fat. No matter what you do, go for a run, work out, whatever, it will use the sugar for energy first, you cannot possibly burn fat until your blood sugar in the body is fully depleted.
This is why fasting is critical and even small, healthy snacking in between meals is a bad idea because it will also lead to some form of spike unless you're drinking olive oil only or something. If there was one basic piece of advice I would give even a poor eater is to not snack, only eat three meals a day. Period.
It is thus, far superior to absorb only three meals a day, preferably well spaced apart and you do not eat too soon close to bedtime,. Let your body fast during those hours so that at the very least even if you're diet isn't overly healthy or nutritious (eating healthy more ideal of course) you allow your body to deplete glycemic levels to zero and in this lengthy process, if you fast long enough, you use ketones and eventually fat for energy.
For example, eat dinner at 6pm, no snacks at night, eat breakfast at 8am would give you a 14 hour fast which probably ensures at least a short period of burning ketones and/or fat.
The longer you delay your first meal the day of fasting, the better.
Here is another key I've learned, cut down on bread, which has always been my biggest issue as I love bread and it is horrible for sugar spikes, a real deterrent to losing fat.
After every meal go for a walk. The longer the better because when you receive that sugar spike you can deplete it so by the time you get home, you body is ready to burn reserves.
Even if I only ate half the calories I normally would, say 6-7 small meals that are less in overall calories, I would burn less fat than someone who has one huge meal a day which is double the calories that the person eating the small meals had. So, assume I eat one really grand meal at lunchtime, twice as many calories overall, I will receive an insulin spike to deal with the sugar, which will take some time. After it burns it though and my sugar level is zero, I'm in fast state.
Once it's depleted, my body slowly goes into fasting mode, looking for energy sources it will first take the ketones and then fat since I don't have any sugar in the body. When I have my next meal 24 hours later I will have lost more weight than the guy eating half the calories across multiple smaller snacks since his body constantly had an insulin spike to deal with the carbs/protein/fat I ate, while I only had one spike.
I've lost 11 pounds in two weeks, and I've been eating ice cream (as soon as I do I take a long walk in the heat, sweating, breaking my glycemic level down to zero again.
Eat good fats such as olive oils even butter. Avoid high carbs, especially empty in nature.
My keys have been, to mix my fasting windows, so I do a 16/8 fast, then the next day I will eat really early, and a lunch to keep my body confused. Keep carbs low. Any time I ate ice cream or say bread, I would go for a walk. If I didn;t, I would walk 500 steps around my house to get the burning working on the carb meal I just ate.
11 Pounds in two weeks with little effort. I assume alot of this weight was water weight since I kept some days to 15-20 grams of carbs total all day. So, over the next two weeks, I'd be estatic if I could burn 5-6 pounds over the next two weeks with a similar approach.
I also do push ups in a couple of the mornings in which I have been fasting. This gets the body accelerated into fat burning. My longest period of fast has only been about 20 hours. I've done complete 25 hour fasts during Yom Kippur and even fasted for 48 hours or so a few years ago so my body is accustomed to the occasional long fast. 14-16 Hours is fairly standard for me after my last meal the night before.
realsimplegood.com
