Practical thoughts about weight loss

In early 2021, I (Greg) got on the scale and my heart sank when I realized I was just over 200 lbs (roughly 30 pounds overweight).

Over the course of the next 3.5 months, I lost the 30 pounds and have kept them off ever since. Some people lose a lot more than 30 pounds and my hat is off to them, but I am here to tell you that just losing 30 pounds is hard. Many of you know this already.

I learned a few things during those 3.5 months that I want to share over the coming weeks.

I will start with the most important thing of all. This is something that most people surprisingly do not understand. Here it is:

What you eat is far more important than any exercise you choose to do.

Look at it this way: it takes a lot of work to burn a few hundred calories. A typical exercise routine will burn around 500 calories/hour (check out this helpful chart).

On the flip side, it takes about six minutes and no effort at all to consume 500 calories. All you have to do is stop by a McDonalds and buy a milkshake. A small milkshake…

It is very tempting to reward yourself after a workout with a snack that completely wipes out any weight loss benefit you got from all the work. If you fall into that trap, you will struggle to lose weight.

I understand that there are lots of benefits to exercise beyond burning calories and some of those benefits can indirectly help weight loss. But don’t ever fall into the trap of thinking you can out-exercise a bad diet. You can’t.

If you want to lose weight, it is all about the food you eat.

I want to talk about food over the coming weeks–how to choose it and how to measure it and most importantly, how to come up with a food plan that you will enjoy enough to stick with. The simple truth is you will never stick with a diet if you do not enjoy the food.