Don’t Overthink Your Fat Loss Diet
In case you don’t follow baseball, Alex Rodriguez of the Yankees recently hit the 600th home run of his career which is a major milestone for him personally as well as historically – only six other players have reached that milestone in their careers. But, it took A-Rod (as he’s known in the sports world) 46 at bats to go from home run number 599 to home run number 600, almost 2 weeks worth of games.
Undoubtedly there was a lot of pressure from the attention – fans packed the stands and snapped lots of photos with every pitch and swing. But my guess is A-Rod suffered from overthinking paralysis – how else could you do something 599 other times in your career with relative ease and then, all of a sudden, not be able to do it? I think (and I’m not a pyschotherapist) that he was focused on everything but what he gets paid to do, and what he is best at – hitting the ball as hard and far as he could.
The same thing happened to me yesterday on the golf course. I got over the ball after looking at the hole layout, and was getting ready to do what I had done thousands of times – hit the ball as long and as hard as I could. But I started to think about my tempo, the distance to the far end of the fairway (it was a dogleg right), and I decided to reposition myself slightly and hit toward the trees that were lining the fairway, thinking I could cut the dogleg and pick up a stroke. What did I do? I caught the very top of the tree (a very strong branch, by the way) which forced the ball down and left me with an awful second shot. Result? I got a bogey when I thought I could cut the dogleg and go for birdie.
Alright, so what does all of this have to do with fat loss? Well it is pretty simple. I got emails from people asking “what is the best X for losing fat?” – you can replace X with exercise, protein, diet, cardio or a host of other words. We suffer from what I call the Consumer Reports culture – need to know the reviews, information, etc. before we act.
The problem is that most people never end up acting. Fat loss is really, really simple for most people:
- Eat less
- Move more
Unless you are a world class athlete, body builder, or someone who relies on their appearance for income, then this is all you really need to know. Don’t overthink it – it really is that simple.
Most people who I have worked with have kept a food diary at the very beginning to see exactly what they were eating. More often than not, it revealed that most people ate 1.5 – 2 times the number of calories that they needed per day to maintain their weight – said another way, they were eating twice the amount of food that they really needed.
A really simple way to get started? Cut your meals in half – eat half a muffin for breakfast, eat half a sandwich for lunch, and cut your dinner portions in half. Fill in the gaps with an apple or handful of broccoli, drink some more water and see if you miss the extra food. Monitor your scale weight before and after and see what happens in 14 short days. As you progress you will need to refine your program, but for most people, this is an easy way to get started without spending a ton of time or money.
How do you move more? For me, I strapped my golf bag to my back and walked 18 holes yesterday. Lugging 30 pounds for over 4 miles was a good workout, but it wasn’t a dedicated workout – it was a way to move more while doing something I loved. Take your kids or pets for a walk, swim some laps while lounging at the pool, play a little soccer in the backyard, skip the subway and walk to work. You don’t have to join a gym or buy an infomercial gadget – just stop watching TV and go do something!
