This is written as much to myself as it is to anyone that reads this.
There are no magic pills. There are no free lunches. Pick your metaphor, but there isn't a way to sidestep consistency and hard work.
Here's my most recent lesson on this topic.
After most of a year of eating and drinking too much, my shame and self loathing reached a sufficient level to take action. I decided that for the month of September, I'd clean up my act. Here's what my recipe was:
- Don't drink alcohol
- Severely limit carbohydrate intake (Dietary Restriction)
- Utilize time restricted feeding by only eating in a four hour window a la 20:4 (Time Restriction)
- Eat less than two thousand calories per day (Caloric Restriction)
Per Attia's elegantly described framework, I was pulling on all three levers at once. How was my compliance/adherence? Pretty good. Most days I hit the time and carb restriction, but I did drink alcohol on some of my work travel. On days when I deviated, I accumulated significant physical activity to offset the caloric surplus.
What happened?
Shockingly, I lost weight. By spending about four weeks in a hypocaloric state, I dropped about fifteen pounds, going from about 215 to 200. It’s the closest I’ve been to seeing my abs since my early twenties.
What did I learn from the exercise?
At it’s simplest, all the funky diets I’ve been tinkering with mean nothing if I’m not in a caloric deficit. Put simply, I have spent a tremendous amount of time reading about different diets and ways to lose weight while not keeping track of pesky things like the amount of food you actually stuff down your throat.
I’m sure I’ll forget this, but hopefully next time I spend less time thinking about what I should do and put more of that energy towards actually doing something productive.