Is it possible to lose weight WITHOUT dieting?
The moment you mention the word “dieting” immediately sends people in all sorts of different directions.
Because there’s always going to be a never ending debate about which “diet” is best for weight loss. It’s almost become a religion. That’s why people become so dogmatic about it and just creates a lot of confusion.
The most popular one of them all and this is still considered conventional wisdom by a lot of “experts” is just eat less and move more. Or it’s more commonly known as calories in vs calories out.
But did you know that calorie counting has a 99% failure rate? And if you’ve tried and failed at losing weight through dieting more times than you can count, you already know this to be true.
The problem is, the weight loss industry is also a multi billion dollar industry. There’s a lot of money to be made by companies trying to sell you magic weight loss pills, detox slimming teas, freezing your fat away, ultra restrictive meal plans, workout supplements, and whatever else is trending right now.
The funny thing is since the conception of this eat less and move more concept in the early 80’s was also the start of the obesity epidemic we’re facing today. There are also more gyms per capita in the US than anywhere else on the planet yet 2 out of 3 american adult is either in the overweight or obese category. It doesn’t make sense.
It’s clearly not just eat less through dieting and move more through exercise.
Today, I’m gonna show you how to lose weight without “dieting”. No shortcuts or gimmicks. No magic weight loss. These are proven principles that actually work.
How To Lose Weight WITHOUT Dieting
1. Stop eating like an asshole
Stop eating highly processed fake foods. When I say fake foods, these are foods that you can find at the centre aisles of grocery stores. They usually come in a box or some sort of packaging with a nutrition label sticker with an endless list of ingredients you and I can’t even pronounce.
Instead, I want you to focus on real food. Foods that nourish your body. This is why I always that your diet should always revolve around plants and animals. Meat and vegetables.
I want you to focus on single ingredient, mostly unprocessed, nutrient dense foods. Whole foods.
For example, those are the ingredients of chicken nuggets. If you put a piece of chicken thigh in the oven, there’s only one ingredient there. Which one do you think is healthier?
The same concept applies with plant based meat substitutes. Beyond meat for example has something like 18 ingredients and it’s been processed to the nth degree to make it look and bleed like meat. That sounds like a great scientific achievement and a scary thought at the same time. While a burger patty only has one ingredient. Beef.
Some people think that I hate carbs but that’s not entirely accurate. If you want to roast some potatoes or sweet potatoes, go ahead. The problem starts if you eat those foods in its highly processed deep fried forms like french fries or sweet potato fries.
You can eat as much vegetables as you want. Just don’t think that vegetables chips are one and the same. They’re not. They’re deep fried in toxic and highly inflammatory vegetable or seed oils.
The other reason why you want to eat single ingredient foods is that they’re naturally filling. You’re eating food in its most natural and basic form. Vegetables for example naturally contain fibre. They’re also naturally low in calories so you can eat them in high volume.
Again, we did not have an obesity epidemic in the 60’s or even the 70’s. It was never a thing. Obesity rates were extremely low back then. It really only started when we started switching our diets to mainly processed food.
If you look at the diets of native tribes who live a hunter gatherer lifestyle up to this day, they don’t suffer from modern western diseases like obesity, diabetes, cancer and cardiovascular disease. They also have perfect teeth. The moment they get exposed to processed food is when the problem starts.
Because these highly processed “frankenfoods” have been stripped of all nutrients and the’ve been replaced with additives and preservatives. They’re also designed to be highly palatable which messes up your palette and sends your hormones into a roller coaster ride.
The 80/20 rule
Again, I’m not saying you can’t have these foods. But try out this eating strategy. And it works so well, I promise. Because you don’t have to “diet”.
I want you to follow the 80/20 rule. 80% of your diet should be single ingredient foods. I want you to eat them first. Because again, they’re very effective at turning off your hunger hormones and resetting your taste buds. And you can usually find these foods in the outside isles of grocery stores.
More likely than not, after you eat a nice big plate of vegetables paired with your choice of protein, your desire to eat junk will have gone away. Which should be the remaining 20% by the way.
And even if you still crave it, you’re gonna end up eating significantly less of it, compared to if you had eaten it first. That’s why that 80/20 ratio is so important.
This is how you effectively manage your calories and inadvertently stay on a calorie deficit without having to track them.
Remember, our paleolithic ancestors were naturally lean and strong. Their physique rivals today’s elite athlete’s bodies. That’s the default factory setting of the human body.
And they didn’t eat like assholes. Nor did they take protein powders. They discovered fire, they hunted animals, and cooked them. They definitely didn’t have deep fried fast food, they didn’t drink skinny vanilla lattes, they never drank diet coke, they didn’t have vegetables chips, they just ate vegetables.
2. Eat foods that turn off hunger hormones
Here’s a fun fact for you. Your body doesn’t count calories. It does however have a physiological response to whatever food you put in your mouth. And this physiological response is done through the activation of certain hormones. Specifically, satiety hormones. And when your satiety hormones are activated, that turns off your hunger hormones.
What activates your satiety hormones you ask? Vegetables because of its fibre content which then activates that stretch mechanism in your stomach. As well as protein which activates Peptide YY, and healthy sources of fat like meat, cheese, nuts, eggs, and avocado because it activates cholecystokinin. And again, you want to eat these foods in its most basic and unprocessed form. This just goes back to single ingredient foods.
Vegetables, especially leafy greens and cruciferous vegetables, are extremely filling while being naturally low in carbs and calories. But again, who’s counting?
Again, there’s always gonna be a never ending debate about which diet is best for weight loss. But almost all of them will virtually agree on this one thing that you have to eat your vegetables.
Ideally, half your plate or as much as 75% should be loaded with vegetables. Truth be told, I didn’t start eating vegetables well into my early twenties. Instead, I ate a lot of processed food. I was also fat.
When I started incorporating vegetables into my diet was also when I started losing weight. Go figure.
And you can’t tell me that you hate vegetables. There are so many varieties and options to choose from. Cauliflower for example has kinda become the new “grain” of vegetables. The only difference is that it has 800% fewer carbs than rice.
To add to our 80/20 eating strategy, eat a lot vegetables and eat them first. Then eat the rest of your meal which should contain protein and fats because again, they’re extremely filling and they slow down the rate at which your food travels through your digestive system helping you feel fuller for longer.
That’s why ice cream is better than skittles for example. They both contain tons of sugar but ice cream gets the advantage because it also contains fat and protein. It’s also delicious.
And when your satiety hormones are activated and your body is well nourished, you won’t have to spend all day thinking about food. You can go longer periods without eating. This is called metabolic flexibility.
This is why I always say that weight loss in its very essence isn’t about counting calories. It’s about controlling hunger.
This is why drinking diet coke or using artificial sweeteners to curb hunger is such a bad idea because even though they contain zero calories, they don’t turn off your hunger hormones.
In fact, they usually make you hungrier because your brain gets confused. It tastes something sweet but there’s actually no food coming in. It gets all confused so it sends even stronger hunger cues that you need to eat something.
Same thing with eating doritos or twinkies. They’re devoid of all nutrients. You eat that stuff and then your brain goes, “That wasn’t it. It’s empty calories. We need to eat more.” This is why you’re always hungry when you eat refined carbs and processed sugar. We simply did not evolve to eat or drink that stuff. Again, don’t eat like an asshole.
Since we’re in the topic of drinking, that’s my next tip.
3. Water should be your default drink of choice
No, water isn’t gonna magically just burn all your body fat. We’re using the concept of addition by subtraction here.
I often don’t make blanket statements like this but sugary drinks are basically pure evil. They’re just empty calories and they all just lead to one thing. They make you fat and sick.
There is absolutely no reason why you should be drinking them unless you’re a professional athlete. Even then the merits of it are still questionable. It’s not uncommon for example for endurance athletes to become diabetic and these are people who train for hours every day.
If you’re someone who regularly drinks this stuff and you stop, you’re going to lose so much weight without dieting, guaranteed.
Also, even after just a few days of not drinking them, your desire for other sweets will diminish drastically.
Your only other drink options are tea and black coffee because we’ve been drinking that stuff for thousands of years. Your body also responds well to both of them physiologically. Unflavoured carbonated water like seltzer or soda water are also okay.
4. Do some form of resistance training
Lifting weights has many benefits and I’ve made tons of videos why it’s non negotiable if you want to lose weight and be a healthy and happy human being.
But the main benefits that I want to highlight if you want to lose weight without dieting is that it boosts testosterone and growth hormones to repair and build muscle. It also increases insulin sensitivity.
Muscle is a very expensive tissue to build and maintain. Which means that your body needs to burn more calories even at rest just to hold on to them. This is why having a lot of lean muscle mass is the key driver of your metabolism.
It’s also a key indicator of lifespan. It’s so important during the aging process. The increased insulin sensitivity also helps with nutrient partition. Instead of glycogen being stored as body fat, when you lift weights, you’re giving your body the signal to store some of that glycogen in your muscle instead. Again, this is is why it’s non negotiable that you do this if you to be a healthy and happy human being.
5. Take a break from eating
This is more commonly known as intermittent fasting. I’ve mentioned physiology a couple of times already in this video so let’s continue with that theme.
The human body is an amazing thing. It can survive for periods of time without food. Why? Because you have at least 100,000 calories of stored energy in the form of body fat waiting to be used. That’s what it’s there for. It’s not just there for looks.
And I’ve also made tons of video about this phenomenon so make sure you check those out if you’re new to my channel.
This might be the most powerful way if you want to lose weight without “dieting”. Because intermittent fasting is not a diet. It’s a lifestyle.
And I mentioned metabolic flexibility earlier because that’s the key to this. So if you’re metabolically flexible, you’re easily able to tap into your fat stores and burn it for energy in between meals.
All you’re going to do is extend that period in between meals where you’re not eating to give your body more time to burn body fat for energy.
And no, you’re not gonna die when you do this. Again, the human body is an amazing thing and one of its features is it’s designed to fast. Unless you’re at 5% body fat, you have nothing to worry about.
Fun fact, did you know that the longest recorded fast was 382 days? It was done by a guy named Angus Barbieri and he lost a mind blowing 276 pounds in the process. He lived off of water and multivitamins with regular visits to the doctor. After 5 years from his transformation, he was still able to keep the weight off. Talk about long term sustainable results.
The biggest takeaway here is it’s not about eating less, but less frequently.
Are you going to get hungry when you do intermittent fasting? At the beginning, yes. But that’s mostly because you’ve taught your body to eat at certain times. There’s definitely an adaptation period. And usually those hunger pangs only last for about 20 minutes. Then, it goes away.
Again, there’s nothing exciting about these tips. Especially with fasting. If you take a break from eating, you’re going to lose weight. It’s really only a question of finding the best intermittent fasting schedule that fits your lifestyle and adherence.
And that’s the most important part of all of this. If you want to lose weight without dieting, it’s pretty easy if you just follow all the tips I just laid out for you. But the execution is the hard part because you’re always going to be bombarded with temptations along the way.
And that’s the last thing that I want to address. I love food just as much as the next guy. I’ve mentioned many times that I love cheesecake and carrot cake. But I also know that I probably shouldn’t eat it every day if I’m trying to lose weight. So I only have it once every couple of weeks.
What I’m trying to say here is your entire life shouldn’t revolve around food. You’re not a dog. Don’t reward yourself with food. I think it was Oprah who said this but you can have it all, just not all at once. Delayed gratification is the name of the game. Delay, but don’t deny.
As always, if this was helpful, share it with a friend who could benefit from it as well!
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