The Perfect Plan

Just this week I met with a physician who wants to lose 30 pounds.  See if his description and goals fit you:

Busy and working way more than a 40-hour work week

Kids at home of various ages and in many activities

Eats out a fair amount due to schedule and running kids around like a taxi service

Has lost weight on diets but seems to gain it back each time

Doesn’t feel like he has the time to plan or prepare for any diet changes; just needs something quick and easy

Need I go on?  If you’re reading this article I’m pretty sure you fit in the demographic where most of this is true of your life – maybe exactly. 

            So how did I create the “perfect plan” for this busy professional?  I began by explaining physiologically how he can most easily and most effectively lose body fat.  Due to the way our body accesses energy, it’s not just a matter of netting less calories than we expend; it’s more of a positional phenomena.  Studies show you can lose up to 50% more body fat eating the same amount of calories by altering the ratios of protein, carbohydrates, and fat and by improving meal spacing. 

            After I had his attention with these facts and he was getting excited that he was understanding why certain habits in his diet were preventing him from being effective, he was ready to start talking meal plans.  I created some ranges of those macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) that fit his age, activity level, and goals based on my perception of his body type and then I went through sample meals and snacks that would allow him to achieve those daily food levels.  “THESE ARE NOT TEMPLATES FOR YOU TO FOLLOW!” I sternly warned him.  “These are just examples.  An essential part of long-term success is for you to be able to eat foods you like and foods that are available to you in an ever-changing schedule.”  Real life isn’t the same every day, right?  We don’t eat the same meal every night for dinner, we don’t go to the same restaurant every day, we certainly have different occasions that arise, and every day may be drastically different.  We need to be able to roll with the punches and we desperately need to have the flexibility to choose different foods we like and turn from those we don’t.  “Diets” fail because they’re impractical.  Dieters fail because they don’t know how to adjust to changing circumstances while dieting. 

            My parting words to my new client admonished him to go home and worry about only one thing.  “Take the foods you like that you think are good, healthy choices and just by spacing things out and moderating them how you feel best after hearing this information and roll through a day tracking your macronutrients.  It doesn’t have to end up a perfect day, but when you and I look at it we’ll find ways to improve it.  The next day may have some changes but with what you learned in one day, it will get easier and it will get better.”  And the next day, and the next day, and the next day…

            I warned him it wouldn’t be the simplest thing he’s done dieting, but the most effective.  Simple is eating what someone tells you to eat.  Simple fails.  But I told him of a client who reminded me of him – a bank president who was his age, was just as busy, and had kids.  This client started tracking his food, reported back his questions and his progress, allowed me to answer questions and adjust his program as needed, and six months flew by.  Six months and 77 pounds flew by.  A year later those pounds are still nowhere to be seen – permanent weight loss is my business tagline for a reason. 

            Of course I have clients who slip off the radar and clients who never get out of the gate, but it’s a very low percentage.  If I can get someone to start strong, they learn enough early to catapult them into a level of ease and progress that they just can’t turn away from.  I can think of a handful of clients who have all lost over 100 pounds in the last year and the greatest common denominator is that they have followed this process to the letter.  And the great irony of that statement is that following it to the letter means you have ultimate flexibility and control of your own food!

            For those of us who just want to maintain our weight and be healthy or maybe trim off a few pounds, we understand the need for this variety.  We may not have the dire motivation to shed so much weight that it saves our lives or helps us off of medication – it’s sometimes easier to be locked into weight-loss mode militantly than to be moderate.  We also, however, need to have learned enough about our bodies and nutrition to control weight and health without a great deal of stress.  It should be business as usual.  Nothing can be usual, though, if we’re lacking the knowledge to get us there.

            Buy my book, The Diet Docs’ Guide to Permanent Weight Loss (coauthored with Scott Uloth, M.D.), or find another plan that you think teaches you what you need to know from a serious but easy-to-understand physiological perspective and get busy.  Spend the first couple weeks digging in and learning what you need to so that you don’t have to do it later.  What if you could achieve your weight-loss or weight-maintenance goals and do it with ease?  What if you could actually eat the foods you like forever but you’ve learned how and when and how much you can eat and how to manage your entire week so you never gained from it?  What would it take?  I just emailed my new client and asked him how I could help him get started and he replied, “I’m through chapter nine of your book and I’m getting things organized.  That’s the only way this is going to work.”  Ahhh….the sweet sound of a client who’s going to succeed. 

In the next issue of Exercise for Men Only, I’ll continue the conversation on creating the perfect plan for you and with you and will dip into more extreme goals as well.  If you want an extreme physique, stay tuned!

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Joe Klemczewski, PhD, is a contributing science editor for Chelo Publishing, is a featured writer for many magazines, is a published author, and is the founder of The Diet Doc.  He works with the general population and top bodybuilding and figure competitors worldwide.