how to eat more food and still lose weight

Recently, I wanted to trim down a bit. Not that I'm super overweight or need to lose that much, but I wanted to cut the little bit of fat that I have on my body, maybe finally see some abs (yes I am a bit vain, sorry).

Tim Ferriss (@tferriss) wrote a book called The 4-Hour Body that describes a diet that never went viral or got a lot of attention. In his book, wrote how it kept him trim with a bit of discipline. Now, he is not someone that is super out of shape or obese but he was able to cut a few pounds even though he was already active and didn't eat junk.

Thus, I have embarked on this experiment for a few weeks: stick to this diet for at least 2-3 weeks and see what happens. Spoiler alert, I'm pretty happy with the results after just one week.

Here's the diet as he lays it here, here, and here. You should definitely read these articles.

There are only four rules:

1. avoid "white" carbohydrates

   1. bread, rice, cereal, potatoes, pasta, fried food with breading - these are all off limits

   2. these foods typically have a high glycemic index and tend to spike insulin level - insulin spikes lead to insulin resistance which in turn leads to more weight gain

2. eat the same few meals over and over again

   1. this helps keep you consistent in your diet, fewer decisions leads to fewer areas to mess up.

   2. most people eat the same few meals over and over again anyway, so this is isn’t really all that hard.

   3. Take a moment to review the foods you eat and figure out what can be tweaked to fit into rule #1 and rule #3

      1. I realized that I mealprep dhal and chili for about two weeks to get through fellowship.

      2. I’m still not sick of these meals AND they fit within the confines of this diet.

   4. Foods that are allowed

      1. meats

      2. legumes

      3. lentils

      4. eggs

      5. spinach

      6. asparagus

      7. peas

      8. mixed vegetables

3. don't drink calories

   1. If drinking coffee - no cream or sugar

   2. No fruit juices - these are mostly sugar anyway

   3. unsweetened tea is allowed

   4. diet sodas can be consumed sparingly - I don't trust the artificial, no calorie sweeteners.

4. take one day off per week

   1. do whatever you want for 1 day each week

   2. this is controversial

   3. As your body gets used to a lower calorie diet, it needs a short bout of caloric excess to prevent it from going into a "starvation mode" where it gets more and more difficult to lose fat.

   4. Plateaus are normal and typically when people lose motivation and stop sticking to their diet.

It's weirdly simple. At the same time, some of these tips can be extrapolated into a healthy diet to be used everyday. Rule number 3 is always a good idea, especially when it comes to sodas and coffee or tea with cream and sugar. Drinks like tea, coffee, and soda have deceptively high levels of calories. They are easy to drink. They don't take much room in your tummy; hence they can flood your body with more calories than you need.

Most of the prepared foods available on the market are calorically dense and nutritionally poor. Avoid these.

Despite common belief, you can be full, eat plenty of food, and still lose weight. My usual diet included dhal (lentils), some homemade chili, peanuts, and almonds. As part of this diet, I added a few more protein shakes, eggs, more salads, and a bit more water. In the evenings after work, I found that I was a lot more full than I thought I was. I was definitely eating more than what I usually eat, which consisted of 2 meals with snacks.

This is what I ate for the past week:

Breakfast - protein shake, 1 liter of water, unsweetened green tea with turmeric

Lunch - Dhal (lentils with Indian spices and vegetables)

Snacks - baby carrots (100 grams), peanuts (60 grams),

After work snack (around 6pm) - 4 eggs with sauteed onions and bell peppers, protein shake, almonds (28 grams)

Dinner - Homemade Turkey Chili

All together this is about 1770 kcal. A lot of these measurements are not exact measurements, they just help me stay consistent. You don't need to follow these kinds of diets to the gram. Preparing the same food every day this past week didn't feel like a drag. Oddly enough the consistency felt nice since I didn't have to spend any time during the day figuring out what I wanted to or felt like eating - when I'm running from case to case, small things like this help me stay on track and keep from reaching for trash food.

I'm only a week in but so far I'm liking the results. I'm more full than I usually am, I'm eating more calories than usual, and I've lost 3 pounds out of nowhere. I'm not quite focusin g on my weight but it's a nice little side benefit. The real goal is consistency and I'll keep this going for another week or so and report back here.

What do you think? If you enjoyed this post and found it helpful, comment down below or reach out on social.