Eat more to lose weight?

Best news of the week: Starting weight 167.5, current weight 157.8!!

Almost 10 pounds lighter and definitely much fitter. Perseverance and hard work it turns out pays off! That, and good nutrition planning.

A few months ago I posted that I was sticking to 1200-1400 calories on days off and 1600-1800 calories on workout days. Now I actually eat at least 1600 calories on off days and closer to 2000+ calories on workout days. As I've increased my calories I've actually also increased my rate of weight loss. Not to mention that I am eating a pretty decent amount of carbs.

Doesn't really make sense right?

Well, Matt Fitzgerald explains it beautifully in his book Racing Weight. In this book he focuses on endurance athletes, but personally I think the information he provides is useful for everyone who is trying to lose weight and has gotten stuck.

Traditional diets, he explains, count on decreasing your calorie intake, whether it is through low-carb or some other limitation on the types of foods you can eat. These diets can be very useful for people who are extremely overweight and/or consume a high and unhealthy amount of calories, think sodas, pizza, fast food, chips and other junk foods. For these people, simply restricting caloric intake by making changes like cutting out sodas and limiting junk food may lead to significant weight loss. If these dietary changes are permanent and also include the addition of some exercise, you can probably keep a lot of the weight off. At some point however you will either reach a plateau or add certain foods back and regain some weight.

So how do you get past the plateau to lose those last few pounds and keep the weight off?

The secret is making sure you don't restrict your calories too much and making dietary changes that can be maintained long-term. This means that instead of eliminating all bad food, you work on limiting your intake of bad food and overall modifying your diet to a diet you are comfortable keeping long term. In a sense, it's no longer a diet, it's a lifestyle change. It also means making sure you don't starve yourself. Not only is that not feasible as a long-term plan, it might actually be detrimental to your health and your ability to exercise and lose weight.

Your body is a machine. Feed it with the right nutrients and it functions properly. Feed it inappropriately and it might work for a while, but it won't be at its best and it definitely won't run as long and strong as a well-fed machine.

This is actually what happened to me. When I stopped working out, I kept eating the same amount of calories I had been before, so I gained weight. Then I decided the way to lose weight would be to exercise and restrict my calories. For almost a year I limited myself to 1100-1300 calories and my weight dropped a little, but I could not keep it off or get lower than 162.

Turns out my resting metabolic rate (what I burn when I just sit around and do nothing) is 1525 calories and by keeping my calories far below that, I led my body to believe that it was starving and as a result my metabolism most likely slowed down to a crawl. The inefficient fueling of my body was blocking my weight loss and it was also leading me to be exhausted and less able to effectively exercise, making weight loss even harder.

When I started running half marathons and signing up for triathlons, it became clear that something had to change. I slowly started increasing my caloric intake, obsessively tracking how this would effect my weight loss. The first month I went up to 1900 calories and I lost 1.5 lbs! I dropped to 1850 and lost 2 lbs. Since then I've stayed around an average of 1850 calories (1600-2000 depending on how much I work out) and I have lost about 2.5 pounds each month.

This is much slower than other diet programs, but this is also meant to be a long-term plan. The weight has stayed off, even when I take a 5-day workout break, and I'm following a diet I am happy with. I can still eat a gigantic brunch with mimosas or the occasional cupcake without guilt and without weight gain. More importantly overall I feel healthy and my athletic performance has improved significantly.

So what do I eat?

I am focused on nutrient dense foods; healthy carbohydrates like oatmeal, whole wheat pasta, brown rice, lean meats like fish, chicken and less than 15% fat meat and lots and lots of fruits and vegetables. For workout recovery I love chocolate milk and I am a big fan of coconut water (Zico is my personal favorite). When I do eat something unhealthy it is a conscious, guilt-free decision and as much as possible I try to stick to natural, unprocessed, locally made or homemade items, where I can control the ingredients.

I love food, so eating is still a pleasure, but food is now also a fuel source, so I always think about what my body needs before deciding what I will eat.