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I went from 270 lbs at my heaviest and most miserable to 142 pounds lean and jacked. I've tried every fat diet and weight loss trick that exists, from keto to cabbage soup. But there are seven mistakes specifically that kept me stuck in fat for years. And when I fixed them, I lost over 100 lbs.
Number one, not actually tracking my food. The mindset of ignorance is bliss. If I didn't track it, it didn't happen. Not tracking the BLTs, bites, licks, and tastes, because they add up quick, especially when you're charging mom tax; and measuring in cups of lasagna and medium potatoes instead of actually being accurate with a food scale.
Number two, not actually learning calorie density. These two objects are the same size. We've got a medium potato and a large avocado. This avocado contains a lot more calories than the potato, even though they're the same size. So, if I have a half a potato versus a half an avocado, I might not feel like I'm eating that much, but a half an avocado is probably roughly 100 g and it's pretty calorie dense. So that's why if you've ever actually weighed a tablespoon of peanut butter, which is 15 g, instead of scooping out a tablespoon and licking off the extra, it can be very eye-opening to see that you're probably actually consuming like three servings of peanut butter, which, when we're talking foods that are high in fat, they're very calorically dense because fat's 9 calories per gram. Tablespoon of peanut butter, one actual serving is just under 100 calories. But if you're not measuring it in grams, go back to number one, you could easily be having 2 to 3 tablespoons, which is 200 to 300 calories, and thinking you're only eating, you know, a little bit of peanut butter. It's not a big deal. Depending on the calorie density of food, it might seem like you're not eating that much, but you're eating high-calorie foods in small volume amounts, which leads you to believe you're not eating enough to lose weight, when really you're just in a caloric surplus, and you didn't know.
Number three, too much of a good thing can no longer be a good thing. Can reach the point where it's not a good thing. Something like that. Like the old, "I'm eating healthy, but I'm not losing weight." And this one again roots up to number two, caloric density of food. When you actually understand what you're eating, it's easier to see the calories in it. You might think, "An avocado, that's healthy." Yeah. But if you eat three of these a day, plus all the other food, even a whole avocado—the dog's licking my feet and it tickles—that's what I was saying. A whole avocado, if you cut that up and you put it in a salad, and then you add in some cheese and maybe some nuts because those are all good for me. Yeah. But you still need to stay in a caloric deficit if you want to lose weight. And then what makes up those calories will dictate like if you're losing fat or weight, which could be muscle or water. I digress. That's another YouTube for another day.
Number four, 10 Oreos versus 10 eggs. Which one feels easier for you to eat? 10 Oreos, right? It'd be pretty easy for you to slam back this sleeve of Oreos. Don't tempt me with a good time. Am I right? Eating this sleeve of cookies, I don't know how many are in here, but let's say it's 10. Seems like a lot easier task than eating 10 eggs. 10 Oreos versus 10 eggs. They both have about 60ish calories apiece. But the Oreos are made up of sugar and carbs and junk and fat, which is going to leave you on a wild roller coaster of blood sugar and lead you to eat the whole sleeve because it just tastes so good, but my mouth is still lonely as soon as I'm done it. Versus an egg, which is going to fuel your body and curb your hunger because it's made of protein and healthy fats. Pair that with uh my friend the potato here, you're golden. Isn't it funny the things we think, how like 10 eggs seems like, "Oh my gosh, that's too much food," but you would easily eat 10 Oreos, and I would—where there's one, there's more—this sleeve of cookies, 3,31 calories. If you ate 10 eggs, it's like 600 to 700, but let's be honest, you're not going to eat 10 eggs anyways, but you would eat 10 cookies.
Number five, my favorite—always the seafood diet: I see food, I eat food. Up here, you want to be the star of the show; we're dogsitting. Back to what I was saying—the seafood diet: I see the food, I eat the food. And did you know it's literally someone's job to make food, like the shitty foods, the processed ones—that they're—notice I said make food ultra-palatable, like so it feels good in your mouth. It's got a good consistency. There's a crunch to the chip or whatever the thing is. So you want more. Plus also if you spike your blood sugar and it's like going like this when it's here, you're like, "Oh, that's so good." And then you go down here and it's like, "Oh, I want more." Have you ever seen an advertisement for eggs, for avocado? Even for rice? Maybe like Uncle Ben's or something, but nobody's advertising for La Mara dear Rosa in Mexico. Nobody's advertising for just plain rice, you know. Now, have you seen an advertisement for McDonald's, for your favorite pizza place? Chips, Lays, "Bet you can't eat just one." If you're exposed to the ads, you're more likely to eat the thing. Especially if you're in like decision fatigue, you've had a long day, you're on your way home, and you see a billboard for pizza—the seafood diet—you're automatically triggered like pizza would be such a good idea right now. I've had a long day. Call the pizza place, get delivery, it'll be there by the time I get home. Skip the dishes, everything is available for you right away. Story time. I'm here in Mexico. I just competed in a bodybuilding show not long ago, but while I was in prep, any of my social media in the past year and a bit, you've realized that uh protein bars are one of my guilty pleasures. It's a bit of a slippery slope for me that I don't like to slide on down. My mom was here visiting; she was leaving to go back to the airport. And so she was looking for something to bring in case she couldn't find food or didn't—they didn't speak Spanish, all these irrational fears she had. So I set her up with a couple protein bars and I put them on the counter for her and I was like, "You put these in your suitcase." She didn't put them in her suitcase. And as I was walking around the house, I was looking at them, seeing the food. Willpower isn't infinite. There's only so many times I can walk past them and be like, "No, no, no," before I'm like, "Okay, let's let's go," me and you. I won't tell anyone if you don't. I digress. So, anyways, I said to my mother, "Mom, can you take these and put them away because every time I'm walking past them, I want to eat them, and there's only so many more times I can walk past before I'm going to eat them. So, if you can just take them and pack them, that'd be super." And then she did, and then I didn't eat them. So, on top of that, you have to be willing to speak your needs. That's like 5B. And if we're going down the marketing rabbit hole, back to my lover, I mean, back to the protein bars. They stick the word protein in front of it and you'll buy it and think it's great, when if you turn over the back and see what's actually in it. At the end of the day, it's still a processed item. Is it better than eating a chocolate bar? Well, maybe. It contains more protein, but I mean, it is what it is. They call it a protein bar, and yet the majority of the calories in said protein bar come from the carbs that are in it. There's 25 g of carbs, which, as we know, it's 4 calories per gram. That's 100 calories coming from carbohydrates. There's 9 g of fat. As we know, 9 calories per gram of fat. So, that's 81 calories coming from the fat. There's only 18 grams of protein, which even if we round that up to 20, so I can do the math, that's 80 calories, which out of the three major macronutrients, fat, carbs, and protein, the protein is actually contributing the least amount of calories to this bar. I mean, if they called it a carb bar, you wouldn't buy it, right? One more dive into the marketing rabbit hole. Did you know that Vector, which is marketed as a high-protein cereal, the thing that they put on the front of it, like X amount of grams of protein to make you want to buy it? Oh, it's high in protein. That's actually—if you turn the box to the side and actually look at the nutritional information—the grams of protein that they put on the front of the box and on the side of the box—the side of the box explains that that's with a cup of milk, that amount of protein. If you just eat the cereal dry, it has way less. And in fact, it actually has less. I'm not always right, but I believe I've compared it and I'm not going to in this moment, but Vector cereal has less grams of protein per serving just dry to dry against Cheerios. Cheerios actually has more protein. But Cheerios' angle is like it's heart-healthy and it's high in fiber and all of the things, where I mean if they just ripped theirs with a cup of milk also, then they could tell you that it has more protein than Vector, but that's not their angle. I like food.
On to number six. Cardio doesn't burn fat. Cardio is overrated for fat loss, underrated for heart health. But we have this like thing in our mind that I have to run to go burn calories, and then we like gamify it and we—I thought I had my watch on, but I don't—we gamify it and we're like, "How many calories did I burn?" But guess what? If I put on my Apple Watch, my Aura ring, my Whoop strap, I read the readout on the cardio machine I'm on, all of those things are going to say a different amount of calories. So, they're not accurate. It may be relative. Like, if the next time it says I burnt more calories, I probably did burn more. But if one time it says 500 and the next time it says 700, did I burn 500 the first time? Did I actually burn 200 more this time? Likely not. Did you put in more effort? For sure. And for myself as a fat person, a previous fat person, a healthy person existing in what used to be a fat person's body, the mindset that went with being 270 pounds, I get it. Do you know how many times I was like, "Oh, you can burn off the calories later. Eat the cookie. Eat the muffin. It's okay. You can burn it off later." Or I'd eat the Kit Kat bar or I'd down the sleeve of Oreos and then be like, "Okay, here we got to math this math. Can I actually like throw up 3,000 calories, or how long would it take me to burn 3,000? Google how long would it take me to burn 3,000 calories of Oreos? Yeah, I've Googled it. Use cardio for what it's designed for: your heart health, your lung health, and then use things like actually understanding your nutrition, calorie deficit, and walking and drinking enough water and getting enough sleep to focus on becoming a healthier version of you, not necessarily focusing on being a smaller version of you. You're likely under-muscled. Go lift some weights, eat some protein, you'll be golden. You'll be inviting people to the gun show in no time.
Which leads me to number seven. You're under-muscled, not overweight. If you behaved in ways that prioritized muscle and strength over behaving in ways that try to get the number between your feet in the morning to be smaller, if you prioritized being more instead of less, eating more whole foods instead of focusing on trying to beat yourself into submission to do less binging or eat less junk food, you'd have a different body. If you tried being more instead of less, you'd be much better off.