Have you ever tried to lose weight by working out more and eating less?

I've been there. And it works...but only or a little while.

I've done some crazy workout and diet programs over the years:

• 75 Hard (Two 45 Minute Workouts Every Day)
• Daily Walking Lunges (1/4 Mile to 1 Mile Of Walking Lunges Every Single Day)
• 6 Day Bodybuilding Workouts (1.5-2 Hours Per Day Of Lifting)
• 'Hybrid Athlete' Training (Running 30-50 Miles Per Week While Lifting 3 Days Per Week)

Most all of these approaches were coupled with some type of diet restriction too.

Some worked better than others when it came to losing weight - but I always hit a wall sooner or later.

My energy would crash and I'd feel miserable.

Other approaches left me losing weight and muscle (AKA getting skinny fat).

This approach of exercise more and eating less sounds so simple.

It also implies that losing weight is all about willpower.

There's already too much of that nonsense in health and fitness.

"If you want it bad enough, you'll just do it"

It sounds cool coming from the fitness influencer that's never struggled to lose weight a day in their life.

But the reality is there's so much that goes into developing the body you want.

How you set up your exercise program and your diet matters...a lot.

Getting closer to your dream body will certainly involve some discipline, some sacrifice, and a little bit of willpower (at least to get started and build the right habits)

But those things alone are not the reason you're not losing weight.

Especially if you're trying to stick to the exercise more/eat less philosophy. 

Here's why this strategy of exercise more and eat less doesn't work:

Metabolism Adaptations

Your metabolism is always adapting. Believe it or not, your metabolism does not want you to lose weight and get rid of belly fat.

As you exercise more, your hunger goes up.

As you eat less, your desire to move or exercise decreases.

When you combine the two, especially in an extreme way, your body will fight back hard.

It begins to panic, doing everything it can to hold onto fat and get rid of muscle instead (more on this below).

You find yourself barely wanting to get off the couch and your daily Non-Exercise Activity (super important for weight loss) drops down significantly.

You're miserable and you're frustrated because you're not losing weight despite working your butt off.

Calorie Floor and Exercise Ceiling

It is a fact that you need to burn more calories than you're consuming if you want to lose weight.

However, there are smart ways and not so smart ways to accomplish this.

Extreme approaches can work if they are very short lived.

A 2 or 4 week weight loss sprint can work.

Once you start stretching that out to 2 or 4 months you're going to get in trouble.

That is because you can only drop calories so low or increase exercise so much to achieve a negative calorie balance (burning more calories than you're taking in)

When you're already starting with low calories and high exercise, you'll hit a point where your weight loss stalls (due to metabolic adaptations)

Once this happens, you only have 2 options:

Eat less or exercise more.

Which one are you going to choose if you're only eating 1,500 calories and you're already exercising 6 days a week...?

There's smarter ways to avoid ever getting yourself into that decision - because believe me they both will leave you miserable if you're left to choose.

Muscle Loss

When you are increasing exercise but decreasing overall food intake, your risk of losing muscle is very high.

One reason for this is because you need calories to recover and build muscle (especially protein). If you are cutting calories, and not getting enough protein, you are certainly losing muscle along the way.

So while you may feel great that you're losing 2 or more pounds per week - 50% (or more) of that could be muscle.

That's a trade I'm almost never willing to make. 

Less muscle means a lower metabolism (making it even harder to lose weight)

Less muscle also negatively effects body composition. 

So maybe the scale says you've lost 20 lbs but you still don't like the way you look (because that's not all fat that you lost)

The other reason muscle loss happens is because your ability to train hard goes way down when you're in a calorie deficit.

So you may be working out for 5 or 6 hours a week, but your intensity is actually far less than if you just did 2 or 3 hours of working out.

Crash And Burn

Your body is really good at keeping score.

If you are 'super strict' for 4 weeks, and then you go off the rails for a week (or even a weekend), your body doesn't just ignore all the food you just binged and give you the benefit of the doubt for trying so hard those other weeks.

In fact, after significant calorie restriction, your ability to gain fat is much higher.

So if you're dieting hard, and then you come off your diet hard (through eating way too much either for a short or long period), your rate of gaining fat will be higher.

This (along with the other reasons listed above) is why so many people gain most of their weight back (if not more) after a diet.

As you can see, getting lean is about a lot more than willpower.

I subscribed to the 'more willpower' mentality for a lot of years.

It certainly will require hard work.

But working hard without the right plan is a recipe to fail.

If you need help putting a plan together, click here and fill out a form to set up a time to chat with me.