Jonathan Perez is a triathlete who weighs £262.
But just eight months ago, he tipped the scales at £400.
He's lost almost £140, more than a third of his body weight.
Now, I'd love to take credit for Jonathan's weight loss,
but the thing is, up until early 2022, he had been doing triathlons for years,
but he was still gaining weight because of his eating habits.
Fortunately, Jonathan was finally able
to kickstart his weight loss with bariatric surgery that reduced
the size of his stomach, forcing him to change his diet.
But unfortunately, most people who take up endurance challenges to lose weight
sabotage themselves with a diet that might actually encourage weight gain.
So we worked with Jonathan to help fix that for you here today by letting you
in on the successful and the unsuccessful dietary habits of a real person who's
overcome the weight loss challenges so many of us face.
What's up, Motivator? My name is Taron.
When real people want to accomplish
something personally amazing in endurance sports, they choose motive training plans.
Let's do it. Originally, the plan for this video was
to provide training tips for athletes looking to lose weight.
But when I talked to Jonathan,
he said that it really all comes down to nutrition and hydration.
Yes, it is simply calories in,
calories out, and a matter of taking in fewer calories than we use.
But there are ways that we can make
that equation easier or harder on ourselves and make sure that we're not
setting ourselves up for failure down the road.
The first thing we have to do to lose weight is huge, but it's counterintuitive
to the calories in versus calories out equation.
It is.
Never skip a meal, especially when you're exercising hard.
A lot of people will skip meals or
intermittent fast to reduce their calorie intake.
They'll particularly do this before or
after exercise because it often just doesn't feel good to eat at these times.
But in the long run, this will sabotage our progress for a couple of reasons.
First, you'll be hungrier later on and be much more likely to binge eat.
Sure, you might say that you've got enough
willpower to overcome those cravings, and this might be true for a few days or
even weeks, but eventually you'll crack and eat way more than you should.
The second problem with this is that if
you are depriving yourself of calories around when you exercise,
you're not giving your body the fuel it needs to perform.
So your body is more likely to reduce
the amount of calories you burn to the point at which it's tremendously
hard to ever be in a weight loss calorie deficit.
So eat a lot.
Jonathan's second tip is an easier way
to get yourself into a calorie deficit without starving yourself.
It's to eat a lot of protein, but not for the reason that you think.
Protein is the most satiating macronutrient, so it's very filling.
Have you ever tried to overeat hard boiled eggs or chicken breast.
Good luck.
You'll feel fuller sooner by eating plenty of protein.
Protein also has a hypermic effect of food, so your body is using as much as
25% of the calories that you're consuming when you eat protein just to digest it.
So not only will you eat fewer calories,
but eating lots of protein also means that you're burning more calories.
Finally, protein is also important because
as you're exercising, it's what allows you to rebuild.
Jonathan uses a lot of protein shakes that sit in the fridge for him ready
with 30 grams of protein and just 1 gram of sugar.
Bonus tip from Jonathan eat lots of vegetables.
They're very high in nutrients and fiber.
And if you think the 25% thermic effect
of protein is great, fiber is even better because you only
really absorb 50% of the calories that you consume from fiber.
We're talking a lot about calories here,
but hydration will make a big difference in how many calories you consume.
A huge thing that new runners and triathletes underestimate is to not
forget to hydrate a lot, especially for heavier athletes.
Heavier athletes will sweat more during exercise, getting more dehydrated,
which can lead to hunger, cravings and overeating later in the day.
But don't use super sugary sports drinks.
Stick to a water or light electrolyte
drink with just 10 grams of sugar per serving or less.
This will keep your insulin response low
so you can continue to burn calories while you're exercising much more easily.
The next tip from Jonathan will make
perfect sense to you when you hear it, but most people don't actually do it.
You need to match your calorie intake to the needs of the day.
Most people tend to eat the same thing day
in, day out, give or take a couple hundred calories.
But how many calories you burn will vary
by as much as 1000 calories per day when you're following a proper training plan.
For example, a long endurance run workout might burn as much as 3000 calories,
while a recovery bike day might only burn 200 calories.
Jonathan says that on days when you have
long training, be sure to give the body the fuel that it needs and vice versa.
Don't overeat on the rest days and the easy days.
That's why in our app we provide the exact recommended nutrition alongside every
single workout so that you can maximize the effectiveness of that workout and give
your body the proper amount of calories to do so.
Finally, this last training tip can have
a huge effect on what you eat throughout the day.
Make sure that low intensity running is
truly low intensity before you say this isn't about nutrition.
It is.
Most people don't perform their easy workouts easy enough,
pushing the intensity slightly into the moderate intensity effort zone
where you start to accumulate a higher stress response and more stress hormones.
Those stress hormones stimulate hunger
and cravings, so when you push a little too hard in those workouts,
you're more likely to eat more than you should later in the day.
I know that it's often hard for heavier athletes to run at a low heart rate,
so turn those low intensity runs into hikes, keeping that heart rate very,
very low, keeping your hunger low alongside it.
If you take only one thing from this
video, it's to not deprive yourself of food as you're running to lose weight.
Eat and drink lots from protein, veggies and water or electrolytes
to control your hunger, and a good training plan will take care of the rest.
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designed specifically for age group athletes who want to accomplish something
amazing in endurance sports despite the obstacles real life throws in the way.
Finally, as you start training, one of the most important and difficult
things you will have to learn is how to run at a low heart rate.
Click the video that's on the screen now,
which provides our complete system for how you can dial in your correct heart rate
training zones and make those heart rate runs easier as you start doing them later.
Motivators.