As a doctor, I'm a huge advocate of helping people lose weight, but how do you do it?
Do you only focus on eating healthy foods or do you only focus on counting calories or do
you need to do both? Here's the truth about weight loss. I'm Dr. Zyrowski,
and I started my holistic health practice in order to help you take control of your health
naturally because true health only comes naturally.
Weight loss is confusing. I'm fully aware of this.
Not only do I see my patients struggle with it, but you can go and look at statistics
and it really drives home this opinion that weight loss can be really confusing. I recently did an
educational video on counting calories, How to Count Calories. And a lot of people, well,
they gave me a lot of negative feedback from it. I was quite surprised. People said things like,
"How could you promote this broken model of weight loss?" People said things like,
"This method doesn't work." But I realized that these comments were from people who
just totally didn't understand my message. If you follow fitness influencers online,
then you're probably getting the message that you need to count calories, restrict calories,
and then go into a calorie deficit if you want to lose weight. Hey, I follow them so I know.
There's this one fitness influencer that I follow and every day, they're posting about
eating donuts carb-rich sandwiches. Truly, it looks like in order to be in great health
and be in great shape, that you just simply have to eat a lot of junk food,
but count your calories and that's what's going to get you to your goals. And then
you follow the health guru online who's a beaming example of health, and they say,
"You know what? Don't worry about counting calories. Eat healthy, make proper food choices,
and you're going to be fit and healthy." You hear both of these messages and you don't know which
one to follow. You don't know which way to go. You're left without results and you're confused.
A patient of mine was really frustrated because they started following the ketogenic diet and
they lost a ton of weight. That wasn't the frustrating part. The frustrating part was when
the weight loss stalled. She had about 80 pounds more to go and the weight wouldn't budge. So,
she started adding in different strategies. 16/8 intermittent fasting, one meal a day,
but still the weight wouldn't budge. There was no results. I had another person I was working with
who did something very similar to the last. They were eating healthy, lost a lot of weight. They
were exercising really heavily and they wanted to get that Instagram influencer ripped body.
The problem was that they had this skinny fat look going on, regardless of all the efforts.
Skinny fat basically means you're thin, but you still have a belly. This is something that a
lot of people struggle with. You can't just do core exercises to get yourself out of this one.
You have to do something a little bit different. This all brings us back to the original question,
"Which method is right?" Is it just eating healthy foods? Is it just counting calories or is it both?
I find that people are very tribal in their opinion on this. Put in the comment section
below what you think. When the patient who couldn't seem to lose weight while following keto
broke down exactly what they ate in the day, they were certainly following keto. There was only one
problem though. They were over consuming calories by hundreds every single day. Sure, while on the
ketogenic diet, they're going to help lower their blood sugar, become more insulin-sensitive. But
then, when it came to losing weight, they couldn't get any results with it because it came down to a
simple equation. They were over consuming way more calories than their body needed. What they were
doing here was forcing too much fuel into the system. When you force too much fuel into the
body, it does what it's designed to do, store that fuel in the form of fat in case of starvation.
I've eaten a healthy diet for many, many years, and I love food and I love really good healthy
food. But I can easily start packing on pounds when I eat too much. So, then what
is a calorie? A calorie is a unit of measured energy. We use calories in order to measure the
energy and food and drinks that we consume. In order to lose weight, we have to consume fewer
calories than we burn each day. But also remember, weight loss hinges on a healthy metabolic hormone
system and also a well-functioning body. This is exactly why somebody who is overweight with
severe insulin resistance will struggle to lose weight. And somebody who is overweight
without insulin resistance will find weight loss comes much easier, because
weight loss isn't just about counting calories. It's also about making proper food choices.
A rough estimation is that males need about 2,500 calories per day in order to maintain
their current weight and about 2000 calories per day if they want to lose about a pound a
week. Females need about 2,000 calories a day if you want to maintain your current
weight and around 1500 calories per day if you want to lose about a pound a week. However,
this depends on numerous different factors. First of all, your age. Your metabolism is
going to change as you age. Your height, a healthy 180-pound male will require different
calories than a healthy 140-pound male. Your exercise, I went and ran six miles this morning.
I'm going to burn about 600 calories more than someone who didn't exercise at all. Then your
current state of metabolic health; yeah, this is a huge factor. This is why eating healthy
food is really important. And it's not just about calories. If you eat a lot of junk food,
you'll become unhealthy. If you overeat in calories, you'll start to gain weight.
It's important to realize that this is not a one-size-fits-all approach. Based
on what your goals are, you'll have to employ different strategies. If you're just trying to
lose weight, get down to a healthy weight, there's a good chance that just eating good,
healthy foods will get you there. But if you're somebody who's trying to tone up and get in the
best shape of your life, there's no doubt you're going to have to count calories and you're going
to also have to eat healthy foods. Even for those who are just trying to get to a healthy weight,
you still may have to count some calories if you're finding that you're hitting a plateau.
About one to two weeks a month, my wife and I, we will count calories to make sure that
we're staying on track because it is our goal to stay lean, to stay fit and stay healthy.
In order to lose a pound of weight per week, it's estimated that you have to calorie deficit about
500 calories per day, as it is hypothesized that one pound of fat loss or fat gain is a result of
3,500 calories. My brother decided he wanted to lose weight so he started cutting calories,
1500 calories per week. Now, he did this with exercise. He was doing some serious long
distance running. There was only one problem. It worked really well for him for a couple of weeks,
but then after that, he started binge eating, gained it all back and some. It's important that
we don't calorie deficit more than about 500 calories per day because it's not sustainable
and it can cause a lot of problems with hunger. It can even lead to some eating disorders.
How do you figure out how many calories you should really be eating? What you want to do is
use an online calculator from a good source. You put in all your information. Your age,
your height, your weight, your activity level; put all that in there. Then it'll give you a number
back. It's important to realize that the number it gives you is typically never exact. From there,
implement this calorie intake or this calorie deficit, if you're trying to lose weight, over the
course of a week and see if you like what happens. Watch your weight. Take measurements. If you
don't like the results you're getting, move the calories in either direction based on your goals.
I also want to give you a simple calculation you can use in order to determine your calorie
deficit. I still prefer you going online and really just hitting it with pinpoint accuracy.
But for those who just want simplicity, do this. Think of your goal weight. I'm going
to say for me that my goal weight's 180 pounds. I want to be lean. I want to be strong. I want
to be healthy; 180 pounds for me. Times that by 12, your goal weight times 12.
This is going to give you how many calories you should eat in order to be in a deficit.
For me, I'm at 2,160 calories per day, and that is considered a deficit. I would follow that calorie
intake until I got to my goal weight and then I would go back up to maintenance. This whole time,
I would be eating a good, clean, healthy diet. When I first started counting calories,
I knew exactly when my deficit was too much. I would start getting ravenous, really hungry and
not feel very well, super fatigued. I would also know if I was eating too much because I
would start to get some belly fat accumulation around the waist. Since then, I've been able to
really dial it in. I just know what my body needs, either to maintain, to lose weight, or to build
strength. In order to master your weight loss journey today, watch these videos right here.
[Video playing - The reason that you can get weight loss when you use apple cider
vinegar is because it balances your insulin levels. It balances blood sugar levels.
It increases satiety, it decreases your appetite, and it increases your metabolism function.]