YHATC072: How to Lose Weight Without Counting Calories or Points

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Losing weight by counting Calories or “points (WW)” is effective, but for those of you who are not fond of counting all of the time, it is totally possible to lose weight without having to count Calories OR points. No excuses!

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Transcript

You saw by the title that we’re talking about losing weight without counting calories, without counting points. Now when I say counting points, for those of you who are uninitiated, I’m referring to Weight Watchers. And don’t get me wrong when I’m talking about counting points and counting calories; I am not saying that that’s wrong. I am not saying anything negative about it. Those work very well. If you do them faithfully, they work well.

I’ve actually interviewed a couple of people who were a part of weight Watchers and lost tremendous amount of weight and it really transformed their perspective on food, and the way that they ate overall in a lasting fashion. Tonja Jordan is one and Geraldine McClendon, my mother, is another. And I’ll link to their stories in the show notes. So yeah, it works. That stuff works.

But there are some of you who are deterred by the thought of counting points, or counting calories because you feel like, “Okay, I don’t really want to carry a calculator with me. I really don’t want to be looking at labels and having to look up food before I go to a restaurant to see how many calories are in it, or trying to calculate amount of points. I don’t want to do all that.”

For some of you, it could take the enjoyment out of food, because you just want to go sit down and eat. You really don’t feel like going and counting stuff, or whatever. Again, that stuff does work, but I do recognize there are some of you who don’t necessarily care for that and the thought of [counting] deters you.

Now I’ll say this as well. You do have to be careful, particularly when it comes to counting calories, because there is a tendency when people think about food, the calories in food, you can start to think about food only in terms of the calories and what happens is you start to simplify food. And food is not a simple substance.

Food, or what we eat for food, is actually very complicated. It’s a very complex conglomeration of not only calories, which are units of energy, but also fats, proteins, carbohydrates, nutrients like vitamin C and beta carotene and the B vitamins and all of those things. Minerals like selenium, potassium, magnesium, sodium. Phytonutrients, which are essentially the broad name given to the various nutrients that scientists don’t really understand yet, but they help our bodies. And now when you simplify food and think about it only in terms of calories, this can be very unhealthy for your body.

Case in point, there is a man, I didn’t look up his story before I started recording, so I’ll try to make sure I link to his story in the show notes. But this man went on a Twinkie diet.

Yes, for some period of time, I can’t remember if it was a month or more, but he ate only Twinkies, only Twinkies. And he lost a significant amount of weight. And not only that, but he experienced improvement in his numbers. I think his cholesterol, for example, went down. But he lost weight.

Now you might think, “Wow, he lost weight on Twinkies? Wow.” But to be honest, it’s really not that impressive. Why? Because he was more so considering just the calories. So think about it, I’m not saying this is what he did, but if you only ate two Twinkies a day and that’s all you ate, you already know you’re going to lose weight. Right? Just being real.

So it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter what you eat in terms of the caloric content. Okay? If you eat less calories than you burn, then you’re going to lose weight. But see, here’s the thing, your body is not that simple. Your body does not just need less calories. Your body needs various nutrients, various minerals, and helpful substances that are normally in food, so that you can thrive, so that you can actually live. They’re necessary for your body.

But when you think about this, if you were to just try to lose weight on Twinkies and stuff, at some point, because the nutritional content of a Twinkie is probably equivalent to a rock if not less, because the rock at least has minerals in it. So you can’t really survive off of a lifestyle of Twinkies. You see what I’m saying?

So you’ll lose weight, but the inside of your body is going to end up being more messed up for that. There are a lot of “eat whatever you want and lose weight” diets, or whatever. It’s the same kind of thing. It’s not just the calories that matter, it’s the food, it’s the life giving things inside the food that matter.

Now, so let me go ahead and cut to the chase. So if you want to lose weight without having to calorie count calories or count points, non-starchy vegetables need to be the base of your diet. Vegetables, so that excludes potatoes, breads, grains and foods like that. I’m not saying that you totally exclude those. I’m saying that the non-starchy vegetables, like greens, like lettuce, like, what’s something else? Onions and peppers and broccoli and cauliflower. Brussels sprout, I know, I know. Asparagus. These need to be the base of your diet.

At least half of your plate should be non-starchy vegetables. Why? Because for one thing, they’re naturally low-calorie. You can eat a whole lot of them and I think it was like two cups, maybe two cups of greens, collard greens is a hundred calories or something like that? Don’t quote me on that. It’s something like that. I looked it up before, but that same amount of greens, that’s a lot of green. So it’s going to help you to be full. And it has a lot of fiber. And what I mean is the fiber helps you to get full and it’s high in nutrients. So you’re going to be full. You’re not going to go over calories and you’re going to be healthier because there’s a lot of nutrients in those. Okay?

So again, what you would want to do ideally is to make half of your plate consist of non-starchy vegetables if not more. Or you could do something like eating a salad before you eat the rest of your food. But yes, if you fill half of your plate with non-starchy vegetables, I promise you, you’re not going to have to count calories all the time. Now you can adjust that. You’re going to have to adjust it here and there over time, or whatever, but you’re going to get your nutrients in too. Because guys, please remember when you eat, it’s not all about just being full. That’s not primary is what I’m trying to say. The primary thing is the nutrition. The primary issue that you need to take care of is making sure that your body has what it needs to survive.

Taste is secondary. The pleasure part is secondary. It’s important. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to have you to feel like you need to live like a Puritan or anything like that, [like] your food needs to be nasty. No, no, I love good food, but I also believe that good food can be healthy food as well.

So the main thing you need to understand is you need to eat like I say, you need to eat to live. And I promise you if you, again, if you base your diet off of the non-starchy vegetables, make it at least half of your plate, non-starchy vegetables, greens, all that stuff I mentioned before, then you will see a difference. Trust me, I know it for myself personally.

So I hope that you hear what I’m saying and that you understand even the “science behind it”, because the calorie stuff takes care of itself if you do that. So at least starting the day, if you can consider eating something low-calorie, before your breakfast, eat a big bowl of fruit. Eat a big salad or a big plate of greens before you eat the other stuff. And then, if you have a little bit of room, you can maybe eat a couple of other things.

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