Is It Possible To Eat The Foods I Love And Still Lose Weight?
Hey, Josh here!
So I like eating Stouffer’s microwave lasagna.
Let’s start there.
Actually, let’s go ahead and replace like with love.
I love eating Stouffer’s microwave lasagna!
And because I love it so much, guess what I’m having for lunch today!
Yep, you guessed it…
I’m having…
And you know what else…
Tomorrow morning I’ll weigh the same as I did this morning.
I won’t gain one single pound.
This evening I’ll have a half-pound cheeseburger with fries for dinner.
And in case you’re wondering, when I hit the scale tomorrow morning I still won’t weigh any more than I did this morning.
A candy bar, some chocolate covered raisins, a brownie, and some buttered popcorn will be my snacks today.
And I still won’t gain any additional weight.
Right now you may be thinking, ‘Uh huh. Keep eating like that and tell me how your pants fit in three months.’
You may be thinking I have some special genetics, or that I’m a high metabolism twenty year old. (I wish.)
You may be thinking it’s not possible to eat lasagna, then snack on popcorn and chocolate, then have a cheeseburger and fries for dinner, and still gain absolutely zero weight.
But the truth is that you can.
It is one hundred percent possible!
You can eat the foods you love and still get in the best shape of your life.
Don’t believe me?
I’m living proof.
Here’s a before and after pic of me, myself, and not Irene.
The picture on the left is when I was first beginning this fitness journey and the one on the right is a picture of me from a few weeks ago.
Trust me, I am no where close to being a twenty-year-old spring chicken.
I was 43 when I first started this fitness journey; I am 44 now.
And I promise you, I have no super high metabolism.
What I do have is a method that has helped me lose over 35 pounds of fat, gain a significant amount of muscle, and get in the absolute best shape of my life — all while eating foods that I actually enjoy.
But my journey is definitely not all cupcakes and sprinkles.
It took me years of searching, testing, failing before I figured out how to eat the foods I love and still get in the best shape of my life.
After this article I hope you choose to do the same!
Let’s get to it.
Are you losing weight today, gaining weight today, or staying the same weight today?
Quick question: let’s say I’m sitting on my couch watching Sports Center, and I’m munching on a salad and an avocado and I’m washing it all down with a great big glass of ice water—will I lose weight, gain weight, or stay the same weight when I hop on the scale tomorrow morning?
I’m guessing most people would think I’d lose weight eating a salad and an avocado.
Maybe a few would make an argument that I’d gain or stay the same weight.
But here’s the God-to-honest truth:
You don’t know.
You can’t.
Not with any certainty.
And the first reason you can’t realistically know the answer to this is because you don’t know how many calories I burn per day, and the second reason is because you don’t know how many calories I’m actually putting inside my body.
Sure, you’d know I was eating a salad.
And an avocado.
But here’s the thing:
You can still get fat eating salads and avocados and eggs and all the foods that we’ve always been told are ‘healthy.’
Now I’m not saying you should no longer eat salads or avocados or eggs or any of the foods we’ve always been told are healthy.
What I am saying is that in order to lose weight and get in great shape, we have to know which foods and how much of these foods we can actually eat before the balloon we call our bellies starts to expand.
Why?
Imagine this: you’re at a pizza restaurant with friends and you’re at that point where you’re thinking, ‘Hmmm, should I have one more slice?’
In today’s fairy tale you look down at your arm and there’s a handy dandy nifty little fuel gauge build right there into your body. Pretty neat, I know! Even better, it shows that your tank is only half full which means you’re good to eat another slice. You greedily grab another piece of Meat Lover’s Supreme and savor this cheesy gooey meaty delight, swallowing every last morsel. Then you look at your nifty fuel gauge again.
You’re three quarters full now.
Yessss! This means you can eat even more. So a few chicken wings go down your throat, two mozzarella sticks, a fudge brownie, and…yep…that did it. Your tank is now completely full. Blaaannkkhhhh Blaaannkkhhhh Blaaannkkhhh – that’s the overflow alarm going off. Even if you tried grubbing on one more tiny little loose piece of pepperoni then your throat would not allow it into your stomach.
You’d have to wait until some calories were burned and then there’d be more room in your tank. So you wait, and you walk; and your heart is beating (which burns calories), and your brain is thinking (which also burns calories), and your lungs are working, and so are your muscles, and all the while you are burning calories and before long it’s time to fill up again. This time with the sweet nectar of Stouffer’s lasagna!
In all honesty, the above scenario would be a great way to live because we’d never have to worry about overeating or being overweight, but unfortunately, we live in the real world and in the real world we don’t have a handy dandy nifty little fuel gauge built right there into our bodies.
Here in the real world most of us are completely clueless as to how much fuel we are putting inside our bodies.
People guesstimate.
Or…to put it more accurately, normal people guesstimate.
And 99.999999 percent of normal people are absolutely terrible at this.
But these normal people, which is the vast majority of the world, will justify their terribleness by blabbering on and on about how healthy they are eating. I’m eating fruits, they’ll say. Or, almonds. Or you’ll hear all about how yogurt is extremely healthy. As are lentils and lean meats and salads and oats.
And then they’ll eat and eat and eat these things, and have a large M&M Blizzard as a reward for dessert. And why not, they’ve earned it. I mean they’ve been eating healthy, right?
Riiiiiiggggghhhht???
These same normal people will say, “I’m doing the Keto diet.” Or, “I’m doing Paleo.” Or avocados have healthy fats. Or eggs have a lot of protein.
And that’s great!
Because all those things are good and true.
But here’s another truth: you can still get fat on Keto and on Paleo and by eating avocados and eggs and any other foods out there.
You will get fat if you eat more calories than your body can burn.
The diet doesn’t matter. Nor does the food type. Nor does the time of day you eat.
What matters is this:
If you eat more calories than your body can burn, you will gain weight.
Period.
It’s that simple.
If you enjoy the Keto diet, then awesome—keep doing the Keto diet, but to lose weight you must ensure you are not eating more calories than your body can burn while on the keto diet.
Same with Paleo.
And Adkins.
Same with any other diet or eating preference.
The rules of all these different diets (like Keto or Paleo) are in place to encourage you to eat lower calorie foods so you won’t eat more than your body can burn.
Normal people have a hard time swallowing this. They think there’s magic in the Paleo diet. Or magic in Keto. But there is no magic.
There is only math.
And the math looks like this:
If you eat 2,200 calories today but your body burns only 2,000 calories, then you will gain weight.
That extra 200 calories has to go somewhere.
And it goes into thunder thighs, love handles, and chubby chins.
However, if you eat 1,800 calories today and your body burns 2,000 calories, then you will lose weight.
Because your body needs those 2,000 calories for fuel, so if you’re not giving it all 2,000 when you eat, then it will steal what it needs from the thunder thighs, the love handles, and the chubby chin.
That’s it.
That’s how fat loss works.
Now that we know what causes us to gain weight, the two key questions for weight loss become:
1.) How many calories does my body burn everyday?
2.) How many calories can I eat everyday to guarantee weight loss?
These were (and still are) the fundamental questions I had to answer before I structured an eating plan that would both guarantee I would lose weight and allow me to maintain my sanity.
Both are important!
The first thing I did to ensure I could eat the foods I love (Hello, Lasagna!) while still getting in great shape was to figure out how much I could realistically eat without getting fatter.
Basically, when was my tank full?
There’s a couple different ways to figure out the answer to this simple question, but keep in mind, you only need one to figure it out.
Normal people will research method after method and decide they need to do the most difficult one, which they’ll then determine they can’t do right now and because they can’t do it right now they’ll justify that as a reason to not do anything right now and then they will eat half a Domino’s pizza and blame their ever increasing weight gain on their terribly slow metabolism.
This is not a joke. It’s not me trying to be funny.
I honestly used to do things like this. It happens.
But that doesn’t mean it has to happen to you.
With that said, the simplest and easiest way to figure out how many calories you can eat is to use one of the hundreds of online calorie calculators.
Are some of these online calorie calculators better than others?
Of course.
Is this method one hundred percent accurate?
Absolutely not.
But here’s the thing, nothing is going to be one hundred percent accurate in this regard. The amount of calories you burn today will be different than the amount of calories you burned yesterday. And they’ll be different than the amount you burn tomorrow.
If you sneeze tomorrow and didn’t sneeze today, then you’ll burn additional calories tomorrow because your body had to exert energy while sneezing. If you took a few stairs yesterday, or walked one more step than you did the previous day, or lifted an Amazon package, or any of a hundred things that change from day to day, then the calories that you burn would change in proportion to those different levels of activity.
So don’t worry about obtaining one hundred percent accuracy in regards to daily expenditure of your calories burned. Don’t let something that mundane prevent you from beginning. You only need to worry about getting yourself a baseline that is fairly accurate.
Here is the calorie calculator I used when I started my journey.
If your goal is to get in shape but you didn’t plug your info into the above calorie calculator, and you didn’t calculate how many calories you can eat to reach your goal, then go back and do it. Otherwise, why read any further.
You have a choice right now.
You can begin, or you can continue doing nothing that is actionable.
I chose door number two for many, many years. I used to read and read and read and read, always learning but never doing. And that’s why it took me 44 years to reach my goal of getting in great shape and having a body that I like, rather than a body I hate.
Don’t make that mistake.
It sucks being out of shape and not liking yourself and not liking how you look.
Trust me, I know. So choose to be different.
Choose to not be normal.
Because normal is not what you want to aspire to be, it’s what you want to get away from.
Normal is the majority. And the majority of people will do nothing, then they will get nothing, and then they will make excuses as to why they are getting nothing.
So be different.
And start.
And then be really different. And continue: day after day after day, rain or shine, on both the rare days when you actually feel like doing it, and especially on all the days when you don’t.
Anyhow, enough ranting. Plug your info into the calculator. It won’t hurt, I promise!
Moving on…
Once you’ve submitted your info into the calculator, you’ll see some numbers pop up. The two that will safely help you drop pounds are TDEE and RMR.
Let’s break those down.
TDEE stands for ‘Total Daily Energy Expenditure.’ This is the amount of energy (how many calories) your body expends each day. Essentially, this is your fuel gauge.
If you eat more calories than your TDEE, you will gain weight. If you eat less calories than your TDEE, you will lose weight.
It is honestly that simple.
Right now you may be wondering: ‘Well if it’s really that simple then why is everyone not doing this?’
And it’s because the hard part is not in knowing, it’s in doing – consistently.
Don’t worry, I’ll show you how to conquer consistency later. But right now, let’s roll through the other parameter that will help shrink your pant size: RMR.
RMR is your ‘Resting Metabolic Rate.’ This is the number of calories your body burns while you’re at rest. Otherwise known as your ‘keep me alive calories.’ These are the required calories your body needs to keep your heart beating, and your brain functioning, and your lungs breathing.
RMR has nothing to do with the calories you expend when you tug the sweatband on and beat feet on the treadmill. These RMR calories are being burned day and night, asleep or awake, twenty-four hours per day, seven days a week, all the freaking time.
So why is RMR important and why should you care about it?
Again, these are the calories needed to keep you alive and healthy. If you consistently eat a lower amount of calories than your body needs, then your body will cease to function.
So if your body needs a minimum of 1,200 calories per day to ensure your vital organs are able to function and you consistently eat 1,000 calories per day, then your body will not have enough energy to keep you alive and healthy.
Your body won’t have the fuel it needs to keep your heart beating and your brain functioning and your lungs breathing.
Don’t let this freak you out too much. This process of self-destruction would take weeks, months, years. If you fast for a day or two every now and again, then good on you. But in general, it’s a good idea to consistently give your body at least the minimum fuel it requires.
My Real World Numbers.
Now that we know how to determine the amount of calories needed to guarantee weight loss, let’s jump into a real-world example to see this come together.
Here’s what my own personal TDEE and RMR looked like when I began:
I’m 5′ 7″ and was 43 years old and weighed 177.2 pounds.
As for my goal weight: at one point I read an internet article about fitness. The guy in the article was also 5’7.” But, unlike me, he was ripped at 160 pounds with something like 10 percent body fat.
The picture of that guy became a baseline dream of what I believed to be possible. It was what I wanted to look like.
He was 5’7″.
I am 5’7″.
In hopes of having a body like that guy, my goal weight became 160 pounds, but no way I ever thought I could get and maintain 10 percent body fat. Which is funny because today I weigh 140 and my body fat is 5.7 percent.
I say this to let you know that you can obtain and surpass your wildest goals. You may not fully believe that right now, and that’s okay. But you need to believe that you can do something easy for a long time. Because that is truly, honestly the key to fitness. That is the secret of it all. It’s what makes a weirdo a Weirdo. Just start and then stick with it consistently. Every single day. Click here to read more about how to create and stick to your streaks.
For my activity level I put ‘Moderately Active’ because I was beginning to workout at the time. I was walking. I would get out and about. My day job requires me to kinda sorta sometimes do something that halfway resembles moving around.
After I entered my info into the calorie calculator, I got a TDEE of 2,488.
This means if I ate more than 2,488 calories in a day, I would get fatter. Simple as that.
My RMR was 1,659.
If I consistently ate less than 1,659 calories per day, then I would be begging for health concerns. And these potential health concerns would be caused by my body having too little fuel. My body would not have enough fuel to provide me with the energy needed to properly function.
Armed with my TDEE and RMR, I knew my calorie range fell somewhere between 1,659 – 2,488.
If I ate anywhere between those calorie limits, I would lose weight.
At this point, most people (me included) would jump at the lowest number (the RMR) and say, “Okay I’m gonna eat the least amount of calories possible because I need to lose (10) (20) (30) (40) pounds like yesterday.”
I did this and it is a mistake. You’ll most likely fail. It will put you in a place I call ‘The Fat Boy Rollercoaster,’ and ladies, don’t worry, this ride does not discriminate. There is most definitely a line for ‘The Fat Girl Rollercoaster’ as well.
If you’re unfamiliar, this is how the ‘The Fat Boy Rollercoaster’ works:
You get all amped up to lose weight. There’s fire in your belly and motivation in your veins. You can eat healthy, you know you can. “Bring it!” you whisper scream at yourself in the mirror.
And then you suffer through low calorie meals that you don’t much like. Day after day you do this. And you begin to lose weight.
Yahhhh!!!
And you reach your goal!!!
Whoo Hoo!!!!
I did it, you think. I really, really did it.
And because you did it, you reached your goal, then you stop eating the things you don’t very much like to eat.
You go back to being a Normie.
Eating with your Normie friends. Eating with your Normie coworkers.
And that means you start eating just like your friends. And just like your coworkers.
And then the rollercoaster of weight begins to go back up. Click. Click. Click. Click. Click. And your pants suddenly don’t fit anymore. Your chubby thighs are back. And then you’re exactly where you started, ashamed and completely disgusted with yourself all over again.
I’ve been on this ride so many times I should be a manager at Fatboy Amusement Park.
If you’ve ever experienced this, you know how frustrating and disheartening it can be.
It will literally steal your hope. Leaving you to wonder if long term fitness is ever really possible for you.
It is.
You just have to stay off the Fatboy Rollercoaster.
Here’s what worked for me…
The ‘Fat Boy Rollercoaster’ Survival Guide
Okay, so how do you avoid looping around on Fatboy Rollercoaster for all eternity?
The answer:
You don’t get on Fatboy Rollercoaster in the first place.
Yes, I’m serious.
Let me explain…
This depressing cycle of eating ‘healthy,’ then reaching our goal, then getting fat all over again is caused when we go on a restrictive diet we don’t enjoy and then we come off the diet and start eating to our heart’s content again.
You may be thinking, ‘Yep, knew it, the problem is the diet.’
And in a sense, you’re right, because if you could find a diet you didn’t hate, one you instead actually enjoyed, then you’d be able to stick with that enjoyable diet forever and ever and everything would be summertime happiness in a place I call lasagna and cheeseburger heaven.
So yes, there is some validity to this notion that everything is the ‘diets’ fault.
But here’s the weird thing, that devil diet that didn’t work for you…the one you tried and hated…the one that seemed impossible to stick with…the one that gave you stomach problems and headaches and made you feel blah.
That same diet worked for some people.
It is still working for some people.
And the reason this diet (that you hated) is working so well for these other people is because it is not a diet for them.
You hated it.
But they enjoyed it.
To you, it’s a diet, it’s temporary until you reach your goal, it’s a struggle, it’s about using sheer willpower to eat a certain way.
To them, it’s how they like to eat. It’s permanent. It’s not called a diet, it’s only called lunch. Or dinner. Or my usual snack.
Dieting isn’t dieting if it’s permanent and if it’s how you like to eat all the time.
So the real problem is not necessarily ‘The Diet’ but instead, the problem is ‘Dieting’ in general.
Dieting is temporary and that’s a problem because you need a long-term permanent solution so you can eat how you like to eat while losing and then staying in a weight range that makes you happy.
Knowing this, I chose to only eat the foods I like.
The caveat: I had to either find the healthiest versions of those foods, or I had to figure out a way to create the healthiest versions of those foods.
I recommend you do the same.
But I Don’t Want To Eat The Same Foods Over And Over And Over And Over…
Hey, I get it.
For some people, this whole idea of finding the foods you like, making them healthier, and then primarily eating only those foods may sound terrible because who wants to eat the same foods over and over and over again.
I felt this same way. But then I realized I was already eating the same 10-20 meals over and over and over again. The bulk of my meals were primarily coming from Papa John’s, or Five Guys, or Taco Bell, or from a handful of other places.
So I was already eating cheeseburgers, and tacos, and pizza, and lasagna over and over and over again but I was eating the Fatboy versions of those foods.
And that was a big problem.
To fix this I had to figure out how I could make those same meals healthier so the calories would come in lower than my TDEE.
To this day, it’s still primarily cheeseburgers, and tacos, and pizza, and lasagna going into my belly, but it’s now a heathier version.
So if you’re reading this because you’re serious about losing weight, then your homework at this point should be to pay attention to what you eat, not to necessarily count the calories, but to get a good idea of the 10-20 meals you are already eating eighty percent of the time.
Then the goal is to make those same meals healthier, but still scrumptious.
This is the exact process I’ve used to lose forty pounds while still eating lasagna, cheeseburgers, steaks, pasta, and all the other meals I love. It’s how I’m still maintaining my weight to this day.
As an example: I’m having a massive bowl of Chicken & Crawfish Gumbo tomorrow for lunch and then a seventeen-ounce steak with rice and sweet peas and ketchup and a coke zero for dinner.
I’m already looking forward to it!
Yesterday I had a massive serving of Chicken Pot Pie Stew for lunch and then six hefty beef tacos for dinner. Full on with cheese and salsa and seasonings.
To me, these are all great meals, and even better they fall well under my TDEE, so I also get to have my usual snacks of a candy bar, some chocolate raisins, a brownie and then some popcorn.
That’s pretty much it.
Now you know exactly how I eat. Before we part ways, I’d like to go a little deeper and wrap all this up by jumping into the heart of the noodles and cheese and I’ll show you one of my actual meal plans I used when I was losing weight.
Let’s Jump Into The Noodles & Cheese
As I mentioned earlier my daily TDEE was 2,488, so I needed to eat less than 2,488 calories to ensure I would lose weight.
I also needed to do this while eating foods I enjoyed so I could ensure I would stick to this eating plan for a long, long time.
Note: A long, long time is not a 30-day diet. It is not a 90-day challenge. Think ‘decade diet’ if you must think in terms of dieting. Think a minimum of 1,000 days. Anything less and you are simply dabbling. 1,000 days is a true Weirdo commitment!
By now, I’m assuming the secret is out and you know I like lasagna and cheeseburgers.
Being that I love them so, I will use them as my meal example.
I log the majority of my meals (because I’m a true and absolute weirdo) and I just went back and looked at my very rudimentary food journal.
November of 2022 is when I really began to take weight-loss seriously. It’s when I stopped dabbling and finally committed.
On November 14th, 2022, this is exactly what I ate for the day:
Breakfast:
- Body Fortress Protein Shake: 180 Calories/ 40 grams protein
Lunch:
- Stouffers Meatlovers Lasagna: 820 calories/ 39 grams protein
Dinner:
- Half Pound 93% Lean Burger: 340 calories/ 46 grams protein
- 2 Slices Publix Whole Wheat Bread: 120 calories/ 08 grams protein
- 2 servings Ore-Ida Fries: 180 calories/ 04 grams protein
- 14g Kraft Mozzarella Cheese: 25 calories/ 04 grams protein
- 90g Heinz Ketchup: 106 calories/ 00 grams protein
Daily Total: 1,771 Calories/ 148 grams protein
Notice I didn’t eat salad, or fruits, or fish, or avocados.
Why?
Because I don’t like salads or avocados, and I didn’t feel like eating fish or fruit. I wanted lasagna and a cheeseburger and so I ate lasagna and a cheeseburger.
I ate the foods I liked!
But to lose weight, I had to make sure the lasagna and cheeseburger would put my total daily calories at less than my TDEE.
It did.
Every single day I eat this way.
I only eat meals that I love. But, without sacrificing taste, I either make or choose the lowest calorie versions possible of these meals. This allows me to eat the foods I love while still losing weight.
I follow this process religiously.
And that is the other side of the equation.
Weight loss and fitness require consistency.
It requires that you stick to your plan. Today, and tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and on weekends, and Christmas, and on your birthday, and every single day in between.
Does that mean you can never ever have a cheat meal again for all the rest of your life?
NO!
It doesn’t mean that at all!
What it does mean is that should have a plan to ensure a cheat meal does not turn into a cheat month.
And then you must stick to that plan.
Every single day.
No matter what.
Even if people think you’re being a weirdo.
Remember, weird is what you want to be. Being ‘Just Like Everyone Else’ is what you want to avoid.
So make a plan.
And make it easy enough to where you can be consistent with your plan for a minimum of 1,000 days.
And then execute the plan.
And stick to it every single day, even when Normies think you’re being weird.
For some humans reading this, you may be thinking: ‘Yea, well…this may have worked for you, but it won’t work for me.’
And you may be thinking this because you don’t like lasagna and cheeseburgers. And you don’t like doing pushups. And you don’t want to do something every single day. Maybe you have less time than me.
And that’s fine.
If you don’t like lasagna and cheeseburgers then don’t eat lasagna and cheeseburgers.
If you don’t want to do pushups then don’t do pushups.
If you don’t want to do something every single day, then don’t.
You are you and I am me. And you and I are different people. With different tastes, different likes, different dislikes.
The entire point of this article is NOT to convince you to eat Stouffer’s Microwave Lasagna. Instead, it’s to inform you that you CAN eat the foods you love and still lose weight.
If you like tacos, then eat tacos (just eat a lower calorie version.) Same with ice cream, or pasta, or pizza, or whatever your favorite foods may be.
For long term fitness and weight loss you must find a process you enjoy and then you must stick to that process for a long, long time.
There are a million processes out there. You just need to find the one that works perfectly for you.
With this said, I’m starting a ‘health eating’ collection, which is simply a collection of eating habits that have worked well for others. If you’re still searching for your perfect eating process then these methods are true and tried—steal a method you like and let’s get started!
You can find the entire collection here.
Right now, today, in this exact moment, you have a choice. You can either start on a path that will move you closer to your goals or you can do what you’ve always done and get what you’ve always gotten and stay in the same spot you’re currently at.
If you don’t really know where to start or how to start, then click here. Because if you don’t start in the right spot, you’ll never get to where you want to go.
It’s all easier than you think.
I promise!
Feel free to email me at the following email address if you have any questions: [email protected].