Is Eat Less & Move More The Right Approach?
Brace yourself, it’s a long one.
Today, I want to expand your horizon when it comes to sustainable weight management.
You see, most individuals aiming to transform their health by losing some weight, becoming more consistent with exercise and reducing their intake of (insert vices), will at some point have tried to eat less and move more (ELMM).
It’s the fundamental mechanism of creating a negative energy balance to lose weight/fat.
Perhaps you’ve tried it too.
It may have even looked something similar to this… smash 5x workouts a week, calorie count, do 10,000 steps a day and reduce alcohol/sugar intake.
ELMM at its finest.
Surely, that’ll work right?
As long as I stay disciplined.
My thoughts?
ELMM is probably no more than just a good place for most people to start.
Why? Because it’s an easy enough principle to understand in a complex world of nutrition and it just simply cuts to the chase…
You want to see results? Put down the cookies, and go on more walks/runs.
After all, we have to sacrifice something for this to be worthwhile, right?
Now, I’m fully aware of just how reductionist this principle is. On it’s own, It’s not very helpful.
It’s as helpful as telling a football team to just score more than their opponent if they want to win their next match.
I’m also aware that for those of you who are a little bit more nutrition savvy, that the ‘eat less’ part of ELMM has sometimes been upgraded to ‘eat less calorie dense foods, and eat more nutrient dense, energy sparing foods’.
Trading in calorically dense foods like chocolate for more calorically sparing foods like blueberries will effectively mean that you are eating less (calories) but eating more food (volume).
That’s definitely a good first graduation from ELMM to take, more on this later.
So, despite the fact that ELMM on it’s own isn’t very helpful, principles like ELMM and the upgraded version which we’ll speak about later are important to understand when it comes to complex subjects with lots of conflicting opinions as it encourages you to zoom out and to focus on the bigger picture.
Something that a lot of people forget to do when it comes to nutrition and weight loss.
The issue with ELMM
For most people, ELMM eventually leads to a bit of a cul-de-sac.
Initial progress on the scales is met by a host of issues if it isn’t slowly upgraded to something that’s a bit more open-ended and empowering.
I’ve been doing this for long enough to spot the usual patterns of this approach.
You feel like you’ve been overdoing it recently with alcohol, eating out, takeaways, biscuits, sweet treats and now starting to feel the impact of it. You’re not feeling healthy, you’re not happy with your body image and feeling quite desperate to change.
Exercise is either non-existent or your sessions are pretty tame and lacking intensity/focus.
One morning your emotions get the better of you and without a thorough plan, you decide to drop all of your vices (maybe it was a new years resolution) and start exercising/moving more (ELMM in effect now).
You start tracking everything you eat but you despise weighing food on food scales so, a guesstimation on Myfitnesspal will suffice for now. It’s the same porridge for breakfast and the same chicken salad from Pret for lunch that’s on rotation anyway. Easy peasy.
After a few weeks, despite seeing some initial progress on the scales, the weight loss is starting to slow down. You’ve been invited to a few social events and a few different food items has started to creep in as of late. Your tracking on Myfitnesspal has become more sporadic and loose than religious. Your discipline levels have definitely dropped.
Your weight continues to fluctuate and as a result you start weighing yourself less and less.
You’re growing increasingly frustrated and quite frankly becoming bored of the same meals that you’ve been having.
Results have officially plateaued now and you’ve stopped tracking on Myfitnesspal altogether.
Your exercise consistency goes out the window because what’s the point, now that your nutrition plan has failed once again right?
Sound familiar?
The issue isn’t that ELMM doesn’t work. If you’re familiar with the 1st law of thermodynamics, you’ll accept that if you are wanting to improve your body composition by losing some body fat, there is no getting around the need to create an energy deficit.
i.e. no amount of crunches, cold showers, hot water with lemon (or insert any other hack) is going to do the business for you. It all boils down to energy balance (calories in vs calories out).
The main issue is how you’re applying ELMM and more importantly, what ELMM is up against.
Let me explain.
You already know how to lose weight, just ELMM.
But I’m guessing that you have a hard time managing your weight within the confines of; an ever increasing sedentary way of living, aging, having an abundance of dopamine fuelling foods within a stones throw away, constantly being tempted by biscuits in the office, a glass of alcohol to unwind after a long day (or two), and turning to food for comfort.
Can you see how when you pit yourself up against all of the above with ‘just ELMM’, you’re never going to win.
Not to mention having to contest with balancing your social calories, eating the correct portion sizes (the same 2400 calorie roast dinner at your local pub is served to both a 60kg female and a 100kg male), resorting to meal deals and deliveroo as you fail to dedicate the time to cook tasty, highly satiating foods that you can bring to work for lunch.
ELMM works, but realistically, unless you never eat out and are built like a robot, you need a better way.
So Danny, what is the solution???
I’m glad you asked…
If you’re somebody who’s attempted diet after diet, health kick after health kick and seen results but never quite lasted the distance (chronic yo-yo dieters I’m speaking to you), it’s time to realise that weight loss isn’t actually what you need the most.
What you actually need is better weight management skills.
The skills, knowledge, experience (or whatever you want to call it) to be able to manage your weight better is what many traditional ‘dieters’ lack.
Similar to being finance savvy by investing your money in things like stocks and shares, property, assets, gaining compound interests etc to make your money work harder for you and building true wealth as opposed to keeping it all in a low interest savings account.
Knowing how to manage your weight in different circumstances is the difference between being trapped forever on the ‘dieting hamster wheel’ and being fully in control.
After spending a bit of time doing ELMM, your focus should really be shifting towards learning how to ‘move the most that you can to eat more’ or ‘move more effectively so that you can eat more’.
If you wanted to lose 10kg over a 12 week time frame, and I gave you the option to either do this by eating 1500kcal throughout this period or 2000kcal throughout the period, you’re going to choose 2000kcal every single day.
By that same token, maintaining your weight on 2500 calories is far more achievable than on 2000 calories.
Why? Because you have more flexibility in your choices. You can have a croissant from Gails once or twice a week and not think anything of it.
You basically can ‘get away’ with more and don’t have to rely on 100% discipline levels every single day.
Yes, there is a pay-off. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
You do need to optimise your steps, training program, intensity of training and incorporate metabolically expensive sessions like interval training/weight training.
*But by doing the above, you have a bigger budget to play with.*
Those people that you’ve been envious of in the past who can just ‘eat whatever they like’ and remain lean? Your personal trainers, your friends with ‘the best metabolism’ or your 6 ft 4 beast of a cousin, are not defying nature. They all move a lot and have great skeletal muscle mass.
Moving the most you can and exercising as effectively as you can, alongside prioritising less energy dense foods/more energy sparing foods, good quality sleep of adequate duration and having solid strategies in place for emotional eating is your recipe for long-term success.
*I’m aware that exercise and movement shouldn’t only be seen as a mechanism to burn calories just so more calories can be consumed and that exercise/movement plays a far greater role in our livelihood*