6 Facts You Should Know About Losing Weight and Keeping it Off

Daniel Bourke
7 min readApr 7, 2019
Gym memberships cost. But movement is always free. Photo by the author.

So you want to get shredded?

Or maybe it’s a few months into the year and your New Years resolution to lose weight isn’t tracking too well. I’ve been there.

It doesn’t matter what time of year it is. There are things you can do all year round to get lean and stay lean.

Screw the 8-week challenges. Think 80-years instead.

Screw the stomach surgery. You don’t need it. No one should need it.

I grew up as an overweight teenager. I used to be scared in gym class to take my shirt off.

Scared to walk around a shopping centre because my t-shirt was hugging my man boobs.

I’ve been lean for the past 7-years. I’m not going back.

I know you’re in a hurry. So we’ll look at the things which offer the biggest benefits.

1. There is no best diet

I’ve tried them. Vegan, vegetarian, paleo, keto, low carb, high carb. You name it.

They all work. I felt better on some than others. And you’ll be the same.

Nutrition science is still very guess and check when it comes to each individual.

The most universal protocol I’ve found (and the one I stick to) is to consume a wide range of minimally processed foods and only eat when you need to.

What does this mean?

It means avoiding anything which has been made in a facility where people are required to wear white coats.

It means avoiding anything your great great grandparents wouldn’t recognise as food.

It means swapping calorie counting for eating in a time restricted window. This means for a certain number of hours in the day, you don’t eat anything and only consume water. In the window? Eat. Out of the window? Don’t eat.

A quick example.

6:00 am wake up.

6:00 am — 12:00 pm consume nothing but water (black coffee/tea okay but avoid any sweeteners).

12:00 pm — 8:00 pm consume whole food diet (meats, nuts, plants, oils or whatever suits your needs, refer to 1).