2 Uncommon Tips for Maintaining a Healthy Weight

It’s well understood that the main thing driving changes in weight is calorie balance, where you will gain weight if calorie input is higher than calorie output, and you will lose weight if calorie output is higher than calorie input.

“Move more, eat less. Got it.” 

But that answer isn’t always sufficient for everyone.

And, in my experience, these next 2 tips are game-changers to help you get your weight in a healthy range so that you can do all that God desires you to do across your lifetime! :)

1. Feeling hungry is totally normal and necessary when losing weight.

“Well, duh.” It seems common sense, but you’d be surprised at how easy it is to forget that.

Our brains are wired to freak out every time we start feeling a little hungry. We feel the need to instantly go get food so that we can make that feeling go away.

The problem is, it’s hard to lose weight if you’re never hungry. Hunger (in most healthy people) is the signal that your body has used up the energy from the food you last ate, and is now having to dip into your stored energy to keep you moving.

And isn’t that the point? We want to use up our stored energy, because that’s the body fat you’re wanting to lose!

Feeling mildly hungry means you’re burning body fat, so embrace it, and hang in there a little longer to your next meal before you go make yourself a snack.

(Obviously, there are smart ways to go about weight loss so that you’re not crazy hungry all the time, which is totally fine. But you can never fully eliminate hunger.)

2. The amount of muscle you have plays a massive role in maintaining a healthy weight.

When we talk about “calories in/calories out,” we can further subdivide “calories out” into…

- Intentional Exercise, which accounts for ~5-10% of calorie output

- Non-Exercise Movement (i.e. cleaning and cooking), which accounts for ~15-30% of calorie output

- Food Digestion, which accounts for ~5-10% of calorie output

- Metabolic Rate, which accounts for ~60-70% of calorie output

You can work out, you can take walks, but the largest contributor to your total calorie output is simply just your body existing on a daily basis. A beating heart. Thinking. Scratching your nose. Growing hair and finger nails.

There’s a lot of things that influence your metabolic rate, but the common denominator is muscle mass. Yes, age, gender, and hormones affect it too, but those are out of your control. And it simply takes more fuel to power an 18-Wheeler than a Prius.

If you can focus hard on building muscle throughout your life, you’ll naturally burn more calories at rest, and maintaining a healthy weight just becomes that much easier.

So what should Christians focus on?

Having faith is not an excuse for being dumb.

In order to take care of our bodies, we need to know how they operate. We need to know how to achieve the outcome that our bodies need.

That’s just part of being a good steward.

These tips aren’t “hacks.” 

They are insight into how your body works so that you can gain better control over it and steer it towards God’s glory.

Hope this helps!