I accidentally figured out the perfect way to completely change your diet so that you can eat right, lose weight, and stay healthy for the long term instead of losing a bunch of weight just to gain it all back.

I got here because of my two knee surgeries. I spent 8 months hardly moving at all and my diet started to slip because of it.

I ended up putting on about 20 pounds in those 8 months. It sucked. I thought once I was able to move again I’d lose the weight in no time simply because I could do cardio again.

So I tried to clean up my diet a bit and start doing cardio again to lose the weight, but the scale wasn’t moving.

I think there’s something to be said about people like myself who have been in shape their whole life and have been able to control what they eat because that’s how they were raised — vs. the people who didn’t have that.

To me, I used to think it was easy. Just do some cardio, workout, eat right and you’ll be healthy.

But I had years and years of building the right habits by playing sports and having a dad who was a personal trainer making healthy dinners.

The people that don’t have that don’t have those same habits, and I got a small glimpse of what that was like while I was sitting around from my surgeries.

Not being able to workout made my diet slip. I was basically eating what I wanted because I couldn’t move anyway and I’d just “work it off when I was healed”.

Well when it came time to work it off the hardest part was actually getting my diet back to normal. Instead of just eating out all the time that meant cooking healthy meals at home. There’s a huge difference there.

Ultimately I discovered that there are 2 phases to actually fixing your diet:

• First is cleaning up the diet and building a system
• Second is portion control and actually following that system

Clean it up

The first advice I’d give to anyone who wants to fix their diet is to clean it up. By clean it up I mean build a system that works.

Right now you’re probably at the point where you know you have to eat better, you try to eat better, you think you eat better, but the scale doesn’t move and week after week you aren’t looking any better.

That’s because if you’re honest with yourself you know that you aren’t actually eating better. You maybe eat a good meal a few nights a week, but you’re still ordering out, eating out, drinking a few nights a week and whatever else.

Just because you have the thought of eating better doesn’t mean you’re going to just do it. You have to actually do it.

This is the first lesson I learned when trying to fix my diet. I was ready to get back into shape but it was just an idea. I was still ordering out and saying yes to some things I didn’t need to.

So I decided to actually clean it up.

This phase should be 2-3 weeks max, even shorter if you can do it. It only took me this long because I was figuring things out again. I’m going to give you some tough love later on this, but you’re still going to have to be disciplined to ultimately change your habits.

But in these 2-3 weeks you want to start eating the right foods and figure out how your diet is going to work. For me that means eating within my diet at least 5 days a week, with 1-2 cheat meals.

That cheat meal is usually eating out with friends, going on a date, or grabbing ice cream with my girlfriend. Things that feed the soul. It’s not just ordering food because we’re feeling lazy.

But just because you’re cleaning things up doesn’t mean that your meals have to suck. They just have to be real food.

• Fruits and vegetables. These are great for adding volume and filling you up.
• Rice, potatoes, some bread. These are carbs that make sense. I’m not going to eat a burger without a bun, but again the carbs are there to help fill you.
• Eggs. I’ve been eating the most amazing bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches 3 days a week and still losing weight. It’s different when it’s real food.
• Meat and fish. This is where you can get creative and make stuff a bit tastier.
  • Nothing is better than marinated steak, potatoes, and broccoli or honey garlic chicken, rice, and broccoli or venison burgers with broccoli and fries. (huge broccoli fan)

What I do most days is eat fruit until about noon and then have two meals from 3-6pm.

The fruit keeps me full enough, but not eating anything else helps me control how many calories I’m actually eating.

Then I’ll have a chicken wrap or on the weekends my bacon, egg, and cheese sandwiches.

Then dinner is just real food.

• Steak, vegetable, potatoes
• Chicken, rice, broccoli
• Burgers, vegetable
• Shrimp tacos
  • Just look up some recipes that don’t add a bunch of bs to your meals so that they stay healthy.
  • Cook with butter or coconut oil and no seed oils.

I’m at the point where I’d rather eat this stuff than eat out because it tastes good, I’m in the habit of eating it, and it doesn’t make me feel like garbage.

Then when me and the girlfriend want to grab ice cream or go out on a date once or twice a week — we don’t have to worry because we’re doing the right things 80% of the time.

Control

So I figured out the diet and still wasn’t losing weight.

That’s for two reasons:

• I was still eating massive portions
• I wasn’t exactly committed to it

So the first phase is 2-3 weeks. Figure out what works, get into a routine, and commit to it.

The next phase is control. This is where you’re committed to changing your habits and start to control the portions so that you actually lose weight.

The reason there are two phases is so that you can take on one challenge at a time. First you fix what you eat, then you start restricting calories. Focus on one challenge, one goal.It won’t happen as fast, but you’ll actually hit the goal.

I’m not one to count calories. But I’ve done it before.

If you haven’t done it before, it’s probably a good idea to do it for a while just to figure out how much you’re actually eating. If you want to do it it’s a great way to hit your goals. I simply don’t want to do it so I’m not going to tell you that you have to.

So I wasn’t counting calories and the scale wasn’t moving. Instead of just tracking my calories I asked chatGPT to help me eyeball everything.

I told it what I eat, gave it my whole routine, and it told me the calories and macros I needed to eat to hit about 3000 calories and 190g of protein a day.

And so in the last 3 weeks I’ve dropped 2lbs each week (while still training and hitting my protein), which is right where I want to be.

Tips and tough love

So let’s get the tough love out of the way. You’re going to have to be disciplined.

Yes, in the end, you’ll be in the habit of just eating the right foods and you won’t be using discipline every single meal you eat.

But to get there you have to use discipline. Everyone wants this to be easy but there are going to be challenges along the way.

But that’s why it’s split into 2 phases. First figure out what you’re doing while eating as much as you need to. Next you start to restrict calories to actually start to lose the weight.

I find it enjoyable to embrace the challenges. Every time I remember I’m on a mission and say no to the cookies or dessert I take it as a small win.

Next, if you can be disciplined 80% of the time you’re going to be good. Just make sure that 20% is for good reason and DO NOT spiral out of control.

If you’re going on crazy binges that means you’re dieting too hard and that isn’t the way to do it. The point is to get into the right habits and make lasting changes for yourself. This isn’t a crash diet, it’s a lifestyle change.

You’re going to fail. You’re going to cheat. Don’t let it turn into a spiral. Catch yourself and get back into it as soon as possible.

Last, coffee. I hate coffee but I realize that most people drink it so I might as well talk about it. Actually last night I got a crazy migraine because I started drinking it again last week and hadn’t had it for a few days.

Coffee curbs hunger, so use that to your advantage if you want to. Four days out of the week I don’t eat a full meal until 3 pm, so having a coffee mid day definitely helped me get through that.

I’m not going to do that anymore because the headaches are annoying, but if you drink coffee already, use that to your advantage.

And finally, just be aware that you can do everything right, but those cheat days and overeating add up. They will stop you making progress. Don’t go half way in and make things hard for yourself.

Commit to it so that you at least get the reward of losing the weight on the other side.

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