You don't know Jack?

Meet Jack.


Jack is 300lbs and trying to lose weight. Jack obviously has a history of eating more food than he should, quite a bit more in fact, as you don't get to be 300 lbs at 5'6 unless you repeatedly over-eat.

Jack wants to be sure that he does everything right. After all, he's tried to diet before and he can never stick to it, so this time he'd like to really make sure that everything is perfect.

Jack heard that you should eat less than you burn.
Jack also heard that it's good to exercise.
Jack also heard that you should eat lots of protein.
Jack heard that carbs are bad.
Jack also heard that fat is bad.
Jack also heard that eating before bed is bad so he's going to stop eating at 7pm every night.
Jack heard that you should not eat corn.
Jack heard that you should not eat grain.
Jack heard that diet soda will cause cancer so he needs to quit that right away!
Jack keeps hearing about eating clean so in addition to washing his food, he often wonders whether or not his foods are clean enough and okay to eat.
Jack heard that you should only train fasted so he skips breakfast.
Jack keeps hearing that you need to eat 6 meals per day or his metabolism will slow down....maybe that's why Jack failed in the past?!
Jack thinks he should probably eat his carbs during the day so that he burns them off. But if he skips breakfast that doesn't leave a lot of time for carbs!
Jack's not sure what to do about this so he works out fasted, then he eats all of his carbs, then he looks at his watch and eats exactly 2 hours later, but then he stops by 7pm.
Jack likes the idea of calorie confusion so he eats a lot of extra food every third day to trick his metabolism.
Oh but sometimes Jack's metabolism isn't tricked so the next day Jack will resort to muscle confusion in the gym, that way at least something is confused.
Jack bought a book on the Blood Type diet and he's pretty sure that this will change everything.
Jack doesn't know the PH level of his tuna steak, but he ordered some PH strips online. Because PH is obviously very important to weight loss.
While he was shopping online, he also got some Raspberry Keytones and some African Mango. If only Jack would have known about these miracles earlier!
Jack hears that you should really be concerned with how much fat you are burning while exercising. After all, if he can control what he's using for fuel at any given moment, surely this will result in greater fat loss?! Brilliant!
Jack is only doing HIIT cardio. Even though he's 300lbs, he hears that it burns more fat.
Jack HATES spicy foods, but apparently tobasco sauce helps because hot food kickstarts your metabolism.
But Jack also heard that super cold water helps your metabolism too, so Jack drinks super cold tobasco sauce, perfect!
Jack bought some body wraps to detoxify his fat.
Jack also bought a juicer so that he could drink vegetables only for 30 days. Apparently he needs to rid himself of more toxins that the wrap didn't catch.






Jack's getting a bit frustrated. And hungry!


Jack really wants some breakfast today but then he'd not be training fasted and since Jack is really concerned with how much fat he burns while he's on the treadmill, he's going to skip it. That's okay though, he can live without his breakfast.
He'd really like some diet coke but he's drinking water instead because he doesn't want to bloat up and then get cancer. That's ok though, he can live without his soda. Jack is getting hungry at night! But he'll tough it out. He sure wants to eat but it will probably get stored as fat because his metabolism might stop in his sleep. Jack is sick of mangos and his stomach hurts from all that tobasco sauce. He'd much rather eat food than drink blended veggies but that's okay, he stockpiled toilet paper last month anyways.
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Do you know Jack?


This is why I post.
I don't really care whether or not someone eats 3 times per day or 8 times per day.
I don't care if you low carb (some people SHOULD!)
I don't care if you eliminate bread.

But it is my belief that there's a whole lot of people who fail repeatedly because instead of doing the very few things on that list that actually matter, they try to do all of it .


This is not a statement about whether the above items are good or bad.
This is a statement about dietary adherence.


You need an energy deficit whether you track calories or not, if you want to reduce weight.
You need to pay some attention to your food sources for nutrient purposes. This will effect your health and your body composition. A calorie is a calorie but substrates are not utilized the same and ignoring this is foolish.
You should probably exercise.
And you really don't need to be perfect.

This is not an end point. This is a start, but for many, it will take you very far.


I assure you, the list of necessities for fat loss is small. The list of things that are personal preference is very large.

Start with the necessities. Learn your personal preferences, and don't confuse the two.