Max Lowery (00:05.23)
How do you create a life that allows you to lose weight, eat the foods that you love and sustain the results? Over the last 10 years, I've helped thousands of people do exactly that. I'm Max Lowry. I'm an author, personal trainer and weight loss coach. In this podcast, I'm going to share my top tips and tricks from within my one-on-one coaching program. It's my goal to give you the tools and understanding so that you never diet again.

Max Lowery (00:41.272)
This is why you can't lose weight in the long term. It's because you're falling for the typical fat loss myths. We'll be busting five of the biggest fat loss myths, which I hear time and time again. I'm Max Lowry. I'm an author, fat loss expert. I've spent the last 10 years helping hundreds of people and I've spent thousands of hours coaching one-on-one. Let's get into it. Myth number one.

Crash diets and fad dieting is the only way to lose weight. Unfortunately, when it comes to weight loss, most people don't know where to turn. To them, the only option is to go down the route of the typical fad diets that everyone does, whether it's Slimming World, Weight Watchers, Atkins, Keto, or Lighter Life to name a few. All these diets focus on restriction and deprivation. In other words,

you're taking things out of your life. And obviously removing things from your life on the whole is never gonna be perceived as a good thing. Whether you're cutting out carbs, not eating any fat, not eating any sugar, only eating 800 calories, so very, very low calorie, or replacing real food with dust.

in the form of meal replacement shakes. These types of restriction and deprivation cannot be sustained in the long term. No one likes feeling restricted and deprived. No one wants to cut out the foods that they love. Restriction and deprivation is dependent on willpower and motivation. Meaning you have to be really motivated to do it. And obviously everyone knows that you can't depend on willpower and motivation. Other things in your life, whether it's your job, your family, your children, will...

take that willpower and motivation and then the fat loss and fitness, the health kick goes out the window. But worst of all, and what I see with my one-on-one coaching clients when they start to work with me, is it keeps you trapped in what I call the dieting cycle. The diet cycle starts with you feeling unhappy with your situation, you feel like you want to lose weight, you're not happy with what you see in the mirror, which means you start some kind of fad diet, which like I mentioned, involves some kind of restriction and deprivation. Over time, that feeling of deprivation is going to build up. Over time, that feeling of deprivation is going to start to build.

Max Lowery (02:28.495)
you're going to be obsessing over the foods that you can't eat. Eventually, you'll give in. You cannot maintain restriction and deprivation in the long term. And when you give in, often you binge to the point of discomfort and it ends up you feeling guilt, shame, anxiety.

and affecting your self-belief. A period of time will pass, it could be a month, two months, three months, maybe even a year, but at some point, those similar feelings of being unhappy with your situation, you're not happy with how you look in the mirror, will start again. And many of my clients, by the age that they're 50 or 60, they've been trapped in this dieting cycle for most of their lives, 30, 40 years. The longer it goes on,

the more damage it does to your life. Not just your physical health, but also your mental health, your relationship with food, your happiness, your self-belief and your confidence. So what does work for weight loss? What do I teach my one-on-one coaching clients? I teach them to incorporate habits instead of restriction and deprivation. I focus on small changes and lots of different areas of their lives, which at first seem like no big deal, but actually when combined and done consistently, and the word consistently is key, over time,

it adds up into a massive difference. Many of my clients at the beginning of the program feel like they should be doing more and then they are pleasantly surprised once the results come in and they have this big light bulb moment on why they weren't able to maintain the results before. What are some fat loss habits? We've got filling up on protein, eliminating mindless snacks, staying as active as you can throughout the day, getting quality sleep, staying hydrated. These are just some examples of fat loss habits. Myth number two.

Carbs are evil and you must cut them out in order to lose weight. Carbohydrates are not evil. You can eat carbs and lose weight. All my clients are eating carbohydrates and losing weight, but they can impact the number on the scale. Let me explain how. When you eat carbohydrates, it's stored for later use in the muscles and the liver. Stored carbohydrate is called glycogen. For every gram of glycogen you've got in your body, you're gonna store one to three grams of water. Okay, so that's quite a lot of water. So one of many reasons why low carb has become...

Max Lowery (04:15.511)
So popular, whether it's Atkins or keto, is because of this. So what happens is you start keto, you start Atkins, you cut out carbs and you get this massive shift on the number of the scale. And it can be drastic. It could be two or three kilos after a few days. That has nothing to do with fat. You're not losing two to three kilos of fat in a matter of days. Unfortunately, it takes a lot longer. All it is is that you're storing and retaining less water. You can flip that the other way around. Let's say that you've been low carb, you've been consistent.

you've been really good, and then of course some kind of social occasion happens which involve eating carbohydrates. So you give in, you feel guilty about it, the next morning you weigh yourself and the weight again could have moved one to two kilos overnight, but this has nothing to do with fat, it's all water retention. Most people don't know this and this effect that carbohydrates do have on the scale perpetuate the idea that carbohydrates are evil. The ultimate goal is to be able to eat the foods you enjoy, incorporate carbohydrates,

and get a fat loss success. The fat loss is gonna come from being in a calorie deficit. You can eat any food that you like and be in a calorie deficit. There's no such thing as a good or a bad food. Getting out of that mindset of labeling foods is essential for long-term success. All my clients eat the foods they enjoy, whether it's pizza, wine.

pasta, they enjoy social occasions going out for dinner and being in the moment and get excited for holidays instead of them becoming a thing of dread and anxiety because you're not going to have control over your eating. Let me know in the comments below if you suffer from guilt when you eat carbohydrates because I know that's a big problem for many many people.

Really quick one for me guys, I don't run ads on this podcast and I do aim to give you as many high value tips and tricks as I can for free. All I ask in return is that you help me spread the word. That way I can help as many people as I can to never die again. The way to do that is to rate, review and share this podcast. A review will only take 30 seconds but it would mean the world to me but more importantly it could help change the life of someone else.

Max Lowery (06:16.569)
Myth number three, you can target specific areas on your body for fat loss.

In other words, if I do loads of sit-ups, I will lose belly fat. Unfortunately, this is not true. There is no research to suggest that this is possible. Your body just doesn't work in that way. Worst of all, there have been many products that have been released off the back of this myth, whether it's Ab Trainers or that ridiculous tricep fat burner. But the fact is, if you want to lose belly fat specifically, you have to reduce your overall body fat percentage. And the only way to do that is to achieve a calorie deficit and do it consistently over a long period of time. If you want to understand exactly how you can achieve a calorie deficit,

automatically, click that button below and get access to my fat loss at mini course. Myth number four, you have to eat six mini meals a day to boost your metabolism and therefore lose weight. This is a big one and it's exacerbated and encouraged by many nutritionists and dieticians. I'm not sure exactly where this initial idea comes from, but the idea is if you eat frequently throughout the day, you're never going to experience hunger. But the belief is that if you eat frequently throughout the day, you're never going to experience hunger and you're to keep your blood sugar levels up, which means more stable energy levels. In reality, the opposite happens. When you eat frequently,

the day, your body starts to expect food all day long. So you end up just being perpetually hungry. Not only that, you're just digesting food all the time. Everyone knows what it feels like after you eat a meal, you feel a bit tired and lethargic. But more than anything, it's just unsustainable. Most people struggle to eat healthily for one meal, let alone eating six times in a day. That means preparing six

healthy, nutritious meals, which most people are not gonna be able to do. But more than anything, it's not how we're designed to eat. For most of human evolution, we've eaten sporadically. We haven't had access to this amount of food. But now we're being encouraged to eat like cows, essentially grazing on food all day long. And for me, that is causing a lot of problems. You can lose weight and eat six mini meals, but I don't think it's a sustainable fat loss approach. In my opinion, eating larger meals, less frequency.

Max Lowery (08:03.887)
potentially dropping to a two meal day and eliminating mindless snacking is the most efficient way to lose weight in the long term. It's a more natural way of eating and actually what happens is...

you reset your hunger hormones, you actually feel less hungry overall and you have more energy because you improve what's called your metabolic flexibility. Plus when you're only eating two times in a day, it's gonna be much, much harder to eat in a calorie surplus. Whereas six meals in a day, each time you eat is an opportunity to over consume calories and therefore push yourself into calorie surplus. The combination of effortless weight loss, feeling less hungry overall and having more energy is why I think reducing meal frequency is a better long-term strategy. Myth number five, you have to destroy yourself in a gym in order to get fat.

This is a big one. Just like with fat diets, people have this idea and this belief that in order to lose weight, you have to be punishing yourself and destroying yourself in a gym. This is problematic for a number of reasons. Firstly, most people are never going to enjoy that form of intense exercise. And if you don't enjoy it, you're not going to get long-term success. It's not going to become a part of your life.

It's not going to become a part of who you are. Secondly, you're doing it for negative reasons. You're punishing yourself for being overweight, punishing yourself for the food that you ate last night. Doing something for a negative reason is never going to last in the long term. You should be exercising because you love yourself, not because you hate yourself. But it actually makes long-term fat loss harder because when you do hard exercise, your hunger levels increase quite drastically. Everyone knows what that feels like. Plus, there's a physiological and psychological switch that happens when you push yourself in a gym. I've pushed hard now, so now I can lie down for the rest of the day.

but also it can be more difficult to move because you're stiff and sore and tired. So you end up being less active overall and potentially burning less calories. So what actually works? I focus on something called NEET with my one-on-one coaching clients, which is non-exercise activity thermogenesis. You don't need to remember that, don't worry, but all you have to understand is that NEET calories are the calories you burn outside of a structured workout, whether it's your gardening, your housework or getting steps in. You have the potential to burn more calories

Max Lowery (09:59.701)
being active throughout the day than in a structured exercise class. Best of all, neat calories won't raise your hunger levels or make you feel stiff and sore. So again, you can burn more calories than a structured workout, but it's not gonna raise your hunger levels nearly as much. I focus a lot more on this with my one-on-one coaching clients. Once my clients have lost the weight, then we incorporate more structured exercise. Best of all, neat calories are free, they're low risk, anyone can do them. You don't need any gym equipment or gym membership.

Quick disclaimer here, exercise is amazing for thousands of reasons. I'm not telling you that you shouldn't be exercising, but if you're just exercising to try and lose weight, you're probably gonna be sorely disappointed and you're never gonna learn to enjoy it. Take the pressure off exercise to help you lose weight and that way you can do things you actually enjoy, whether it's swimming, tennis, netball, hockey, whatever that might be.

If you would like to go deeper into any of the topics of this podcast and learn the exact same step-by-step system which I use with my coaching clients, then make sure you check out my free definitive guide to fat loss. It will teach you everything you need to know to lose weight, sustain the results and live life to the full. It's linked below in the notes beneath this podcast.