64: The Only Three Skills You Need to Lose Weight This Year

In this New Year episode, we strip away the noise, the pressure, and the endless list of “shoulds” that usually flood January. Instead of trying to overhaul your entire life in one go, we focus on the three skills that actually create sustainable weight loss: walking, counting your calories, and lifting weights three times a week. 

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Transcript

Welcome to How to Eat Cake on a Diet, a podcast for women who are tired of starting over, fed up with food rules, and ready to lose weight in a way that actually fits real life.

I’m Jody, and I’ve been there. I’ve lost over 165 pounds, tried the extremes, and learned firsthand that success doesn’t come from perfection. It comes from consistency.

This podcast isn’t about cutting out everything you love. It’s not about chasing the next diet.

It’s about learning how to eat in a way that fits your goals and your life, without guilt, without shame, and without starting over every Monday. <break time="2s" /> 

The new year comes with so much noise. Everywhere you turn, someone is telling you to add more to your plate.

More supplements. More rules. More workouts. More hacks.

The fitness world thrives on convincing you that the answer is always to pile on more complexity. And for a lot of people, that pressure feels like the only way to get results.

But the truth is a lot simpler. Most people don’t fail because they’re doing too little. They fail because they’re scattering their effort across ten different things at once. They start strong, get overwhelmed, and then blame themselves when the whole thing collapses under the weight of too many moving parts. It’s not a motivation problem. It’s a strategy problem.

This year, you get to take a different path.

This is the year you shut out the noise and stop letting trends dictate your effort.

This is the year you strip everything back and get really good at the only three skills that actually make the biggest difference in your weight loss.

And those three skills are simple.

Hit a walking goal each day.

Count your calories so your results aren’t left to chance.

Lift weights three times a week to protect your muscle and shape your body.

When you master these three things, your body will change whether you feel motivated or not. You don’t need perfection. You don’t need a new routine every month. You don’t need a suitcase full of supplements. You just need consistency with the basics.

Let’s walk through the three things that will carry you through the entire year. <break time="2s" /> 

Walking is one of the most effective tools for weight loss, and most people overlook it because it seems too simple. But simple is exactly why it works. Your body burns a large amount of energy through everyday movement. The scientific term for this is neat, N. E. A. T. Neat is everything you burn just by living your life. Standing, cleaning, fidgeting, walking to your car, pacing while you’re on the phone, walking around the block. None of this is exercise. It’s your baseline burn.

And here’s the important part: when you increase this daily movement through walking, your metabolism responds by burning more calories all day long. Not just during a one hour high intensity workout, but through the entire day.

As we move into our 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s, that baseline burn drops if we don’t support it. We sit more. We move less. Our routines get more sedentary. And when neat drops, appetite becomes harder to manage, energy dips, and weight becomes harder to control even if you haven’t changed how you eat.

And if I have to convince you, here are a few reasons walking works so well. Walking helps balance your appetite, lowers stress, improves your mood, and supports your joints. It also adds a steady amount of calorie burn to your day simply because it’s something you can repeat over and over. It’s not dramatic, but it’s reliable, and that’s exactly what moves the needle.

Now let’s talk goals. Pick a step target somewhere between five and fifteen thousand. The number does matter in the sense that it depends on you. If you have more weight to lose or you’re just getting started, five to eight thousand is a great place to begin. If you’re already active or closer to your goal weight, you may need higher steps so you don’t have to cut your calories too low.

Think of steps like a dial you can adjust.

The more steps you take through the day, the more support you’re giving your body. And the more consistent you are, the easier it becomes to see steady, predictable weight loss. I’m not saying walking more will make you drop an extra pound overnight. But higher, consistent steps often mean losing one to two pounds a week in a stable rhythm instead of bouncing around or stalling.

Walking needs to become part of who you are. Something you do most days, even when you’re not excited about it. That’s the difference maker. Consistency gives your body a pattern to follow, which leads to more consistent results.

And don’t think you need expensive gear to start. You don’t need a fancy watch. You don’t need designer shoes. You can literally stand up from wherever you’re sitting right now and go. Walking is accessible and that’s what makes it such a powerful tool.

You don’t have to obsess about ten thousand steps. You can simply say, this is my loop and I walk it. That’s what I do. I have a four mile loop in my neighborhood here in Arizona, and it’s about nine thousand steps. It’s perfect this time of year, but in the summer, forget it. Then I move to my walking pad inside. If you live somewhere cold, your treadmill might become your winter plan. Walking always has an option.

And this brings us to iteration.

Iteration means you test something, see what happened, and make a small adjustment. That’s it.

Maybe Tuesdays are busy and you only hit five thousand steps. That’s not failure. That’s feedback. That means Wednesday becomes a higher step day. Or maybe you learn you need to walk in the morning because after work never happens. This is how real people figure it out. You experiment, you adjust, and you keep going.

You can break your steps up too.

Thirty minutes in the morning.

Fifteen minutes at lunch.

Fifteen minutes in the evening.

That’s an hour of walking, and for many people, that ends up being around eight thousand steps.

Before you ever think about lowering your calories, you need to look at what actually happened with your movement. Most people cannot remember what they did seven days ago, which is why reviewing your data matters. Numbers keep you honest. Numbers tell the truth about habits. Numbers show patterns your brain will never remember on its own.

So here’s what you’ll do. Every Sunday, you sit down and review your steps. Look at the whole week at once, not just one good day or one bad day.

Ask yourself:

What were my steps each day?

Did I meet my goal most days?

Where did I fall short?

Where did I exceed it?

If you didn’t hit your step goal, that is a very good reason not to mess with your calories. Either create a step goal that’s more realistic or manage your time differently so you can consistently hit the one you set. If five days out of seven were under your goal, that’s not a calorie issue. That’s a walking issue.

If you hit your step goal and your weight still didn’t change, don’t go straight to eating less. Add movement first. Add another thousand steps. Add fifteen minutes. Add thirty if you can. Let walking move the needle before food does. The more you can keep your calories higher while still losing weight, the better your hunger, energy, and mindset will feel.

This is how you stay out of that diet cycle where the only tool you think you have is to cut calories. You don’t want to drop food if you haven’t maximized your movement first.

And here’s the deeper truth: consistent walking shifts how your whole body operates. When you’re moving more throughout the day, your appetite becomes more predictable, your energy steadies out, and your stress stays lower. You feel clearer. More regulated. More in control. All because you added a simple habit that your body actually loves.

Walking works because it’s doable. It fits into real life. And your body thrives on routine. <break time="2s" /> 

So now you’re moving your body every day. You’ve learned how to set a step goal, adjust it, reflect on it, and use it as a tool instead of a punishment. You’re learning your patterns. You’re learning your life. And you’re giving your body the kind of steady movement that supports real weight loss.

The next part is feeding your body with intention.

Walking handles your movement. Counting your calories handles your intake. These two skills work together. One supports your metabolism and appetite from the outside. The other supports it from the inside.

You don’t need a meal plan. You don’t need a bunch of new rules. You don’t need to overhaul your personality. You just need to know how much you’re eating so your body has the chance to lose the weight you want to lose.

Let’s get into it. <break time="2s" /> 

If walking is the movement skill that supports your metabolism, counting your calories is the awareness skill that supports your nutrition. Most people aren’t overeating because they’re reckless or out of control. They’re overeating because they simply don’t know how much they’re eating in the first place. And it’s not their fault. Food has changed. Portions have changed. Our environment has changed. But our instincts haven’t caught up.

Counting your calories is about knowing the truth. It gives you data, not judgment. It gives you awareness, not restriction. When you know your numbers, you know exactly why your weight is moving or not moving. That level of clarity is power.

Here’s why this matters: your body can’t lose weight unless you’re in a calorie deficit. It doesn’t matter how clean you eat or how healthy your meals are. If the calories are too high, your body won’t pull from stored fat. And you don’t get into a deficit by guessing. You get there by understanding intake.

Think of counting calories as turning on the lights in a dark room. You immediately see what’s going on. You see your patterns. You see where your calories are coming from. You see what fills you up and what doesn’t. You see where small changes can make a big impact.

And here’s the part most people get wrong. Counting your calories is not about eating tiny portions or starving yourself. It’s about giving yourself enough food to feel good, build muscle, support your life, and still lose weight. That balance, with the right amount of protein, fiber, and total calories, is what makes weight loss sustainable.

And just like walking, counting your calories is a skill. You get better with repetition. You learn more about your body, your habits, and your needs every single day. This isn’t punishment. It’s information. It’s clarity. It’s the foundation that lets you make decisions from a place of confidence instead of guessing.

Next, we’re going to break down exactly how to count your calories in a way that feels doable, realistic, and repeatable, so you can lose weight without going into diet culture chaos. <break time="2s" /> 

Now that you understand why counting your calories matters, let’s talk about how to set a calorie target that actually works for your body. Most women either guess way too low, or they pick a random number they saw on the internet. Then they wonder why they’re starving, binging, or stuck.

Your calorie target needs to make sense for your size, your age, your movement, and your goals. It also needs to be something you can repeat day after day without feeling like you’re white knuckling through hunger and cravings.

Here’s the simple way to think about it:

Your body burns a certain number of calories just to maintain your weight.

This is your maintenance calories.

If you walk daily and move through life at a normal pace, your maintenance calories are often higher than you think. Many women maintain their weight somewhere between 1800 and 2400 calories depending on their size, muscle mass, and activity.

If you consistently eat a little below that number, your body begins using stored fat for energy. That’s weight loss.

Now here’s the part that surprises people:

Your calorie deficit should not be extreme.

You don’t need to eat 1200 calories. You don’t need to live hungry.

You only need to eat slightly below your maintenance number.

Think of it like adjusting a dimmer switch, not turning the lights off.

The sweet spot for most women is usually a deficit of 300 to 500 calories below maintenance. Enough to create progress, but not so much that you’re miserable, binging, or constantly thinking about food.

This is why counting your calories matters. Your calorie target should match your body, not someone else’s plan. You cannot listen to influencers, diet books, or what your friend is doing. Your body deserves accuracy, not guessing.

And here’s the truth:

If you’ve been chronically dieting, skipping meals, or restricting for years, your calorie awareness is often disconnected from reality. Tracking helps rebuild that awareness without shame, without fear, without diet culture.

Now let’s talk about how to actually hit your calorie target in a way that keeps you full, energized, and consistent. <break time="2s" /> 

Now, here’s the good news. You don’t have to guess your maintenance calories. There’s actually a calculator that does the math for you. It’s called a TDEE calculator. TDEE stands for Total Daily Energy Expenditure, which is just a fancy way of saying how many calories your body burns in a day including your steps and movement.

A TDEE calculator uses your height, weight, age, and your movement level to estimate how many calories you burn in a typical day. And this is where your step goal comes in. Once you have a step target you’re consistently hitting, the calculator can factor that into your daily burn so you get a much more accurate number.

You can use my TDEE calculator if you want everything laid out for you, or you can simply google TDEE calculator and plug in your information. Either way, this gives you a personalized starting point instead of guessing or following someone else’s plan.

And to make this easy, I’ll put the link to the TDEE calculator in the show notes. You can tap it right from the description and get your numbers in less than a minute. No guessing, no confusion. Just clear information about what your body actually needs.

Once you know your maintenance calories, you can set your deficit correctly, something small, realistic, and sustainable. Not extreme. Not punishing. Just enough to create steady progress while keeping you fueled. <break time="2s" /> 

Once you know your calorie target, the next step is actually tracking those calories, and that means you need the right tools. First, you need a tracking app. I use MacrosFirst because it’s simple and accurate, but you can use the Lose It app, MyFitnessPal, or Carbon. They all work. The important thing is that you pick one and use it daily. Second, you need a food scale. Not measuring cups. Not tablespoons. Those are too inconsistent when you’re budgeting calories. If you’re planning to spend ninety calories on coffee creamer, you need a way to quantify that accurately, and that’s done in grams and ounces, not spoonfuls you eyeballed. A food scale takes all the guessing out so you know exactly what’s going into your body.

Once you have those tools, the next step is building meals that support your hunger, your energy, and your goals. And this doesn’t need to be complicated. Start with protein, because protein is the anchor that keeps you full, stabilizes your appetite, and protects your muscle while you lose fat. Most women do best aiming for around twenty five to thirty five grams of protein per meal. Then add fiber. Fiber slows down digestion, keeps your blood sugar steady, reduces food noise, and helps you feel satisfied for longer. Think berries, vegetables, beans, lentils, and whole grains. After that, add volume foods like leafy greens, cucumbers, broccoli, cauliflower rice, or soups, anything that fills your stomach for fewer calories. And finally, include the foods you love. This is the heart of flexible dieting. Nothing is off limits. You’re not cutting carbs or avoiding treats. You’re learning how to fit the foods you enjoy into a calorie budget that still moves you toward your goals.

Now let’s talk about the mindset shift that makes this all work. Think of counting your calories the same way you’d think about managing a budget. You’re not supposed to be perfect at it right away. You’re learning how to spend your calories in a way that makes sense for your appetite, your lifestyle, your routines, and the foods you actually enjoy. Every day, you’re deciding where those calories go, which meals are worth spending more on, where you want to save, where you want to splurge, and what tradeoffs feel right for you. Some days you’ll overspend, some days you’ll underspend, and that’s all part of learning. Over time, you get better at balancing your calorie budget without feeling restricted. You learn what keeps you full, what fits naturally into your day, what foods satisfy you, and how to plan ahead so you don’t hit the evening starving with no calories left. When you treat calories like a manager instead of a dieter, you remove the shame and the pressure. You stop guessing. You start developing a skill that supports you for the rest of your life.

And this is where pretracking becomes the secret skill. Pretracking means logging your meals before the day starts. You make better decisions when you’re not hungry yet, and your whole day stays aligned with your calorie target without last minute scrambling. Pretracking lets you hit your protein and fiber goals consistently, keeps surprise calories from sneaking in, and gives you a plan to follow so you’re not improvising every meal. It takes the chaos out of eating and replaces it with clarity and structure. <break time="2s" /> 

Now let’s talk about the third skill, and the one that makes the biggest difference in how your body actually looks and feels: strength training. Three days a week, forty five minutes to an hour. That’s it. And yes, for a lot of people, this is going to feel new. But if you want to protect your body, shape your body, and feel strong as you lose weight, this part is not optional.

Here’s the truth:

If you lose weight without building muscle, you’re going to be disappointed. You’ll see the number on the scale go down, but you won’t love the shape of your body. You’ll look softer, you’ll feel weaker, and you may even feel like you aged yourself in the process. That’s because when you lose weight without lifting, you’re not just losing fat. You’re losing muscle.

And muscle is what gives your body shape.

Muscle is what makes your clothes fit better.

And muscle is what helps you keep the weight off without feeling like you need to starve yourself.

Muscle raises your metabolism.

It makes your body burn more calories all day long, even when you’re resting.

And when you’re finished dieting, having more muscle means you can eat more food and maintain your weight without constantly fighting hunger.

If you’re over 40, this becomes even more important. As you age, your body naturally loses muscle unless you deliberately train it. If you don’t build muscle now, you’re going to have to eat fewer and fewer calories just to maintain your weight, and that’s not a future anyone wants.

The good news is you don’t need to live in the gym.

There are 168 hours in a week.

Strength training takes three of them.

Three hours out of 168. That’s it. The time commitment is small. The payoff is massive.

And here’s how to make this doable.

You need a simple strength training program. Something three days a week, preferably inside an app. A good app will tell you exactly what to do, like a checklist. You open it, and it might say:

Squats, this many reps

Lunges, this many reps

Rows, this many reps

Push-ups, this many reps

You check each item off one at a time. When you finish the list, you’re done for the day. And the best part is you have built in rest. If you lift on Monday, your next session is Wednesday. If you lift Wednesday, your next session is Friday. If you lift Friday, you don’t need to come back until Monday. You get to choose the days that fit your life.

And you don’t need expensive coaching to start.

There are tons of beginner friendly YouTube videos.

There are affordable apps with full programs already built in.

There is no reason to spend more than fifteen dollars a month for a lifting app.

And if you feel nervous about form or want someone to guide you at first, hiring a personal trainer for even a session or two can help you get comfortable.

Strength training is about becoming capable.

It’s about being able to get off the floor easily.

Carry groceries without struggling.

Climb stairs without getting winded.

And age with strength instead of fragility.

If you want the body you picture in your mind when you think about losing weight, toned arms, firm legs, a strong core, better posture, strength training is how you get there.

Three times a week.

Forty five minutes to an hour.

A simple checklist style program.

And the willingness to show up.

This is the skill that changes everything. <break time="2s" /> 

So those are the three skills. Walking. Counting your calories. Strength training three times a week. If you can do those three things, even imperfectly, your body will change. Your relationship with food will change. Your confidence will change. Out of the three, the calorie piece is usually the hardest because it takes awareness, honesty, and practice. But once you get the hang of it, it becomes the skill you lean on for the rest of your life.

And just know this: you don’t have to figure everything out today. That’s why I have more than sixty podcast episodes walking you through how to make this doable in real life. Things like how to handle binge eating, how to eat at restaurants, how to deal with hunger, how to manage hunger during your period, how to stay motivated, how to stop quitting on yourself, how to structure meals, how to work through emotional eating, all of those gaps are already covered for you. Use this podcast as an anchor. Come back to it. Let it support you while you practice the basics.

But at the end of the day, these three skills are the backbone of weight loss. If you do them, you will lose weight. And if you want to give yourself the best possible shot at succeeding, you need a timeline. Not a forever promise. Not an open ended hope. A real, specific time frame.

The best way to start is two full weeks at maintenance calories. Not dieting. Not restricting. Just practicing. Practice using your tracking app, like MacrosFirst. Practice using a food scale so you can quantify your meals accurately. Practice building breakfast, lunch, dinner, and figuring out when you need snacks. Practice walking consistently. Practice setting up your life so these habits start to feel normal. Those two weeks are where you build the skill set without the pressure of being in a deficit yet.

Then, once those two weeks are done and you feel confident in the basics, move into your calorie deficit and commit. Choose the time frame. Is it eight weeks? Ten? Twelve? Fourteen? Pick it and go all in. After that, take a break for at least thirty days. I know that will feel uncomfortable for some of you, but taking maintenance breaks is part of the science of sustainable weight loss. It prevents burnout, protects your metabolism, and stops you from dieting until the wheels fall off, which is how so many people end up gaining everything back.

So be scientific about this. Be mature about this. Be intentional about this. Don’t jump in and out. Don’t panic when the scale fluctuates. Don’t quit because a day gets messy. Learn, adjust, and keep going. That’s how adults lose weight. That’s how people over forty lose weight without sacrificing their sanity.

And if you want help, real help, I have my entire Flexible Dieting Program laid out for you step-by-step. Six months, one price, everything mapped out. If you have questions, you can always message me on Instagram. I’m here. I’m cheering you on. I’m thinking about you more than you know, and I genuinely want you to succeed.

I want next year’s holidays to feel completely different for you. I want you to be in maintenance, enjoying Thanksgiving and Christmas without dieting, without panic, without shame. I want you to fit in your clothes, feel strong, feel capable, and walk into 2026 knowing you kept a promise to yourself.

Dedicate this year to not quitting. Even if you trip, even if you stumble, even if you crawl through parts of it, keep going. Because eventually, you’re going to stand up. Eventually, you’re going to walk. Eventually, you’re going to look in the mirror and see the version of yourself you knew was possible.

And the only way you get there is by not stopping.

This is your year. Now go practice your three skills, and meet the best version of yourself. <break time="2s" /> 

And remember:

You don’t need to earn your worth by shrinking your body.

You don’t need to start over on Monday.

Just show up.

Keep showing up.

Because weight loss works when you do the work.

I’m Jody, and this is How to Eat Cake on a Diet.

I’ll see you in the next episode.