Jonathan Steedman (00:01.762)
The last belief I often see is this idea that weight loss is linear, which once again makes perfect logical sense. The less I eat, the more weight I will lose. Actually, that's not linear, that's inverse, but you know what I mean. This is perfect. I'm eating this much, but if I lower it this much, I will get an equal amount of weight loss, right? So the less I eat, the more weight I lose. That doesn't seem to be the case. And the main reason for that is this idea, what's not really an idea, is this phenomenon of

your weight maintenance being a range, right? Rather than a single number. And so what I mean by that is, you know, if you've punched your details into a calculator online, it's probably spat out, your maintenance calories are blah. Or maybe you've worked with a coach in the past who's told you your maintenance calories are blah. First of all, it's not like your height, it can move, it can change, right? And so that's the first thing. And so,

A good way to think about this is again, like I said, to think of it as a bit of a range. So we know that a surplus and excess of calories up here is going to give you weight gain. We know that getting into a deficit is going to cause you to lose weight. And there's probably times you felt like you have moved into a deficit and not lost weight. If that's the case, you weren't in a deficit. You didn't do anything wrong. It's like you probably did everything you were told to do. It's just that you didn't get outside of your maintainable.

range. So rather than your maintenance calories, the calculator spitting out 200 calories, 2000 calories, and that being your maintenance, that might be the top of your maintainable range. So if you ate 2300 calories, you know, consistently, not just once off, but like regularly, yeah, you'd be in surplus zone, you gain weight. But maybe you're doing everything right. You read all the studies, you've been told to go into a mild to moderate calorie deficit because

You've been told that if you lose weight too quickly, you'll regain it, all of those sorts of things. So you calculate a 15 % calorie deficit, really reasonable, really sensible. And that's 1700 calories. But 1700 calories for some people might be here, but for others, it might be here. Right? And so it might be that you have lowered your food. Like no one is disagreeing. You have dropped 300 calories.

Jonathan Steedman (02:26.191)
and then you think I'm in a deficit because I've lowered my calories. But unfortunately, you've lowered your calories, but you're not in a deficit. For your body, you may need to lower them further. It might be 1600. That might still be within the range. Maybe it's 1500. Maybe 1500 is finally what we need to get down into that deficit zone, right? Which would be a more aggressive deficit if we actually calculated that back. That's a 25 % deficit. That's not to be sniffed at. And so...

Ignoring the potential for you've lowered 300 calories of food, but then you're also finishing your kids meals and there was that extra coffee. Ignoring the calories that could sneak in, let's say that you had truly dropped 300 calories, your body could have just absorbed, and by absorbed, mean adapted to that change. The analogy I often give is, let's say that you've taken a 10 % pay cut. That would suck. You'd probably make it work. You move some money around or you cut back on spending.

no travel, all those sorts of things, would make that, you could make that fit. Your body can do the same thing. You lower your food by 10%, it may not be enough for the body to need to dip into your source of body fat. It can move some calories or some energy around. It can be like, well, okay, immune system can't pay you full. You're not getting 100 % energy now. You can just be at 90 % energy. Reproductive system, same deal. You're at 90%. All of a sudden, I don't need 2000 calories to maintain. I can get by.

on 1700 calories and I don't need to dip into my savings, so I'm gonna maintain my weight. That is absolutely what can happen. We see this maintainable range being quite different for different people. And so some people would lose weight dropping 300 calories, other people would not. If that's you, there's nothing wrong with you, you're not broken. It does suck, I get it for your current goal, but it is also what it is. That is a genetic component of weight loss.

And complaining about it is kind of like complaining about your height. You can be bummed about it. That's totally fine. But you also can't do anything about it other than working with what we've got. So if you feel like you have gone through this process in the past and there's been a bit of a light bulb moment of like, that's me, sprint phase could be exactly what you're looking for. Because it might be the thing that you need to get you from maintenance rather than back down to more maintenance. It could be the thing you need to get you.

Jonathan Steedman (04:51.692)
into a true deficit.