This next one I'm about to talk about is so underrated. I guarantee you're not doing it, and I guarantee it will make a dramatic difference on your journey if you actually stick with it, and that is... Welcome to The Mindset Diet, the show that will teach you how to stop getting in your own way and start losing weight. feeling better and becoming the best version of yourself.
My name is Iman, I'm a certified personal trainer and nutrition coach and I run an online coaching business where my amazing team and I coach women through losing weight without restrictive dieting or excessive exercise. Welcome to this episode of the Mindset Diet where we're going to be focusing on something that we don't focus on as often, which is actually the physical requirements that it's going to take for you to lose 20 or
more pounds. Normally I talk to you a lot about what it takes mentally, and obviously that's the focus of this show given the title is The Mindset Diet, but recently I've been talking a lot about the physical requirements and what you actually need to do, like the actual action steps you need to take on your weight loss journey. So if you follow me on Instagram or you are a current client of mine or you are in our private Facebook community, you've probably
heard me talking about this. a lot recently and I wanna explain to you why I'm communicating the whole no bullshit, what does it take sentiment a lot more recently. So first let me explain that phrase, no bullshit, what does it take? So it's actually from Tom Bilyeu, who is the owner of Quest Nutrition, the owner and founder of Quest Nutrition, and he has a podcast called Impact Theory. that I listened to a lot when
I was starting my business. He focuses a lot on mindset, on he's actually the one who taught me about having a growth mindset. And Tom, at certain points during his career, asks himself the following question, no bullshit, what would it take? So he'll set a goal, and then he'll ask himself that question, no bullshit, what would it take to get there? And for him, it's just a realistic way to kind of logically move
through how to work towards a goal. So a couple weeks back, I was feeling a little bit overwhelmed with some of my client cases. And I was like, you know what? I'm gonna take the human element out of this, which obviously I had to put it back in because I work with humans, right? I work with people. But I was like, just for a second, I'm gonna pretend that people are robots and they can follow through with anything
I tell them. And I was like, I'm gonna make a list of everything I would ideally have all my clients do. on a daily and weekly basis to reach their fitness goals. That was my version of no bullshit, what would it take? And ultimately what I came up with is the list that I'm going to share with you today. Now, before I go into this, I want to share something with you because I know exactly what's gonna happen. You are a human, right? Let's put the human element
back into this. you are a human, you only have so many hours in a day, you're gonna hear this list I'm about to share with you and you're gonna freak out and get overwhelmed and you're not gonna wanna do any of it. So I knew that was gonna happen and I knew it would for sure happen if I started talking about this list and these requirements more publicly. So what I did to get ahead of that is I actually created a change questionnaire. So this is a brief
two to four minute survey. and I created a formula that's gonna take what you feel confident in and match it with the most important goals and create an individualized list for you that's gonna tell you exactly what you need to do on your specific journey to lose weight, right? So basically what it does is it ranks all these habits that I'm about to share with you, these physical requirements, in order from most to least important, and then it asks you how confident
you are in each of those requirements. and using our proprietary formula, it's going to come up with a list of things that are important, but also you feel confident in. Hopefully that makes sense as I explain it, but really what it's gonna help you figure out is how to work smarter, not harder, and how to get the most bang for your buck, given the certain actions
that you can do, right? Because you can only do so many things in one day, so it's gonna help you narrow down which ones are gonna move you forward the quickest and the most consistently
on your weight loss journey. So that quiz, that change questionnaire is free to take and currently as I have the capacity, I'm actually scheduling an appointment to go over the results with each and every individual who takes the change questionnaire and I'm setting up a personalized coaching call with you to help walk you through the things you need to be doing every single day, make sure that you understand them and give you practical tips on how to implement
them in your specific life based off of your schedule and your individual needs. So if you wanna take that questionnaire, the link to do so is down below. If not, totally fine. I won't be offended, but I guarantee it'll help you out if you do take it. All right, by now you're probably dying to know these nine physical requirements to lose 20 or more pounds. So let's go ahead and dive into them. Like I said, they are in
order of importance. And number one on that list is to get seven to nine hours of quality sleep per night. So quality sleep is absolutely crucial for fat loss because it's... going to help you with so many different things, both physically and mentally. It's going to help you regulate your hormones. So a lack of sleep causes an increase in ghrelin, which is the hunger hormone, and a decrease in leptin, which
is the satiety hormone, right? So you have less of the hormone that makes you full and more of the hormone that makes you hungry. So no duh, you're going to be hungrier on days when you do not get a good amount of sleep the night before. Not only that, but it decreases your just willpower in general, right? When you don't have energy, you don't have the energy to talk yourself out of making a bad food decision. You don't have the energy to cook something.
You don't have the energy to do any sort of movement or go to the gym. So a lack of sleep is an absolute disaster when it comes to trying to lose fat. In case for some reason you don't believe me, I figured I would go ahead and pull in a quick study here. So a study published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found that individuals on a calorie restricted diet who slept five and a half hours per night lost 55% less fat and 60% more muscle than those who
slept eight and a half hours per night. So even if you're in a caloric deficit, you will lose 55% less fat on average if you sleep five and a half hours per night than if you were to sleep eight and a half hours per night. And we didn't even touch upon the muscle loss. Muscle loss is so detrimental when you're trying to lose weight because losing muscle means your metabolic rate will go down and your metabolism
will slow down. This is a huge part of the reason that people's metabolic Health declines as they get older is because they lose muscle mass as well I really cannot overstate the importance of sleep now if you struggle with your sleep It's usually a pretty individualized thing Some of you will struggle with your sleep because you have racing thoughts at night if that's you I recommend drinking chamomile tea before bed and journaling before bed to get some thoughts
out of your mind Some of you will struggle with sleep because you scroll on your phone all night. And in that case, I recommend putting away your phone and your laptop and your computer and anything else with a screen 30 minutes before bed. So sleep can be a tricky one to give general tips about because usually if people really struggle with sleep, it's for something individual. Like I said, maybe they have anxiety. Like that was the case for me
during college. I was talking to a woman recently who is grieving a loss, and so she has a lot of racing thoughts when she goes to sleep, which I completely understand. But generally, here's what the perfect night of sleep setup will look like. So you wanna get yourself in bed about nine hours before you want to wake up, because we're not always asleep when we're in bed, right? We wake up a few times in the middle of the night, we take a little bit of time to fall asleep. So let's say you wanna
go to sleep. or you want to be asleep, rather, from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m., I would recommend getting in bed between nine and 9.30 to give yourself a full eight hours of sleep. You want your house to be cool. If you can set your thermostat to 68, 67, I think research actually finds it 66 is the best temperature for going to sleep. If you do not get cold and your body's not at a good temperature throughout the night, your heart rate will not lower enough to get
you into a deep sleep. So you wanna make sure you're sleeping in a cold environment. I don't recommend sleeping naked. That can actually make you hotter because your body heat radiates into the comforter and the sheets and makes you hot. So for ladies, I recommend sleeping in shorts and a sports bra or a comfy bra. For gentlemen, if you're listening, just probably shorts is fine. I look like an alien when I go to sleep and that's because I try to optimize
my sleep. So I wear an eye mask to keep light out of my eyes. I wear earplugs to make sure nothing wakes me up and I actually tape my mouth shut using some NexCare tape. Talk to your doctor before doing that one because if you have sleep apnea or a deviated septum or anything like that, that may not be safe for you. However, breathing through your mouth is... just inferior to breathing through your nose and it doesn't allow you to get into a deep sleep. Last but
not least, a couple other things. Chamomile tea can be greatly beneficial. I think I mentioned that earlier, but this helps calm down the body. I recommend dimming the lights in your home or turning them completely off about an hour before bed and getting off of electronics about an hour before bed as well. All right, the second of the nine physical requirements is to consume about 85% of your diet from whole natural foods. Food quality, I cannot tell you how much of
a difference it makes, okay? I have seen clients eat the exact same calories, one coming from processed junk food and eating out a lot, and one coming from whole natural foods, and the whole natural foods literally being the difference in whether or not they lose weight. There are lots of reasons why, but just to kind of summarize, whole natural foods are lower in calories, typically lower in calories than processed foods. They're higher in nutrients compared to processed
foods. They help you maintain stable blood sugar levels. They help you reduce cravings. They improve your overall health. They support your thyroid, and they make it a lot easier to stick to that calorie deficit, which is what you need for fat loss. So... in any way, shape, or form, if you can incorporate more vegetables into your diet, fruits, lean proteins, these are going to really, really help you. I just, I
can't tell you how important this is. Like I said, I've had clients get their protein from protein bars and shakes, and clients get their protein from chicken thighs and ground beef, and the difference is crazy to me. I've seen this happen time and time again, anecdotally. In case you're not convinced by my anecdote, a study published in the Journal of American College of Nutrition found that a diet consisting mostly of whole foods led to greater weight loss compared to diets in processed foods.
So even if you weren't to track your macros or track your calories and you just switch to a diet with less processed foods, I guarantee you would see better results and quicker weight loss. All right, my third physical requirement to lose 20 or more pounds is to hit your damn protein. So the way to calculate your protein goal, take your target body weight, whatever your goal weight is, and you're gonna eat one gram of protein per pound of that target body
weight. Now, if you've never tracked protein before, I highly recommend starting, but let's say you start tracking your protein and your target protein goal is 130 grams and you only eat 75 grams, you don't need to increase it overnight. By the way, this goes for everything I'm talking about today. If you only get six hours of sleep, aim for seven. Don't try to
aim for nine. If you only eat, you know, every other meal is junk food, try to just decrease to only one junk food meal a day, right, baby step it. But for this one in particular, if you go from eating very little protein or no protein to a ton of protein, it can cause a lot of issues for your digestive system. So you wanna slowly step your way up. Now, I've talked a lot about protein before. but protein is absolutely essential for preserving muscle mass during weight loss. Muscle tissue burns
more calories at rest than fat tissue. So maintaining that muscle tissue is going to help you keep your metabolism high. This is the same reason we strength train when we're trying to lose weight, okay? Protein also has what's called a high thermic effect, meaning your body actually burns more calories by digesting it compared to fats or carbs. So once again, let's say you're 200 pounds, your goal weight is 150 pounds, you would want to eat 150 grams of protein per
day. All right, and you would wanna get this through things like chicken breast, fish, tofu, if you're a vegetarian, ground meats, high quality Greek yogurt, so grass-fed dairy, grass-fed cheese, whatever you like, but you wanna make sure you're hitting these protein goals, it's going to make a huge difference for you on your journey. And it's going to be important when you're maintaining your weight loss too, because you want to be able to keep yourself
full throughout the day. All right, the fourth requirement is very simple, yet I see a lot of people struggling to pick this low-hanging fruit and to check off this easy goal every day, and that's to drink enough water. So the formula for water is you're gonna take your current body weight. So let's say you currently weigh 200 pounds, you're gonna divide it by two, so that's gonna give you 100. and then you're gonna add 15. So that's gonna give you 115. That's the number of ounces of water you
want to drink in a day. Okay, I'll give you another example. Let's say you weigh 140 pounds and you want to make sure you're adequately hydrated. You're gonna take your weight, 140. You're gonna divide it by two to get 70. And then you're gonna add 15 to get 85 ounces of water per day. Staying hydrated is vital for
your metabolism and your energy levels. If anyone's ever like, oh, I have no energy throughout the day, I'm feeling so sluggish and I'm feeling so heavy, I'm like, you're probably dehydrated. It's also going to help with your digestion. It's gonna help with the transportation of nutrients throughout your body. It can keep you full, which reduces your overall food intake. Dehydration, on the other hand, can lead to puffiness and water retention, and it can make you feel like
you're not losing fat. If you struggle getting your water in, the first thing I recommend doing is buying a reusable water bottle. So I have one that's 40 ounces, and I know that my water goal is 85, I believe, ounces per day. So what I do is I know, okay, I've got to drink two full bottles, reusable bottles full of water. That's gonna give me 80 ounces. And then I usually get at least a little bit of water from another source, like maybe an electrolyte drink or something
like that. So... You know, if you have to get 100 ounces of water per day, you could get a 40 ounce bottle and know that you need to drink two to two and a half of those every single day to get your water in. I've had clients set reminders on their phone. My personal favorite way to make sure I at least get some water in during the day, because it is easy to forget sometimes, is I always make myself drink one full bottle, that 40 ounce bottle of water, before I even allow myself to have coffee.
So first I hydrate my body with that. then I allow myself to have coffee and other drinks and stuff like that throughout the day. All right, the next physical requirement is at least 8,000 steps per day. So regular physical activity like walking not only increases the amount of calories that you burn, but it also improves your cardiovascular health. It can help you manage stress. It's a low impact exercise.
It's super easy and super accessible. It's just, ugh, you just please try to get your steps in. I A lot of you work desk jobs, so do I. I really prioritize making time throughout the day to take walks. In fact, I just finished up a Facebook Live earlier. I needed to record this podcast afterwards and I was in like a, ugh, just like agitated mood because I just spent like 30 minutes talking about the same topic on a Facebook Live and I'm like, now I've got to record it on the podcast too. So what
did I do? I got up, put my crocs on. didn't even put real shoes on, and just took a five minute walk around the block. I felt energized, I felt better, I got some steps in, came back and started recording this podcast. Being completely sedentary is horrible for your body and really, really makes fat loss a lot more difficult. You've gotta get some movement in. So whatever it takes, scheduling in walks, It can just be
in little five minute increments. I've been doing a lot more of that recently because it's been so damn hot in Durham. There's been like a heat advisory like every single day. So I've just been doing like five, 10, 15 minutes spurts of walking at a time, even just doing chores around the house, just being active. It adds up, it burns calories, it's good for recovery, it's good for stress management. It makes fat
loss a lot easier. Along the lines of movement, I can't believe I put strength training after steps, but I did so because I think steps are a little bit more accessible for people than strength training is, but two to three days per week of full body strength training is absolutely vital. That's going to go ahead and be our, what are we on? Sixth requirement for losing weight and keeping it off. So strength builds muscle, excuse me, strength training
builds muscle. and maintains muscle mass, which like we talked about before, is crucial for a higher metabolism or resting metabolic rate. It improves your body composition, it makes you look more toned as you lose fat, and it's just so good for you. It's good for balancing out your hormones, it's good for your cognitive health, it's good for your bone health. Two to three days, full body strength training. you will not look back if you get consistent
with it. You will feel so good. I, one of the most like rewarding things I see in my work with my clients is when my female, well, I mostly train females. I only have a one male client right now, but when my female clients start strength training, they start to like it, they feel strong, they feel empowered, they feel more confident. It shows up in so many different areas of their life. And like I said, it makes a huge difference on your weight loss journey.
This is another thing where if I can't see a client Where if I can't get a client to see results and they're not strength training, I always like banging in their head like, hey, let's start strength training. I guarantee you start seeing results and changes in your body composition. And even when they haven't lost a, you know, insanely impressive amount of weight on the scale, when they strength train, we see huge differences in their before and after pictures. This next one I'm about to talk
about is so underrated. I guarantee you're not doing it, and I guarantee it will make a dramatic difference on your journey if you actually stick with it. And that is doing some sort of physical and mental stress management every day. So chronic stress, which we're all dealing with because we're dealing with our family, we're dealing with the pets, we're dealing with work, we're dealing with financial situation, your finances, right, everyone's dealing with
chronic stress. Chronic stress can lead to elevated cortisol levels, which increase your appetite and promote fat storage, especially in the abdominal area. So those of you with a lot of belly fat, remember this, all right? Managing that stress is not something that you just should do, it's something that you absolutely need to do to keep your cortisol levels in check, to improve your overall health, to make you feel better mentally, and to make it easier
to lose fat. So some physical stress management practices include yoga, meditation, deep breathing, walks in nature, and then mental stress management activities are things you like to do. Maybe it's taking a bath, setting boundaries is a big one, reading, any hobbies that just make you feel nice. I like to remind clients to try to engage in things that brought them joy
as a kid. Even if it's something silly like Puzzling or video games like do it if it's going to help bring your stress down I'm not kidding if you do everything else on this list, but you do not manage your stress You will not see good results stress bleeds into everything else as well, right? So like if you're super stressed out, you're gonna be less likely to take your walk You're gonna be less likely to eat whole natural foods, right? You're gonna have a harder time sleeping. So it feeds into
everything else All right this next one. We're almost done. Hang in there ladies And whatever gentlemen listen, I always say ladies and I feel bad, but I don't think I have a huge male audience. This next one I can tell you a lot about and that is a healthy gut. So a healthy gut microbiome aids in digestion and nutrient absorption, supports a strong immune system
and it can influence weight regulation. So any sort of imbalance in your gut bacteria can cause obesity, it can cause difficulty losing weight. I know this better than anyone else. Anytime my gut health is really poor. I find that I put on weight easily, I'm very inflamed, so I just look heavier and I feel like crap.
So, gut health is super individualized, but some basic ways you can improve your gut health include eating a diet rich in fiber, fermented foods like yogurt, kefir, sauerkraut, prebiotics, which are found in foods like garlic and onions and apples and bananas, and managing your stress because... really, really high stress lifestyles can also cause gut health issues. That was a
part of the reason I developed mine. Honestly, gut health needs its whole entire, you know, separate podcast, so I won't get too much more into it today, but if you suspect you have gut health issues and you're not losing weight, you need to tackle those before the weight loss will come. And similarly, the last requirement is a healthy hormonal profile. Those of you that are bordering up on menopause know that when your hormones are out of whack, things
can get crazy really fast. So hormones regulate your metabolism, they regulate your hunger, they regulate fat storage. Imbalances in hormones, hormones like insulin, like thyroid and sex hormones, can make it very difficult to lose weight. So making sure your hormones are in the right spot will make sure that your metabolism is functioning properly and you can actually
lose weight. So... Again, hormones is just like gut health, it needs its own separate podcast, but some very basic tips for that include regular exercise, a balanced diet, getting enough sleep, all the other stuff that we've been talking about for the past 20 minutes. So there you have it. Those are the nine physical requirements to lose 20 or more pounds and keep off the weight. Now, like I said earlier, you do not need to overwhelm yourself and get yourself all worked
up. because you want to do all of them at the same time. I do not recommend that at all. I recommend taking our change questionnaire, figuring out which ones are gonna be the best for you so that you can start seeing some progress and build some momentum and eventually master all nine of these habits. And I'll repeat myself once more, you don't necessarily need to start
with all the numbers I gave, right? So if you can't get in half your body weight plus 15 in ounces of water, start with just half your body weight or three quarters of your body weight or something, hold on, three quarters is more than a half, a third of your body weight. This is why I'm, yeah, I'm not a math person. You get what I'm saying. If you can't get 8,000 steps a day, start by getting 6,000 and then
7,000. Work your way up, figure out which is going to, which of these are going to be the most impactful for you and then work your way up to those numbers. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Mindset Diet podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, make sure to share it with your friends and family, leave it a five star rating or review wherever you're listening and yeah, connect with me. Follow me on Instagram, the link to do that is below.
Join my private Facebook community, the link to do that is below. Email me if you have questions, email me if you want a copy of this list. I'm really giving it just to clients right now. But if you want it written out, you can email me at the email down below, iman at buil and I can send you a PDF copy of the list and take the change questionnaire, because I guarantee it'll help you on your weight loss journey. As always, I'm wishing you wellness, and I'll see you in the next episode.