How to Lose 100 Pounds – 10 Tips From My Journey

I felt trapped, overwhelmed by exhaustion, guilt, and shame when I was morbidly overweight. Watching my life pass by, I felt like a failure and burden, yearning for change but resigned to my painful, isolating existence.

After losing 100 pounds, I can now effortlessly play with my kids and piggyback them. I also help build our new house with strength and energy, lifting heavy lumber. Most importantly, I’m no longer just a spectator in my life, fully embracing family moments.

I want to help you think better. Looking back, I want to address common thoughts and ideas people have about weight loss, especially when they have a lot to lose. I have ten tips below.

When coaching people who want to lose a lot of weight, here are the ten things I want you to know.

If you’re struggling to lose weight — 50, 100, or even more pounds — then let’s talk about. When people meet me, and hear my story, they find inspiration, hope, and possibility.

Tip #1 – The Key (Mindset) to Lose 100 Pounds

Just about all approaches to losing weight didn’t work for me—dieting, calorie counting, point systems, quick fixes, and watching the scale. They don’t work because they aim to “help you lose weight,” which should NOT be not the primary focus. Instead you should focus on eating nutrition, bio-available food — and the weight will come off on its own.

Instead of “lose weight,” think, “gain nutrition.” When you get a lot of good nutrition, your body naturally finds its way to a happy weight, an inner feeling of wellness, and an improved mood and outlook. All of your hormones work better, and the weight comes off automatically. And that’s an animal-based, low-carbohydrate, high-fat, protein-rich diet. Essentially, eat a lot of meat.

The change happens seemingly magically week after week. When you get nourished, you’ll feel better, lose weight, and feel human again week after week. It’s rewarding, natural, and surprising to everyone who does it.

If you need help developing new diet habits or getting more nutrition, contact me—let’s talk.

Tip #2 – Forget About Losing 100 Pounds “Fast”

The weight came on steadily over time from a bad diet. I do not recommend attempting to starve yourself, chop away fat with surgery, or go on an extreme exercise program because those are unnatural and don’t heal the underlying “lack of nutrition issue.”

Poor lifestyle habits don’t help either — like inactivity, bad sleep, and lack of sunlight. But by far, in my experience, the food intake is a great place to start and will bring noticeable change quickly.

Instead, don’t think “lose weight fast” but think “let the fat come off steadily as I aim for nutrition” by just changing your diet to (A) stop eating junk and (B) replace it with nutrient-dense animal foods. You’ll be surprised, and please do see the weight come off on its own, and you will feel better, stronger, healthier, and more energetic week by week.

That improvement will bring you peace and joy, which you can only know by going on the journey. This gradual approach improves your well-being and helps your body return to its natural weight, ensuring the pounds stay off for good. Remember, it’s not a quick fix, it’s a life-style change.

Tip #3 – The First Thing I’d Do If I Had to Start Over

Negativity will keep you down. Deep down, all the harsh self-criticism, low feelings of self-worth, and negative thoughts kept me down. They kept me chasing quick fixes, shake diets, and other gimmicky things that never lasted. Believe me, I’ve tried them all.

When you’re down, you’ll fall prey to sketchy promises. Failure after failure, I got heavier and heavier, and I felt worse and worse about myself. That negative self-image was terrible. This made me desperate to try anything that was marketed to me.

It wasn’t until I found the deepest humility that things changed. I found my way to God. I felt at peace. I felt loved. I felt patience. I felt acceptance of myself. I was then able to explore new ways of eating without too much self-focused attachment. I accepted whatever would happen, even if I would never lose the weight.

Find your powerful reason. What I’d suggest is finding humility, peace, and love — which could be God, a higher power, or a bigger purpose, like taking care of your family and your future. And then try a meat-based diet.

Tip #4 – The Diet to Lose 100 Pounds

I never thought diet would help because I’ve tried them all. Or so I thought.

I eat a diet that’s nutrient-rich, low on toxicity, and natural to our species. I’d use a low-carb, ketogenic, carnivore-based diet. When you look at history, at cutting-edge doctors (who work with thousands of people), the thing that’s working is more meat and a lot less junk food.

Sure, diet changes can be hard and a little uncomfortable at first. But when you start making the changes, you’ll see how much better you feel each week. Just like the problem was created over weeks, months, and years, you’ll undo the damage and see noticeable progress over weeks, months, and years.

Change will happen quickly. Fortunately, in a few weeks, you’ll start seeing weight come off, energy return, and problems (aches, rashes, mental fog, and more) start to disappear. It’ll feel great.

Tip #5 – The Exercise Plan for Losing 100 Pounds

I believe our food comes first because we need to cut out the junk and add in the nutrition. Hands-down, without giving your body what it needs, your exercise isn’t going to work. You can’t outwork a bad diet. A carnivore, meat-based diet is the way to go: meat, eggs, and animal fat. Organ meat and fish are okay, too, but I’d stick to ruminant meat like cows.

Yes, I’d rather you fix your food intake first. I believe most people need some real nutrition to heal and cut out the crap (sugar, chips, sodas, anything not meat) to stop intaking toxic stuff.

Tip #6 – How How to Stay Motivated to lose 100 pounds

Changing lifestyle habits can be hard. Seeing results regularly is the key. And I definitely believe in focusing on establishing and celebrating non-scale (not on the scale) victories to help get you through those tough times.

• Like getting 100 grams of protein in the day .
• Like spending 20 minutes each morning praying, or remembering your reason for pursuing better health, or simply learning to be accepting and humble.
• Noticing that you have more energy, or your headaches went away.
• Ticking off days of being consistent.
• Being able to lift more or walk/jog further.

Your weight fluctuates too much to worry about a few pounds here and there. Weight can be influenced by water retention, stress, or any number of other factors throughout the day or week. So looking at the scale is problematic for those of you who are obsessed with that number.

Also, you’ll gain muscle as fat comes off so the number on the scale won’t be a good measure. Focus on the improvements in your strength, body composition, physical independence, endurance, mental health, and clarity, and how you are physically feeling.

Keep at it! Your weight will move eventually but shifting your mindset to focus on all those other aspects of health, those non-scale victories, will help you on the path to long-term success.

We can all use a little help as we take on a new challenge, especially if we’ve failed for so long. That’s why we should talk to see what support you need.

Tip #7 — How to Break Sugar/Junk Food Addiction

The reason for breaking junk food addiction needs to be big enough. The seriousness of what’s at stake is important. This is your life — and you don’t want to feel crumby, dislike how you look, have low energy, face nasty diseases, and let down your family by being a sick burden. It’s horrible.

You can’t live without [insert your vice.] I know the only things that I physically cannot live without nutrition — and that’s eating are protein and fat.

“If I can’t have [junk food X], what’s the point of living?” I choose not to eat most carbohydrates, whether it’s bread, whole grains, pasta, fruit, or most vegetables, because I don’t like how my body feels afterward.

And if you eat junk, it takes time to clear it out. I don’t like feeling gassy, bloated, sluggish, or angry, so I choose not to put myself in a position to feel that way by not eating the foods that give me those physical symptoms. Healing takes time, but even the smallest change in a positive direction is a good thing and should be acknowledged and celebrated.

You break the addiction by realizing that your life is much worse with the crap. You’ll see, feel, and know this when you begin filling up on the healthy stuff, and force out the trash.

We can all use a little help as we take on a new challenge, especially if we’ve failed for so long. That’s why we should talk to see what support you need.

Tip #8 – How to Lose 100 Pounds in a Healthy Way (Without Surgery)

If I had to do it over again, these are the three things I would do to make the journey to lose 100 pounds easier:

• Turn to God first and foremost.
  Pray to understand why I wanted to do what I was doing in the first place.
  
• Prioritize and eat enough bioavailable protein.
  Focus on eating animal protein and enough of it, at least 1 gram/pound of ideal body weight.
  
• Lift weights and focus on strength training.
  At least three times per week.

If you can take even the smallest steps on each of these, I believe you’ll see progress week by week, and it will sustain you and surprise you.

If you need help, let’s talk about it.

Tip #9 – Meal Planning to Lose 100 Pounds

Focus on protein at every meal. Build your plate around a protein source, which should be animal-based, to ensure you’re receiving the most nutrient-dense and bioavailable source of protein possible.

For me, I eat a lot of eggs. Sometimes I eat eggs for breakfast and lunch, accompanied by another animal protein. I love ground beef because it is economical and delicious, but I will also eat smoked salmon or prosciutto if it’s in my fridge and readily available.

Have ready-to-eat protein on hand for those busy days. We always have packages of salt-cured prosciutto in our fridge and Egg-Life wraps. On the weekends, usually on Sundays, I will make between 4-5 pounds of bacon so that we have bacon readily available in the fridge throughout the week. We also keep cans of tuna fish, sardines, and salmon in our pantry as easy to prepare/eat meals.

Animal protein and fat will satisfy you, keeping hunger at bay and nutrition on hand.

Tip #10 – How to Keep the Weight Off

Everyone’s journey is different, special, and individually unique. The important thing is to focus on YOUR JOURNEY and the progress that you have made. The changes that I’ve made didn’t happen overnight.

Make a big deal about all your progress — like every good meal eaten. Healing takes time but even the smallest change in a positive direction is a good thing and should be acknowledged and celebrated. Focus on consistency and keeping tempting foods out of your house.

Create an environment around you that is helpful. Get family members on board, or at least ask for their support and help as you make changes. The people around you can be a BIG HELP or a BIG HINDRANCE. So ask for their help.

Start now! The single most important thing you can do to improve your health and wellness is to take your first step.

If you need help, I’m here for you. Let’s talk.

To sum it up, here’s the thing to remember most about losing 100 pounds

It is a journey, and all journeys are made up of steps. So all you can do now is take a step forward, whether throwing out known junk food, buying some steak, or making time to pray. All steps move you forward.

Replace bad foods with good foods — AND replace bad habits with good habits. I’ve even made a nice downloadable PDF with 10 Habits and Food Swaps to make, along with a weekly email I send out to help you along.

And I’m just a message away. Let’s talk if you need to make changes, be consistent, and lose a lot of weight, like 100 pounds like I did.