How to Eat if You Want to Lose Weight

In today’s video, we’re going to tell you exactly how to eat if you want to lose weight. Nutrition plays a huge role in losing weight.

We love jump rope and we all know that jumping rope is super beneficial if you want to lose body fat or lose weight in general.

However, there is a catch.

NO! Say it ain’t so!

You can’t out jump a bad diet.

The benefits of jumping rope are difficult to realize if you’re nutrition isn’t dialed in.

It might seem over simplified, but your physical fitness is most heavily impacted by two major components.

Exercise
Nutrition

If you already joined our free 4-week challenge or you’re a member of our Swole Samurai or Shredded Ninja program, you’ve got the workout variable in this equation covered.

In order to see visible results with your body, check out this video to learn how to eat if you want lose weight and dial in your nutrition.

Step 0: Forget everything you think you know

If you’re reading this, you or someone you know is either struggling to lose weight or to achieve a certain level of fitness. And confusion surrounding nutrition is partially to blame.

We get it, nutrition can easily get complicated. Between fad diets, cleanses, and conflicting research on which foods are good or bad for you, it’s easy to get lost in the noise.

Clear your mind of any preconceptions about nutrition so we can start with a clean slate.
Forgive all your bad food choices up to this point. You get to move forward guilt free.

We’re going to build up by establishing a strong foundation of nutritional knowledge.

Step 1: Calculate your calories and macro-nutrients

This is a crucial step on your fitness journey because you need to understand what your body needs to reach your goals before you try to match your diet to it.

The reason why this is so important is because you’re body is a science equation.

Energy = Calories

Pretty simple, right?

If you eat too much, you’re going to put on weight.

Too much energy (Calories) = Weight gain

If you eat less, you’re going to lose weight.

Not enough energy (Calories) = Weight loss

What we’re trying to do is create balance in your body’s equation so you can create they physique you want.

Fortunately, we created a nifty calculator for you.

But before we get into that, lets talk about macronutrients.

Macro what?

Macronutrients are basically what make up the calories you’re consuming every day. And you’re burning those calories when you move and exercise each day.

The energy you use each day comes from the macronutrients you’re putting into your body.

The term “macronutrients” is just a fancy way of summarizing the major categories of nutrients in your food:

Protein
Carbohydrates
Fats

Now, all three of these macronutrients are equally beneficial.

Shocking, right?

You need to eat all of them. You can’t leave any out, and one isn’t “better” than the other.

The reasons why you need all three is because each has it’s own unique benefits that complement the others.

Protein is critical for cellular repair. You need protein to build your body back up after strenuous exercise including your muscles and bones.
Carbohydrates are your main energy source. When you’re jumping rope, these are what you’re burning through. And your brain needs the glucose from carbohydrates to function normally every day.
Fats are super important for energy as well. These serve as a secondary energy source to carbohydrates. Fats are also crucial for helping you absorb all the micronutrients you consume throughout the day including vitamins and minerals.

Now that you understand the basics of macronutrients, click here to check out or nifty calculator to run your numbers.

Once you’ve done that, what’s next?

In order to track your macronutrients each day we recommend using an app like MyFitness Pal. It’s the app we use all the time and we don’t even get a kickback for sharing it with you.

With a foundational knowledge of macronutrients and a spiffy app for keeping track, the question remains…

What should you be eating?

Step 2: Eat real food

Please, please, PLEASE prioritize eating real food.

Whenever you think about bingeing on food, we guarantee you’ve never bragged about eating 12 pineapples or 19 bananas and feeling so bloated the next day.

In reality it was more like a box of cookies or an entire bag of chips (gotta love those ridges, right?)

Most people don’t over eat and bloat themselves on real food like fruits, vegetables, seeds, nuts, grass-fed beef, chicken, or eggs.

You’ll rarely hear about someone getting over weight on a real food diet.

Obesity is often a result of a diet filled with too many processed foods that are full of preservatives and chemicals. You know, genetically modified stuff that cooked up in a lab or a manufacturing plant.

We’re not going to spend time any more time on what not to eat because we want you to prioritize eating real food.

Protein: Chicken, eggs, and lean cuts of beef or pork
Carbohydrates: Sweet potatoes and lots of vegetables and fruits
Fats: Avocados, nuts, seeds, and healthy oils like coconut

We recognize that we all live in the real world and no one is going to adhere to a real food diet 100% of the time.

And even if you try, studies show that extreme habits have a higher likelihood of failing in the long term.

We recommend keeping to your real food diet at least 70-80% of the time.

For the 20-30% balance you’re allowed to eat “fun” food because life without pizza, cookies, and ice cream isn’t much fun.

You want to go out with your friends on the weekend and enjoy yourself without feeling guilty.

By staying consistent throughout the week and simply being mindful of your macronutrients, you’re going to start seeing results and it’ll be easier to return to real food after a couple cheat meals with friends.

If you want more specific recommendations on what foods to eat and how to build out a diet of real foods you can enjoy while getting fit, check out our Jump Rope Dudes Nutrition System here.

Step 3: Optimize your lifestyle

You can make it easier on yourself and follow through with all this nutritional guidance we’re sharing by trying a few “hacks”.

1. Intermittent fasting

We are hungry dudes. We like to eat and we enjoy some delicious dishes from around the world. So, we u
sually skip the first meal of the day and don’t eat breakfast.

What this does is restrict our eating window to about 8 hours (12-8pm) and it’s easier to avoid overeating.

Intermittent fasting is a fancy way of describing limiting your eating to specific intervals.

Typically we’ll fast (aka not eat) from 8pm until 12pm the next day (16 hrs), and then eat our meals within the window between 12pm and 8pm that night (8 hrs).

If you want to learn more about intermittent fasting, watch this video where we go into more detail.

2. Compartmentalize your discipline

“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” —Benjamin Franklin

Now, we don’t know if he was a fan of jump rope or not, but Mr. Franklin knew what he was talking about.

However, in this case we’re intentionally planning to “fail” because we recommend deciding when to eat fun foods in advance.

There is nothing wrong with a cheat day. We don’t suggest you gorge yourself necessarily, but we do compartmentalize our weeks where Mon-Fri we’re eating mostly whole, real foods.

Come Saturday we loosen up and are likely to grab a giant pizza, hang with friends, or go out to dinner.

We try to find a healthy balance that lets us maintain the Jump Rope Dude physique while getting to live the life we want to live.

Step 4: Consistency

None of this stuff works if you don’t stay consistent.

It might take you weeks, months, or even years to achieve your fitness goals, but you will get there and create your ideal physique if you stay consistent.

Play the long game when it comes to this stuff and understand that it gets easier as time goes by.

BONUS TIP: Keep it simple. If you eat similar stuff for lunch and dinner each weekday, your macronutrient intake will be consistent and easier to maintain.

Recap

Forget everything you think you know
Calculate your calories and macronutrients
Eat real food
Optimize your lifestyle
Consistency

#dothething