You could spend 10 years studying boxing and still get rocked by an amateur with 30 days of experience
1 second in the arena is worth more than 1 month in the library
“Calories in calories out” doesn’t work or not work, it’s a description not an instruction. Like saying “less pressure on top than bottom” to tell someone how to fly.
Your body gains/loses muscle and fat differently. Whether and where you’re gaining/losing muscle or fat depends on many factors like metabolism, hormones, activity, food.
Calories matter and so does everything else. Calories are made of macronutrients and macronutrients have specific subtypes, and each level is less important in the short term but more important in the long term.
You don’t know how many calories or nutrients are in what you eat, you don’t know how much of what you eat gets digested, and you don’t know how much you’re using/burning. Tracking still helps give you a better picture.
You can be overweight and healthy but you’re not.
The less you eat the fewer calories you will burn. The less you move the fewer calories you will be burn. The less you weigh the fewer calories you will burn. You can increase your metabolism by eating more and not gain any weight, if you do it right.
You can lose weight without working out but it’s inferior in all ways and you’re lazy and making excuses.
You can focus on optimal health over weight loss, or weight loss over optimal health, but if you’re overweight you will have to lose it at some point.
You obviously know what is real food and what isn’t so your first step should be cutting out what isn’t.
Protein, fat, and carbs all have a place in a healthy diet. The average person should probably eat more protein. The gold standard is around 1g of protein per pound of body weight. If you’re overweight you can use lean body mass instead. You don’t need protein shakes.
Some people do better with more sugar, others with more starch. You don’t have to workout to eat a lot of carbs, but the more you workout the more carbs you need.
Fasting and keto are terrible for most people, but it might be your answer. Best to save it as a last resort, not a first.
The more saturated a fat is, the better it tends to be.
It’s a good idea to start with an even macro split of 33/33/33 percent of calories from protein, fat, carbs and adjust from there. You will likely get very far from that, and then come back very close to it over time. Protein should be viewed as a different category from carbs and fat. Protein can be adjusted up or down on its own. Carbs and fat usually in exchange of the other.
On a ketogenic diet, fat is muscle sparing. Otherwise, carbs are muscle sparing. Protein is muscle sparing but sometimes eating less protein will help you gain muscle. Alcohol is also surprisingly muscle sparing. You’re not ready for that though.
Lifting weights is muscle sparing. Short duration high intensity exercise tends to maintain or build muscle. Long duration exercise tends to burn muscle. There’s a reason sprinters look like they do, and marathoners like they do. If you lose muscle when you lose weight you’re far more likely to gain fat back and more.
The more intense the exercise, the hungrier you will get. Walking is a great way to increase activity levels while keeping hunger down, as well as not being very taxing on the body. Exercise for purpose and for pleasure.
The only way to know if something will work for you is to try it. Just because something worked for you before doesn’t mean it will now.
Eat foods you like. If any food doesn’t digest well, don’t eat it.
The healthier you are the more all of this works.
Every rule can be broken because they’re not rules, but you can’t break them by choice, they are broken for you when they’re no longer necessary.
You can be so messed up hormonally that it seems like nothing works for you. That doesn’t mean you haven’t tried, but you will have to try harder to find a solution.
I highly recommend the book How to Heal Your Metabolism by Kate Dearing.
If you want to look like an athlete, you’re going to need to do what those athletes do.
You’re fat.