Crystal O’Keefe: Welcome to the MetPro Method podcast. I’m your host, Crystal O’Keefe, and today I’m joined by MetPro Coach Ryan McMullen. And today we’re going to be discussing weight loss strategy. Ryan, I really appreciate you being here today. Now you mentioned to me that you have a lot of personal experience in this area. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Ryan McMullen: Yeah, I was really excited as I told you when this topic came up because I have my own weight loss journey. So, I guess easiest to start out with, as we’re kind of going through these part series of when to lose weight and how much you have to lose, is my journey.
Just getting into this field in general, was I grew up overweight. My whole family was overweight. I grew up that way and I, at one point, just decided enough was enough and I made a pretty dramatic change to my diet and obviously exercise as well. And my whole journey, if you want to outline it that way, was I lost 90 pounds total.
Crystal O’Keefe: Wow. Congratulations.
Ryan McMullen: Yeah. Yeah. It was quite the transformation. In the middle of that, there’s been so much experience of how do I get down that far initially and then building back up because the weight I got down to felt a little too skinny for my stature.
So, then it was building back up and, and then back down and back up and back down. So, there’s been a lot of this kind of back and forth with weight and body composition. So, um, just as far as losing weight in general and then maintenance and what your body looks like, I’m really passionate about it, and I love it.
Crystal O’Keefe: Yeah, you clearly get it since you have been through it and I thought for this first episode that we would focus on if you have a lot of weight to lose. So, looking at a person who might have like, maybe even as much as 50 pounds or more to lose. So, I’d like to start there.
When you’re looking at a strategy or a series of strategies, what do you start with?
Ryan McMullen: So when you have a lot of weight to lose it, it’s actually the easiest way to start because you just have to make minor changes, like really, really simple changes that go a long way.
You know, and I coach clients on this a lot. My start was just get rid of soda and start exercising and I didn’t make really dramatic changes to my diet. I mean, if I’m being perfectly honest, at that time I was still eating In and Out and for you east coasters like very, very popular fast food chain over here.
So, you know, it wasn’t dramatic changes. And even that alone, like if you can just take a couple things that you’re doing, and make some sort of a life change, either completely eliminating it from your diet or, you know, I don’t exercise at all to now I’m walking two miles every day. Like very, very simple changes like that.
If you do have a lot of weight to lose can go a really long way and start moving the scale in that direction.
Crystal O’Keefe: Are there certain things that like have more bang for your buck that if somebody’s thinking about this and they’re like, okay, I can make a simple change. What’s the best type of change to make, to get the most out of it?
Ryan McMullen: Uh, it’s hard to say because everyone’s different and everyone’s vices, right? Like this is the MetPro, “it depends” situation.
Crystal O’Keefe: Angelo would be proud.
Ryan McMullen: Yeah. Yeah. You know, it depends on where they’re starting and what their vices are. You know, I’ve seen people that have quite a lot of weight to lose and their diet actually is not that bad, and it looks pretty clean. They’re not drinking soda, maybe they’re not really consuming much alcohol. But you know, maybe they don’t exercise at all. Right?
So just getting them to, “Hey, can we start with two days a week and then three days a week?” And you know, like 10 minutes here and then up into 20 and then 30 and just progressively work on that.
Versus you may have the polar opposite, right? Someone that works out. Very consistently because it makes them feel good mentally and physically, but they still have 50, 60, 70 pounds to lose that may need a more of a focused effort on their diet and saying like, okay, I’m not going to go out to fast food, or I’m going to make sure that the majority of my plate at dinner is vegetables.
Right. So, it, it really depends on the person and where they’re coming from at the start and then making a simple change to the most healthy thing that you can do at that time.
Crystal O’Keefe: Okay, so if you’re a person who’s out there and you’re listening to this, kind of, the first step then is assessing where, where you’re struggling.
Are you a person that’s not working out at all? Because it could be as simple as starting your workout regimen, which again, could be just walking around the block every day. And then if you’re a person who you’re working out every day, you still have a lot of weight to lose. Okay. Let’s start to look at the diet.
Where can you start to make changes? And then, you can always come over here to MetPro, we’ll get you a coach and we’ll tell you exactly what you need to do.
Ryan McMullen: And we’ll do all of it for you. Exercise and the nutrition piece.
Crystal O’Keefe: Exactly. Okay. So, the first step is just kind of, finding what you need to work on. Then it’s picking something that is relatively simple. You’ve started to make some progress. Now maybe you’re 10 pounds into that journey, you’re losing weight. What kind of things do you need to do to stay on track, to continue making your strategy move forward?
Ryan McMullen: So I guess that’s kind of a multi-part, right?
So, for most people, I would say just seeing that initial 10 pounds or even five pounds off the scale, or maybe you lose weight really fast and it’s 20 pounds. Initially, generally speaking, at least in my experience and with most of my clients, that’s enough to keep the motivation factor going.
Right? When you see that scale inching down, there’s not really a like, how do I keep this going? Because you’re hyper motivated, it’s moving in the right direction, things are going well. The scary part is when the scale stops, you know, that scary word we hear in, dietetics and training is that word plateau, right?
So that’s the scary part, is how do I break through this and how do I keep that motivation when the scale does come to a halt? Right. So, I would say like, if you’re steadily losing weight, don’t worry about this part. You know, just keep doing whatever you are doing and don’t, you know, what’s that saying if it, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.
Right? Yeah. If you are losing weight, keep doing whatever it is that you’re doing until it comes to a stop. Okay. Right. If it does come to a stop and you still have that 30, 40 pounds more to go, right? Then take whatever you’re doing and add onto that, whether it’s exercise or the changes that you did make to your diet, right?
Because the whole goal is like start slow with simple steps that are achievable. Then increase either the frequency or whatever changes you made, right? Maybe you just made a change to dinner. You didn’t make a change to anything else throughout your day, but dinner was the meal that you said, this is going to be healthy, it’s going to be less dense and calories.
I’m not going to eat garbage. I’m not going to eat junk. You know, that’s what you started with. If then you reach that plateau, 10 20 pounds in, let’s make a change elsewhere. Let’s make a change to lunch. Let’s make a change to your afternoon snacking, or whatever’s happening at breakfast, right? You make that little switch and you’re likely going to break through that plateau.
Okay? Same thing with exercise is if you take someone that’s not exercising at all, they’re not making any change to their diet, and now they’re working out twice a week and they hit that dreaded plateau. Increase the frequency or increase the intensity. Can we go from two days a week to three days a week or four?
Can we go from 20 minutes while you’re doing a workout to 30 or 40? And again, you’re likely to break through some of those barriers to seeing that scale continuously go down.
Crystal O’Keefe: Okay. All right. So, we’ve got some good ideas on how to get started on like a, a big chunk of weight loss that we need to do and to continue that momentum once, once you’ve got it going.
Is there anything that we haven’t covered you want to make sure people know about what it’s like when they have a lot of weight to lose?
Ryan McMullen: Don’t do it on your own. Seek help. Uh, I even did, when I lost weight, it was really important that I talked with a trainer. Uh, although I didn’t make much changes to my diet initially, um, it, it was really helpful to just have someone to talk to.
So, seek help. Don’t do it on your own. Don’t rely on Instagram influencers and, and people that are out there to just tell you to do the keto diet or just fast like you’ll be fine. So, get help. And then the other thing is don’t expect or want the scale to move quickly. If you are, you know, if you’re set out and you’re like, I’m going to lose 10 pounds a week, or even five pounds a week.
That is really, really fast and likely unsustainable. So as long as that scale is trending down, you’re in a good place. And don’t worry if it’s moving slower than you expect.
Crystal O’Keefe: Yeah, my husband always has a saying. He is always like, I didn’t get here overnight and I’m not going to get out of here overnight.
And I think that is so important to remember. It’s really good to be pragmatic about because I’ve been overweight a lot more overweight than I am now. And, I would agree with you, Ryan, it takes patience and you have to really think about what it is that you’re doing and the why and to stay motivated.
And if you’re just like, I want that weight to come off right away, it’s not going to happen. It’s not going to happen.
All right. Well, that is awesome advice for people. Thank you so much for your time today. We’ll be back soon and we’re going to talk about strategy for losing your last 10 pounds.
And then we’re also going to have another part of the series where we’re going to be talking about strategy for keeping the weight once you’ve reached your goal. You have that to look forward to as well. You can find all the MetPro Method episodes anywhere you get podcasts, or you can go to MetPro.co/podcast.
Please be sure to follow the show and rate and review that lets other people know what they can expect. You can also learn more about MetPro@metpro.co. I’m your host, Crystal O’Keefe, and I will be back next week. Until then, remember, consistency is key.
