 Am I gonna have to do this forever? Like I'm not gonna live like this. I don't wanna live like this. If this is what it takes to lose weight, screw it. I'm not doing it. I'd love for you to drop whatever it is you're trying to lose 100 pounds, 200 pounds, 30 pounds. Like I'd love that for you, but even more than that, I'd love for you to have that confidence and that empowerment that comes with you knowing yourself in your soul that any time you wanna drop weight, you know that you can. Good morning, my name is Boris. I'm a board certified physician assistant working in medically supervised weight loss and today I'm answering the question, do I have to count calories forever? So if you've seen a lot of my other content, I highly, highly suggest that people really get a handle on their diets and that means counting calories and eventually counting macros, so carbs, protein. I don't personally count fats, I just do carbohydrates and protein, but some people count all three. But at the very least, I think everybody trying to lose weight should spend some period of time at least counting calories and only calories. And actually that kinda gives away my answer of do I have to count calories forever? And the answer really is no, I don't think that you do. What I really think that it is, is it's just another tool in your toolbox that you can use whenever you need it. But in order to develop that tool, it's not something you can just say, oh, I'm going to count calories now and oh, when I wanna lose weight, I'll count calories. It's something that you really have to learn and how to train yourself to do and really get into the habit of doing it every single day for at least a few months. Sorry, there's a cute dog wearing boots. It snowed up here in Syracuse and, you know, everybody's all bundled up in their warm jackets and I guess the doggos are no exception. Freaking love dogs. Anyway, so I just, I don't think it's enough to want to count calories and think that you'll be able to do it. I think that you have to do it every single day consistently with every single meal. And not just like big meals like breakfast, lunch and dinner, but I mean every single thing that goes in your mouth from a stick of gum to a 40 ounce steak. I don't care how big or small the meal is or the drink is, you need to track it. So if you do that for a few months, I think that at least like six months in a row every single day. I mean, if you have a cheat day, if you miss, if you just don't do it one day, it's not like, oh, that's it, gotta start over six months. Like, no, okay, you missed your day, you know, slap on the wrist, whatever, it happens, just go with the next day and do better. Just be nice to yourself, love yourself and just say, okay, I'll do better tomorrow. I'll do better the next day. If you screw up tomorrow too, it's okay, do better the next day. That's all that matters is that you do it consistently. We're human, we all make mistakes. So if you're learning how to count calories and you happen to miss a day, two days a week, it's okay, just get right back up on that horse and just do it right the next time. But my point is, I think that everybody should learn how to count calories, really develop that tool, that skill and put that tool in your toolbox and in order to have that skill ready whenever you need it, whenever you realize, okay, I need to drop five pounds, I've been kind of overdoing it, then you can just pull that tool out of the toolbox and use it and in order to develop that tool, I think that you really should spend a few months, I think at least six, really counting calories and really tracking every single thing you eat for a long time. You can use a spreadsheet, you can use my fitness pal or some other app, the company that I work for, Kudos Weight Loss, we have our own app, whatever app or program you end up going with, as long as you're using it consistently, that's all that matters. I don't really care which one you use. Me personally, I don't even use an app, I use a Google Sheets spreadsheet that I just made for myself and it just totals all my calories, all my carbs, all my protein. I have my own measurements to my own resting metabolic rate in there and so it basically programs the totals in so I can track everything for the day and see if I went over that day. I can track everything for the week and see if I'm supposed to gain or lose a pound that week based on how well I did. So I just made my own spreadsheet. If you want a copy of my spreadsheet, maybe I can throw it up on my website but the thing is like resting metabolic rate is so specific, everybody's is different. My spreadsheet wouldn't work for you and your spreadsheet wouldn't work for me. So it would be more of like a one-on-one thing. Like I'm happy to do it with our weight loss clients and our patients and everything in our practice but as far as making a spreadsheet that works for everybody that's not really possible, it's something you're gonna have to do yourself. And actually come to think of it, I think I'm gonna make a video on how to make your own calorie tracker spreadsheet. And I think the reason that I use the Google Sheets is because it's less glitchy. Like even my fitness pal which is the most popular calorie tracking app that there is, I feel like it's super glitchy. I just find like it goes slow. It doesn't always have the meals that I want and so it just doesn't really work for me personally but I'm also someone who's just really particular about their apps and the way that their programs work. So I like to just make everything myself. So that's why I use my spreadsheet. So that's something you could do. Point is unless you have like a notebook pen and paper with you which like nobody does anymore, I think you should have an app or a spreadsheet or something to help you count calories and maybe even protein and carbs on your phone so that you could do it every time you eat something. And I know this is a super, super short video compared to my normal videos. I think it's gonna be probably five minutes or less, maybe even like three minutes, I'm not sure. And I feel like I've been repeating myself a lot here but I've been repeating things that I think are very important and that I just really want to get across and to really stick in your mind because I think this is extremely important. If you can get a handle on counting your calories and only your calories at first, if you can really do that consistently, it's incredibly empowering because you know that if you need to lose weight, you can do it. You can drop weight. It's not this nebulous thing that I talked about in the last video. Weight loss is not this like mysterious, magical, mystical, nebulous thing that it's just like unpredictable and you have no idea what your body's gonna do. Like it's not a perfect science but more or less, if you control the number of calories and you keep them consistent, you're able to lose weight. It is enough of a science where if you do things consistently, they do have predictable, consistent results, okay? So learning how to count your calories and really getting that skill of tracking your calories developed and becoming a really powerful tool in your toolbox is something that I think everybody needs that's trying to lose weight. And the answer is, do I have to do this forever for the rest of my life? No, I really don't think so. And I don't even think you have to be at your goal weight in order to stop tracking every single calorie and every single meal. I think that it's something that you should just know how to do and if you really need to tighten up and you really need to be more serious and more strict, you could do that for a period of time and again, knowing that it's not forever. So for example, let's say you're like me, right? You started at 215 pounds. It got down to like 168 pounds. That was definitely too light. Like my hormones were shutting down, things stopped working. If you know what I mean, like it just, it wasn't cool. So that was definitely too light. I just wanted to get really, really lean, snap some photos, just see if I could get that really lean, ripped look and then go back up to a healthy weight because 168 for me was just way too low. So now I'm like 185, much happier, much healthier. My body's functional, my strength is back. Like I feel better, everything is just better. So I'm at a much healthier weight now. I got down much lower. But my point is in order to get that low, in order to get that lean, I really had to develop that toolbox, that skill to be able to track every single calorie and to really be able to know what I'm eating and control what I'm eating whenever I need to. So for instance, not saying this did happen, but okay, maybe it happened a little bit. If I totally go overboard over the holidays, I eat cakes, cookies, pasta, everything on the table. I have mashed potatoes and gravy and stuffing and dressing and all the good stuff. And by the way, we took my niece to go see the lights. So of course they were selling hot chocolate and pretzels X, Y and Z. Let's just say I totally go overboard. I gain like 10 pounds over the holidays. I step on the scale after the holidays are over and I go, okay, that was fun, but I really don't want to be this heavy. I'd really like to fit into my clothes a little bit better. So let's say I want to lose five pounds. Having that skill, having that tool in my toolbox empowers me to lose five pounds whenever the heck I want. So let's say I want to lose it after the holidays. Boom, I know what to do. And I know that it'll work because it's worked in the past. And I know that I can do it. That's the biggest thing. I say this over and over again on my channel, what is confidence? Confidence is literally just knowing what you're doing. So confidence just like weight loss, again, isn't this big nebulous thing where you like can't put a finger on it and like sometimes you have it, sometimes you don't like no, confidence is a science too. Confidence in a particular task, in this case, weight loss is literally just a skill that you know you have and that you know you can do reliably and consistently because you've done it before. And so those first six months while you're learning how to count calories and you're tracking and you're really forcing yourself to do something that you've never done before, it's hard and it sucks and it's not fun. And it feels like it's never going to end. And that's when you ask yourself that question, like, am I going to have to do this forever? Like, I'm not going to live like this. I don't want to live like this. If this is what it takes to lose weight, screw it. I'm not doing it. Like it really does suck and you do feel that way. But once you've done it consistently for a number of months and you know that you can do it, it might not feel great, it might kind of suck, but you know that you can do it, that gives you that confidence. That gives you that empowerment to know that anytime I want to, I can drop some weight. And that more than anything is what I want for you folks watching me who really want help losing weight and you think that my channel is helpful. That's what I want more for you than anything else. I'd love for you to drop whatever it is you're trying to lose 100 pounds, 200 pounds, 30 pounds. Like I'd love that for you, but even more than that, I'd love for you to have that confidence and that empowerment that comes with you knowing yourself in your soul that anytime you want to drop weight, you know that you can. I'd much rather teach the skill than actually help you lose the weight because the weight can come back. You know that. You know if you go bad for one week, for one month, you can gain almost everything back. You can lose all your progress and then you're back to square one, right? Wrong, you're not back to square one. Your weight is back to square one, but your confidence and your skill set and your ability to lose that weight, that's what stays with you for life and that's what I want for you. And like I said a couple of videos ago, as I get more and more into this weight loss profession, as I see more and more patients, as I hear more and more success stories and I see what works, what doesn't, as I talk to more and more patients and kind of use creativity to develop treatment plans and weight loss plans that work for different people, I'm gonna talk about that more and more and more on this channel. I'm really gonna shift it away from PA school and test taking skills and stuff like that that I was talking about as a grad student and more towards my current passion and what I'm actually working in and like really dedicating my life to at least at this time. And that is medical weight loss, medically supervised weight loss. So that's what this channel is gonna be about. So stay tuned for a lot more amazing content on weight loss, on calorie tracking, on exercise. It's definitely something I'm into as well. And I'll see you in the next video.