If You Want to Lose Weight with IIFYM, You Must Be Relentless
What finally worked after a decade of yo-yoing. Not advice—testimony. Consistent logging beats perfect tracking. Wartime rules that make spiraling structurally impossible.
About ten years ago, I got serious. Hired a personal trainer. Learned about IIFYM—If It Fits Your Macros. Dropped from the 280s to 235. Swore to myself: never again. Then I had more kids. Life happened. Got thicc again. 287.3—that was the peak.
I’m currently in the low 250s, heading toward a sustainable 230. I’m not in a hurry—I’ve been at this for over a year. The progress has been there and back again. Stalled. Started. Stalled again. But the one constant, the thing that actually moves the needle when I do it, is embarrassingly simple:
I write down what I eat.
The Problem: You’re Not Going to Out-Think This
You won’t.
I spent years looking for shortcuts. Keto. Carnivore. Intermittent fasting. OMAD. Carb cycling. Reverse dieting. Every podcast, every protocol, every new thing that promised to be the answer.
None of them were the answer. Any of them would have worked. The problem was I was not sticking to any plan. My lack of consistency was the problem.
The research backs this up. A Kaiser Permanente study of 1,700 people found that those who kept daily food records lost twice as much weight as those who didn’t track at all. Not because the tracking was accurate. Not because they hit their macros perfectly. Just because they wrote it down.
Layne Norton—PhD in Nutritional Sciences, 33 published papers, natural pro bodybuilder—puts it bluntly: “The amount of times you try to lose weight in your life is directly proportional to the amount of fat you gain in your life.”
Eighty percent of people can lose weight. Somewhere between 80% and 95% regain it. The difference isn’t the diet. It’s consistency.
The Framework: Three Levers
Peter Attia, in Outlive, lays out three levers you can pull to restrict calories:
- Dietary Restriction: Cut food groups. Keto, carnivore, vegan, whatever.
- Time Restriction: Restrict when you eat. Intermittent fasting, OMAD.
- Caloric Restriction: Track what you eat. Count calories, count macros.
His take: “Always pull one of the levers; often pull two; sometimes pull all three.”
Pick your favorite lever and start pulling. For me, caloric restriction—tracking—is the best. But regardless of which you choose, the same problem remains: consistency.
When life gets hard and you start slipping, start ripping other levers to stop an avalanche of failure.
When I have a week of work hell and family drama, time to go carnivore and track. Who cares. It’s just a few days.
The System: Consistency Over Accuracy
Here’s my hierarchy. It’s stupid simple.
Tier 1: Carbon. Log everything in the app. Scan barcodes. Weigh portions when I can. This is the best case.
Tier 2: Snap Calorie. Take a photo of my food, let AI estimate the macros. Not perfect. Good enough.
Tier 3: ChatGPT at end of day. “I had a burger, fries, two beers, and some chips at a party. Give me rough macros.” Is it accurate? No. Does it count? Yes.
The point is: something gets logged, always. The sin is not the food. The sin is silence.
If you always cheat the system, the results will show. Just choose not to lie to yourself or you’ll reap the consequences.
Studies show that the frequency of logging matters more than the accuracy. One systematic review put it plainly: “The accuracy and completeness of self-monitoring diaries are not as important as the frequency with which they are completed.”
Inconsistent tracking is statistically no different from rare tracking. Sporadic logging gives you nothing. Daily logging—even sloppy daily logging—changes everything.
If you want to be successful, you must be relentless.
Wartime IIFYM
Sometimes life gets hard or you mess up.
Scenario 1: You mess up
Just ignore it. Do not repeat. If you repeat, welcome to scenario two.
Scenario 2: You are messing up → 3 days of carnivore
This gets you back on the wagon fast. It’s similar to a “fast” in the opposite direction. Just make it not about the food. You will be clear headed on the other side of this.
Scenario 3: You are traveling / vacation / etc
Pick other levers to pull (see above). Time to go keto, low carb, eat one meal a day. Just pick something. And ffs don’t stop logging.
I was on a cruise and gained no weight. Simple rule of “just going to have one plate of food and no extra dessert.” Had a good time.
This is also not the time to try to lose weight. It’s the time to try to maintain or not gain. There’s a big difference in calories that is usually good enough to keep things working.
Break Glass Protocol: Sardine Maxing
Sardine maxing. Carnivore for a few days. Same boring meals, no decisions, no willpower spent on choices.
To be clear: it doesn’t have to be sardines. Could be ground beef. Could be chicken breast. Could be eggs. The point is something boring and slightly unpleasant—food that’s easy to log, hard to overeat, and requires zero decisions. Pick your own boring protein. “Sardine maxing” is the concept, not a prescription.
Is this sustainable? No. Is it optimal? No. Does it get me through the rough patch and back to tracking? Yes.
This is also the wartime lever. Didn’t log yesterday? Today is sardines. Today is your anchor meal and nothing else. It’s not punishment for eating badly. It’s punishment for going silent.
The boring day is the “never two in a row” enforcement mechanism.
If you want to be successful, you must be relentless.
Anchor Meals: Your Defaults
You need 2-3 meals you can make on autopilot. Known quantities. No thinking required.
Mine: 93/7 lean ground beef, 100g sweet potato, kimchi on top. I know exactly what’s in it. I can log it in seconds. It tastes good enough that I don’t hate my life.
The formula is stupid simple: meat + potato + cruciferous veggie (fermented or not). That’s it. Beef and broccoli. Chicken and cauliflower. Ground turkey and sauerkraut. Pick one. Don’t optimize it.
I know your brain wants to calculate the perfect macro split, find the ideal protein-to-carb ratio, research which cruciferous vegetable has the best micronutrient profile. Stop. The goal is zero decisions, not perfect nutrition. Pick something boring, learn the macros once, and never think about it again.
Build your own. Rotate them. But have them ready. When willpower is low, you default to the anchor. No decisions, no failure points.
Weekday Monk, Weekend Strategy
Here’s my pattern: weekdays are boring. Weekends are where I still mess up the most.
The solution: eat like a monk Monday through Friday.
Same anchor meals. No decisions. No willpower spent. Weekdays on autopilot means logging is trivial.
Bank your flexibility for the weekend. This isn’t deprivation—it’s strategy.
And for the weekend, have a plan. Not “I hope I do okay.” A plan.
Still struggling on weekends? Pull levers.
- Make one weekend day boring. Saturday is carnivore, Sunday is flexible.
- Go low carb both days to limit damage.
- Sardine max Saturday morning to offset Saturday night.
Weekdays are 5/7 of your life. Nail those, and you’re 70% of the way there. The weekend is just strategic lever-pulling.
You’re not restricting forever. You’re restricting strategically.
The Evidence (Defer to the Experts)
I’m not arguing the science. These people are smarter than me.
Layne Norton (PhD Nutritional Sciences): “The best diet for you as an individual is the one that you can adhere to consistently.”
Peter Attia (MD, Stanford): “Always pull one of the levers; often pull two; sometimes pull all three.”
The Kaiser Study: Daily loggers lost twice as much weight. Frequency beats accuracy.
The Psychology Research: All-or-nothing thinking is the top predictor of regain. Consistency beats intensity. Missing one day doesn’t derail habit formation—spiraling does.
I’m not here to convince you of the underlying science. The experts have done that work. I’m here to tell you how I applied it.
If you want to be successful, you must be relentless.
No Shortcuts
I spent years looking for a smarter way. There isn’t one.
If any of this resonates, here’s my stack:
- Carbon for proper logging
- Snap Calorie when I can’t be bothered
- ChatGPT as a fallback for “what did I even eat today”
- Anchor meals I can make on autopilot
- Wartime rules that make spiraling structurally impossible
The only real advice: pick something and do it every day. Even badly.
Log the garbage days. Log the wins. Log when you’re not sure what you ate. Log imperfectly.
Just don’t go silent.
That’s it. That’s the post.