Billions Paul Giamatti's Weight Loss Diet Program

Paul Giamatti recently lost 15 pounds during the pandemic when season 5 of Billions got put on hold. Paul Giamatti is an American actor and producer and has lost around 15 pounds when the series Billions was put on hold due to the world wide pandemic.

He wanted to strengthen his immune system and live a healthier lifestyle. He was hoping to avoid getting sick and wanted to live an overall healthier lifestyle. He lost so much weight that Paul's fans were a bit shocked. Here's how he lost weight so quickly between Billions Seasons.

Paul Giamatti's Weight Loss Diet Plan and Journey

We don't have a ton of details on his diet plan, but he has shared some of it. It wasn't a strict diet, but small changes made a big difference for his new healthy lifestyle. His weight loss journey wasn't unlike most celebrity weight loss journeys. Radical, sweeping changes are very difficult to adhere to, which is why I teach making small, easy to adhere to changes, over a long period of time. Long term adherence to the new diet or lifestyle change is far more important than quick fixes.

Paul Giamatti's Diet Plan

The first thing he did was cut out unhealthy foods. He eliminated junk food and sugary drinks. Junk food is hyperpalatable and calorie dense. So eliminating things like Doritos, chips, and pop tarts, can give you anywhere from a 23-67% reduction in overall caloric intake. If you did nothing else, you could lose weight doing just this.

Sugary drinks contain an excessive amount of calories that are easy to eliminate. One gram of carbs (sugar) is 4 calories. The problem with liquid calories, is you don't feel full. There is minimal satiety signaling. So this is an easy fix. If he was drinking a lot of pop, juices, smoothies, with more calories in them, then this eliminates even more calories.

He switched to water and stated that water became his best friend. Any time he would think if reaching for a juice, pop, drink, he would reach for water instead. This was more satiating.

These diet adjustments is how he lost all his weight. As we all know, it's all about diet. Weight loss is 97% diet, and that's what he did.

He did also begin an exercise routine to help him get healthier. He does attribute some of his weight loss to this, but if you have been watching my YouTube for a while, you know that the weight loss came entirely from the dietary changes.

Paul Giamatti Weight Loss Exercise Program

He started with a new morning workout routine. He started every morning doing an online yoga class and worked out at home. He avoided going to the gym due to the pandemic. He was starting to have health issues and wanted to improve his health. His workout routine was composed of mostly yoga poses to start his day, followed by cardio.

His mainstay cardio routine was a 15-20 minute walk on the treadmill every morning. Your body can't generally adapt to this form of cardio. I would recommend weight training as well, more on that later.

It's clear that most of his weight loss came from dietary changes. A multitude of studies have now shown that diet is solely responsible for weight loss. Exercise helps you keep weight off that you have already lost, but it doesn't cause any new weight loss.

Exercise can definitely help you improve your health, but doesn't generally cause weight loss. He mainly focused on yoga, cardio, and endurance style workouts.

I always tell my patients to exercise for fitness, not fatness. If you have taken any of my courses, you'll know that exercise generally isn't the best way to lose weight. It can work, but it's difficult to maintain long term. Hence, I teach to create a calorie deficit with food and exercise is a bonus.

This is a great start, but I would recommend including some compound movements that I prescribe to my patients all the time like squats, deadlifts, overhead press, bench press, and hip thrust. Even if you are older, you should be able to do some version of these with less weight and slowly progress and increase your weight.

Exercise has been shown to improve blood pressure, insulin resistance, cardiovascular mortality, stroke and heart attack reduction which is why I recommend it to all my patients.

How Did Paul Giamatti Do Overall with His Weight Loss?

He did a great job. It wasn't perfect, but it worked for him. He realized that he had a lot of time on his hands, and found a way to make it work for him and his schedule. He didn't follow an extreme diet or go crazy in the gym. Most people that adopt a super strict or very restrictive diet can't sustain it for a very long time and end up falling off the wagon. Nor did he try to punish himself in the gym every day. He chose a very sustainable and very doable program that worked for him.

Can he maintain this long term?

Most likely yes! What he is doing isn't very difficult to maintain long term and this can turn into a permanent lifestyle change. If he had decided to follow an incredibly restrictive fad diet or a very rigorous daily workout routine, he would not be able to maintain it long term. But the plan he choose is very easy to maintain. See my recommendations below.

How Should You Lose Weight?

The best way to start? Grab my free exercise program and diet program at: Dr. Alo's Free Weight Loss Resources

Many actors and actresses state that body image and body dysmorphia led to their terrible relationship with food and body image. They wanted a change, so that they could accept their current body. I highly recommend taking my Free Weight Loss Mindset Course to help with body image and body dysmorphia. This will also help you prepare for a real weight loss journey and transformation. It will be your LAST transformation!

Overall, Paul Giamatti did a great job with his weight loss journey and transformation. Most importantly he made choices that worked for him. If you actually enjoy more wholesome food choices, then by all means, go ahead and add those foods to your diet. If you don't enjoy those foods, it may be hard to sustain this long term.

Studies on heavily restrictive diets have not shown good long term outcomes. You should follow a diet plan that feels the least restrictive to you. If he can do this long term, and it's not a quick fix weight loss plan, then more power to him.

If you want to learn more about sustainable, long term weight loss without restrictive diet plans, you need to grab my Actual Weight Loss book. I cover all of these topics in depth and even give you a free exercise program with video demonstrations as well as a comprehensive diet strategy based on science and research!

Grab my Actual Weight Loss book for more leading edge weight loss and heart health advice!

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