At the age of thirty-seven, I was fat, and since the age of thirty-eight, I have never been fat again. That’s the whole idea of effective weight loss – it’s permanent because it’s part of your lifestyle and the way you think about yourself, with pride and a sense of accomplishment. The goal you achieve is your own – you own it. All the diets that work, have one characteristic in common: a calorie deficit.
By definition, a calorie deficit is a state in which you’re eating fewer calories than you’re expending to keep your body alive, go about your daily activities, and exercise. This is how you can lose body fat over time. Once you achieve your fat loss goal and want to maintain your weight, then you don’t need to stay in a deficit. You now need to achieve calorie balance, or a state in which your calorie intake (food) matches your output (survival, daily activities, and exercise). To accomplish this, you need to increase the amount of calories you’re eating. Hurray! However, if you increase them too much, you can accidentally get into a calorie surplus, which is the opposite of a deficit and will cause fat gain. So by how much should you increase your calories without regaining weight? In this article, I’m going to teach you a three-step method to calculate your maintenance calories for when you’re done with your diet, or when you want to take a temporary break from it. I take this approach with myself and all my clients to ensure they not only drop fat, but also maintain those hard-earned results.
4 Comments
What’s the two things they tell you are healthiest to eat? Chicken and fish. You know what you should do? Combine them, eat a penguin. Working out your calorie and protein targets is relatively easy. Any free online calculator can do that for you.
Actually hitting those targets? Not so much. That’s where this article comes in, covering four ways to hit your calorie and protein targets every day, without fail. Two of these strategies will apply to you if you have the time to pre-track your food. The last two will have you covered if you need to track on the fly. Therefore, whichever your experience, you’ll find something of value in this article and, most importantly, you’ll be able to apply it to your own circumstances straight away. Let’s dig in. Every project is an opportunity to learn, to figure out problems and challenges, to invent and reinvent. So, you’re on board with the idea of tracking your calories and macros to gain muscle and lose fat.
You read my “Macros 101” article and learnt how to set your nutritional targets. You started tracking and saw some good results. But then, a few weeks in, you think you’ve hit a plateau. And now you’re wondering, “Do I need to change anything?” To be honest with you, tweaking a client’s macros or calories is usually my last port of call. Often, a much more effective solution is to review your approach to tracking. After all, you haven’t been doing it for that long, so you may have yet to master some tips and tricks to make this system truly work for you. In this article, I’m going to share five tracking hacks that always help my clients overcome their first plateau. If you’re ready to master tracking, keep reading. My doctor told me to stop having intimate dinners for four. Unless there are three other people. Do you struggle to keep on top of nutrition when you attend social events during a fat loss diet? Then this article is for you.
I’m going to cover two of my clients’ favourite go-to strategies, which also happen to be two of my personal favourites, when eating out without tracking calories. So far, they’ve been applied with great success to a range of different social events, including:
Here’s why these methods work, even without being meticulous about your calories:
Are you sold on the idea yet? Then let’s get into it. Diets, like clothes, should be tailored to you. How do you take a break from your diet without losing progress?
Why would you even want to, if you haven’t reached your fat loss goal yet? First of all, if you’re serious about dieting, it isn’t easy to do. Taking a one- or two-week break every six to 12 weeks of dieting, can give you some much needed respite to regain momentum and motivation to stick to the plan. (If you’re on a longer-term fat loss journey, lasting months or even years, you may want to consider maintenance phases in addition to diet breaks. Read this article to learn more.) Moreover, life happens. You may go on holiday, move house, change job, or experience other life-changing circumstances, during which trying to diet is only going to backfire. This is a great time for a diet break. Last but not least, you won’t be dieting forever (I hope). Once you reach your goals, you’ll need to maintain those results. This will be much easier to do if you practised maintenance in a previous diet break or two. In this article, I’ll break down what to do, so you can enjoy your diet break without losing progress, by answering the following questions:
|
Nikias TomasielloWelcome to my blog. I’m an online fitness coach with a passion for bodybuilding, fantasy, and bread. Want to work with me? Check out my services!Archives
March 2024
Tags
All
|