| Did you know that if you want to reach your goals beyond a shadow of a doubt that nutrition is the number one thing that will assist you? Find out what your BMR is, physical activity level and how to fit it all in your life. Learn more! |
In your quest for ultimate lean-ness, battle of the bulge, or pursuit of massive muscle have you found yourself saying "I screwed up" or "Now I'm off track" or "Well I really messed things up this time"? ... more often during the week than you would like to? This mentality has a definite cause, and that is exactly what this article will address.
How well do you understand your metabolism and how your nutrition intake impacts it? When someone says "BMR" do you know what they are talking about... (it means basal metabolic rate)? If you knew that, did a number automatically pop into your head?
It did in mine. If you don't know what yours is... it is something you need to find out. If someone asks you how about how many calories you burn in a day, do you know the answer? Do you know how many calories a day you eat?
Did you know that if you want to reach your goals beyond a shadow of a doubt that nutrition is the number one thing that will assist you in getting there? Are you trying to execute a goal specific nutrition plan but feeling unsuccessful for one reason or another?
Are you fumbling, just HOPING that you will by chance meet up you're your goal somewhere down the road? I know people in both groups, and it seems that they are frustrated, feeling like they 'screwed up' more often they should, or need to.
All of us have goals related to out nutrition and training. Most often these goals are associated with maintaining, losing or gaining mass. That mass can be fat, or muscle, and regardless of what you are trying to accomplish, improved performance is should also be a primary or major contributing factor to whatever you are doing.
What you put into your body is one of the most important factors in whether you are achieving the goals you have for yourself or sabotaging your own efforts. For example, if you are trying to increase your squat weight and your training is in line, you will most likely not be able up that iron weight if you are not taking care to eat the calories that are required to accomplish that goal.
Likewise, if you are trying to lose body fat, and you are not eating enough or eating too much, you will be spinning your wheels. With all of that said, there are some other things to consider.
This all may seem very simple to you if you are avid at monitoring your nutrition, however, how many times have you or someone you know 'thought' they were doing great in advancing their goals through their nutrition, but were then found yourself at a place where you were upset cause you "screwed up." Most people think of that term meaning they ate too much of the wrong thing. However, in some cases, that might be a metabolism boosting thing to do.
Over time the body will acclimate to caloric deficits and actually LOWER your metabolism because it thinks you are starving it to death. In this instance, it is only when you "remind" the body that there is enough food to go around will it maintain its fat burning status.
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I am astounded at how many people are unaware of this. Imagine... eating MORE, periodically to ensure your metabolism will keeping firing high for you. This is far from screwing up if you ask me!
It seems to me that people are claiming that they screwed up more often than they should. What I find in most cases is that the person has just not set enough 'parameters' for themselves. They have either not enough or too much information into their heads.
This can happen a couple of ways. Let me ask... are you are imitating someone else's exact plan or methods with little regard to your own individual statistics? Or have you read so much information on so many different nutrition plans that you trying something new each week or interjecting a little of this and that into everything you do?
Living by the "everything in moderation" philosophy with regard to nutrition plans is by far, one of the ways to get absolutely NOWHERE in your goals, and have a constant feeling of frustration and failure.
When I say "everything in moderation" I am not referring to individual foods; I am referring to overall caloric and macronutrient planning. Changing these values every time the sun sets is a road to disaster in eating for your goals.
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Everything In Moderation.
In my experience, there are 10 things, parameters if you will, that you can set, that can reduce this feeling of screwing up. Whether you are an athlete, bodybuilder, power lifter, or someone wanting to lose fat or build muscle, I have found that with proper, basic knowledge, and simple parameters, 'messing up' your plan does not have to be such a regular occurrence in your life.
You can truly apply a nutrition scheme, follow smart and realistic parameters, and end each day feeling like you are that much closer to your goal.
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1. Know Your Own BMR & Physical Activity Approximations.
This is the FOUNDATION of whether you will be eating for your goals or not. If you are trying to lose fat, but maintain muscle, how on earth are you going to do that without knowing your caloric deficits? Is this you? What if you said you wanted to gain 20 lbs or lose 20 lbs?
If I asked you how many pounds of fat you were going to gain or lose per week would you know the answer, and more importantly, would you know how you were going to accomplish that or WHY it was going to work?
Simple Fat Loss Basics:
- There are 3500 calories in a pound of fat.
- 1 lb per week of fat lost equals a 500 calorie deficit per day.
In order to accomplish this, you need to know how many calories you burn per day. The first step involves calculating your basal metabolic rate, which is how many calories your body burns at rest.
The basal metabolic rate for most people is around 10 calories per pound of bodyweight, although it can range from 30% higher to 30% lower then that.
Thus, if you are 130 lbs female, 28 years old, your approximate BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate ) will be about 1300 calories per day. By waking up and living daily life, you will burn roughly 250 more, and if you exercise and burn an average of 600 calories, that means you will burn a total of 2200 calories on a day where you trained and 1600 on a day you didn't.
In order to lose one pound of fat in a week, you would need to eat 3500 calories less than you burned. Your weight loss equation could be broken down by day or week. We'll do it by week:
- (2200 calories x 6 days training) + 1600 calories (1 day rest) = 14800 (calories burned in one week)
- 14800 (total calories burned) - 3500 calories (1 lbs FAT) = 11300 (calories to be consumed in a week)
- 11300 (calories to be eaten)/ 7 (days in a week) = 1614 calories per day (if you trained 6 days per week with an effective calorie burn of 600 per training session)
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If you exercised less or did not burn as many calories, you would need to adjust the numbers downward to compensate for that. Now, this does not mean that you have to eat that many calories each and every day. It can be shifted around, and this equation is about calories which are made up of proteins, carbs and fats.
Whether you gain or lose weight is largely determined by calorie counts; what KIND of weight that is (muscle or fat) is highly dependent on what your macronutrient ratios are.
Likewise, if you are trying to gain muscle, you MUST know what "Eating at maintenance or above" means. You cannot gain loads of muscle if you are not eating sufficient calories for that purpose.
Having said that, whether you gain lots of fat while you are putting on muscle is largely determined on what macronutrients you are eating within your calorie range. Macronutrient ratios that keep one person lean can vary entirely from ratios that would keep someone else lean. The same goes for fat loss efforts as well.
Gain the knowledge you need to make a plan for yourself. You may even consider soliciting someone who walks the talk, and knows how to personalize these kinds of things for others.
2. Make Room In Your Program For Your LIFE.
Having said all of that, one might think: "If I make a plan, it will be easier to mess up than before when I didn't have specifics to follow..." This does not have to be the case. Long term adherence to any nutritional plan in very complex, and unless proper parameters are set, it is unlikely that anyone will feel success day in and day out.
Balance has to do with finding something that makes you FEEL good physically, emotionally, socially and most importantly Psychologically. These factors are all very complicatedly intertwined, but the basic idea here is that you CANNOT follow ONE exclusive plan, day in and day out forever indefinitely.
You must realize that adjustments will be needed. Life throws curveballs, so there must be room for curveballs in your diet. You MUST take a good hard look at your life, and consider all of the factors before you try to execute your goals.
Do you have a big competition that makes it psychologically worth it to NOT CHEAT, ever for a long period of time? Even so, mentally, can you handle it? If you can then great... but if not... you better make room for a cheat here and there. Guess what everyone?
Cheat Days:
I had a bowl of ice cream a week before my bodybuilding show. Why? Because I knew that I would not be able to follow my plan unless it included a cheat meal each and every week. Being one week out was no excuse, at least for me, to eliminate this realistic parameter for myself.
Do you have to have chocolate every day? If so, you better find a way to fit chocolate into your calories and macronutrient ratios and still meet you daily nutrition requirements. What good does it do you to deprive yourself of a little chocolate, and then go crazy and fall off the horse over the weekend and stuff yourself until you are sick, eliminating the progress you could have had.
There are not that many calories in a small piece of chocolate. If that's what you need once a day in order to feel like you are succeeding, PLAN IT IN, so that when you do eat chocolate, you feel success not failure.
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Plan It In!
Does your family get together EVERY Saturday or Sunday night for dinner and then have dessert afterwards? Do you want to eat that dessert with everyone? Make adjustments in your early day nutrition to make room for a piece of cake or a brownie.
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Eat more protein earlier in the day and reduce the size of some of your meals... then feel FINE when you eat that piece of cake instead of feeling like you wrecked everything for yourself. Likewise, if your family gets together once a month for birthdays, make the necessary adjustment that day, and enjoy a little bit of birthday cake and a serving of ice cream.
Life happens, don't let your life be the reason you feel like you failed on your diet. If you find yourself in this situation, it is a tell tale sign that there is not room in your plans for living, or that you have a few habits that need to be adjusted or tapered down in order to achieve you goals. Incorporate your program into your life, not the other way around.
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