Originally Posted by
bigpapapumpaf
Big secrets to follow!
Dieting is no big secret if you break it down into its basics.
You have to know what you're eating by tracking it and adjusting accordingly. I see far to many people claiming to be eating for growth yet when you look at their diet, its no where close to what they think it is. The people who want to loose weight are in the same boat, they say they're eating clean but in most cases they have no clue what their macros are.
Big tip, download and use a meal program. I personally like My Fitness Pal because it is really easy to use. There might be better ones but its what I put my wife on when she was claiming to be eating the right way. It ahs just about every food you could imagine pre programed in and I think you can even scan the bar code on foods and load them in yourself.
So now that you have the program, now what? You need to know what is required to either add weight or loose weight. So, go to a BMR calculator and find out what your maintence caloric requirement is. For example if you are 250 lbs, you need to eat approx 2200 cals a day to maintain that weight. Now go to your meal program and plug that in and set your goals. Life tip to everyone, unless you write down a goal, it will never happen.
I have this on my office wall:
A dream written down becomes a goal. A goal broken down into steps becomes a plan. A plan backed by action makes your dreams a reality.
Let that set in for a bit.
Take your goal weight and look at it on a weekly basis. There will be some days that you might eat too much or too little, that's fine, we're not striving for perfection, just an improvement. My examples to follow are not hard and fast, they are examples and you clever math whizzes will see they don't always add up but the theory is what counts.
Dieting is pretty easy if you know where you want to be and where you start from. Loosing weight requires a calorie deficit. You can accomplish this by either eating less, training more (cardio) or a combination of both. It takes approx 3500 cals to equal a pound. I won't bring the macros up just yet but if you want to loose a pound a week, all o ther things being semi equal you either up your cardio to burn an extra 3500 cals a week or you eat 3500 cals less per week.
I tend to keep my protein intake relatively constant. I'm old school and strive to stay in that 1.5 to 2.0 grams per pound range. Its hard on the kidneys and since I am now 50, I need to cut back to the lower side so that to me is 1.0 to 1.5 grams per pound. Protein and carbs are 4 cals per gram and fats are 9 cals. If you adjust your diet around your carb and fat intake, its a much easier task than you think. If I know that I need to average 350 grams or protein per day, so I'm 1500 cals absolute every day in protein and I adjust the carbs and fat accordingly. I find that for ME, when cutting, that I do great by limiting my carbs and upping my fat. My wife is the opposite, and needs a low fat higher carb diet to function.
Here's the key, figure out what works best for you. Leave your protein alone. Is it carbs or fats that fuel your body? If you know that you only need 750 to 1000 cals a day from them, its easy to manage. Don't get caught up in 'you have to eat this and you have to eat that. Eat smart. I'll tell you my only advice of what not to eat is too much sugar and too much sodium. That's not saying you can not cheat once in a while and splurge, matter of fact if you are trying to loose weight, a cheat day is good for you. Without it, how does your body know you're on a diet????
Don't sweat the small stuff. You can't be perfect every single day. If you look at it and have it written down on a weekly basis it is a breeze. Maybe this week you ate too much or not enough, that's OK, adjust for next week. Dieting is a marathon, not a sprint.
I'll use myself one more time here. Around Christmas time, I was 258 lbs on vacation in Chicago. I had some issues with shin splints, bad shoes and other issues that I will write about later that put a damper on the vacation. I also got a nice umbilical hernia for Christmas. Knowing I would need surgery, I decided to trim down. Today I weighed in at 230 lbs. I got here pretty easy. I cut my cals down to about a 400 cal a day eating deficit and another 200 to 300 calorie a day burn from cardio. I was never perfect, a little more and a little less here and there. My goal was to be down to 225 for surgery, which is scheduled for week after next. I will make that weight easy. I average a pound of loss every 5 days and really do nothing much different than before, I just keep track and know when enough is enough. I also like to drink and love red wine. Cutting the drinking out alone could have been enough to get my weight down. I'm not fat, I'm a big guy and have been on stage at 243lbs. I won a master show at 40 yrs old and 216 lbs ripped. I have written down everything that I eat and how I train just about every day for 30 years. If anyone remembers the old MetRx log books, I have over a thousand of them and countless legal pads full of notes. I can look back and see what, where, when I looked or felt at my best. That's the importance of using a meal program or any other method to keep track.
My wife, when we first met had an eating disorder. The day she dropped below 100 lbs I told her enough is enough. I called her my little bag of gristle. I forced her to keep a log of what she ate. What she learned by logging her food, was that she was in a severe calorie deficit most of the time and got 90% of her cals from shitty carbs. Once we got her eating the right way, I took her up to 126 lbs. and put her in the gym with me. In about 18 months I have helped her go from a sickly 100 ponder with absolutely no muscle mass what so ever to a today weight of 120 lbs and wanting to do her 1st bikini competition. It wasn't hard, she just had to write it down and follow the plan.
I hope this helps some of you.
BPP
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks