Topic 3 – Introduction To Calorie Consumption
Amongst all the topics discussed in the world of nutrition and fitness, calorie consumption is perhaps the most covered and also the most misunderstood. Should you:
- Consume a very low calorie diet?
- Consume a high calorie diet to gain muscle mass and then decrease calories to lean out?
- Ignore calories and just focus on low fat diets
- Ignore calories and just focus on low carbohydrate diets (such as Atkins)
- Ignore calories and just focus on high protein diets (like a typical bodybuilder trying to put on muscle mass)
- Cycle your calorific intake periodically, loading up on calories in certain periods and cutting down on calories in others
- Not worry about calories at all and just focus on the ratio of macronutrients in your diet (the ratio of carbohydrates to protein to fat in your daily calorific intake)
- Eat more carbohydrates / calories in the morning and decrease carbohydrate / calorific intake at night
- Ignore calories and rely on the newest miracle pill like Acai Berries or Noni to lose your weight and build muscle and keep eating the way you already are
As you can see, the suggested possibilities are endless and a new “fad” is literally created every three or four months and then marketed as the “final answer to your weight loss needs”. Well… at least until two months later when you find the “diet” is unsustainable or it’s not producing results. It’s all so confusing. The entire weight loss industry is based around selling you the newest “magic” product and all your information is coming from biased sources. As we said in previous blogs – be very careful where you get your information.
The above eight options are by not a complete list of diets, but still provide an exhausting list of alternatives. Guessing and testing your way through these alternatives to see which one actually works could take years and invariably leads to stumbling across several wrong answers in a row and giving up on your “diet” because you are not getting results. Disillusioned and sick of getting nothing back for your hard work in the gym and on your diet, you go back to your old eating and exercise habits and put on more weight than before you even started the diet! What a horrible, defeating, frustrating cycle of failure. I know, because I was on this cycle and failed for years to find what actually works – even while I was paying for and working out with the best personal trainers in this country.
Diets Are Not Maintainable
This blog will give you the truth about calories and diet. The unbiased gospel truth that we live every day. The truth that has completely changed my body over the last 12 months. It will give you what you really need to know to suit your BODY TYPE and fitness goals. Again, one size does not fit all and you have to modify your calorific intake to suit your BODY TYPE and FITNESS GOALS. You must also do this in a way that is MAINTAINABLE as a LONG TERM LIFESTYLE CHANGE, not a short-term fad diet that you cannot maintain. Any nutrition and exercise program that you cannot MAINTAIN LONG TERM is a waste of time and energy (I keep saying this over and over, but it’s so important). If your “diet” is not maintainable, you will revert to old habits and gain back all the weight you have previously lost and then some more. Short-term solutions are a waste of time and energy.
I will not give you a diet – they are just too restrictive and can’t be maintained. What if your “diet” says you are supposed to eat tuna, green beans, broccoli and a little quinoa for dinner – but your clients take you to a business dinner at a Korean BBQ restaurant of their choice. How is it possible to stick to your diet when your dieted meal is not even on the menu? Diets are impractical and thus don’t work. More so they are making you FAT. Stop dieting.