Are you working your butt off to achieve fat loss and yet it seems to be impossible no matter how many training sessions you do or how hard you cut back your calories?
Well, what if I told you that there is 1 major mistake that you are making that is creating impossibles odds for you to achieve body fat loss.
Most people begin a new workout regime by going out hard with lots of cardio, severely cutting back their calorie intake & giving it all they got for about 2.5 weeks. Then the wheels start to spin underneath them. They feel like crap, have no energy & are getting losing the willpower to avoid overeating.
This is a major mistake when it comes to creating body fat loss and I’ll tell you why.
When we come from a place of surplus calories or eat whatever we want when we want it. We fail to realize that most of us don’t really know how much we are truly consuming during the day and how much we are expending.
If we work a desk job and then go to the gym for 30 minutes most likely we are grossly overestimating how much fuel our body needs to support that amount of physical energy.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but lifting weights for 30 minutes doesn’t create that big of a calorie burn. Bummer, I know!
However, if we were to reframe our minds from the idea of immediately cutting our calories down and supercharging our physical output. I find we’d have better results over the course of time.
Now, the first option of hard cutting and massive workouts does equal a change of body weight for most … AT FIRST. Then we tend to see this plateau out and if anything go back up in weight regardless of the low calories and intense workouts. If we were to focus firstly on monitoring our daily consumption of calories, meaning we simply track everything that goes into our mouths every day for 7 – 14 days. Not worrying about how much protein, carbs or fats. Just simply monitor what goes in and how much over that course of time. With our normal routine of movement and workouts of course.
If we started first by monitoring the natural intake that would give us a good idea of the number of calories needed to stay the weight you currently are. Then we could make a more educated calculation on how many calories we want to decrease to make a deficit or decide if we want to simply increase movement/workouts while maintaining that current calorie range.
Why would we want to approach weight loss or fat loss this way?
Well, because it’s the approach that will lead to long-lasting results. The first option of hard and fast weight loss sounds appealing however, the likelihood of an individual being able to maintain the rate of weight loss or a combination of low calories and high output to lessen.
But, if we look at the option of slowly decreasing calories while increasing movement slightly we can achieve body fat loss at a stable rate and not feel totally deprived or exhausted.
I encourage you to try monitoring your calorie intake for 1-2 weeks by eating as you normally would.
Nothing fancy, just jot it down and add it up each day to get an average of your daily consumed calories. If you want to start a fat loss phase, then simply take away 100 – 200 calories at most each day and see what your body does. You can make adjustments every 2-6 weeks depending on the rate of change in your own body.
Train Hard, Eat Well,
