Dieting - without the complications
'I live most of the year in a reduced calorie state and train more than most people do and I still use this approach...'
Welcome to the Internet where everyone has a new diet plan and wants to sell you the products you’ll need to make it work. There was Low Fat, No Carbs, Keto, Intermittent Fasting, Slim Fast, Herbalife, The Chicken and Rice diet, the list goes on and on. So, do these not work? If not, then what does work? In the coming articles I’ll probably delve into different specific diets but today we’re going to look at a tried and test diet that won’t fail.
Calories In vs Calories Out.
The body can be such a complicated entity at times especially when it comes to hormones. Many trainers or online ‘fitness experts’ will tell you that getting them in check will be the only way to lose weight. While hormones and their role are extremely important this doesn’t need to be your focus when losing weight. It’s as uncomplicated as this. The amount of calories you put into the body against the amount of calories you are using. High level marathon runners therefore are burning a serious amount of calories and even with eating a lot they can’t keep the weight on. The same would apply if you only had 500 calories a day but didn’t exercise at all. For the record you don’t need to do either of these. They are extreme examples.
But where do I begin? How do I track my calories? Do I need a calculator? How many calories should I be consuming? This doesn’t need to be so taxing. There’s a few different equations to work out your base line calories but instead of getting a number that is a significant drop compared to what your currently consuming, simply track for a week then make small adjustments. My warning here is, if your calories are already low then maybe cutting more isn’t sensible
Small Adjustments – Big Results
I mentioned small adjustments before but where should these be applied? Well first of all, make sure you’re having plenty of fruit and vegetables and making your own meals to ensure you’re getting as many nutrients as possible. After this I would say make the adjustments to your snacks. If you ‘have’ to have some chocolate at night while watching Netflix and you see that the bar is nearly 300 calories then switch if for a chocolate bar at 150-300 calories. This will mean that over the course of a week you’ll save 700-1000 calories. Do this to your snacks across the board. If you ‘have’ to have a biscuit with your 3pm tea in the office pick a lower calorie option. 4 chocolate Digestives are 332 calories. 4 Party Rings are 92 calories. Again, this is another saving over 5 days of 1200 calories.
Both of the examples I’ve given have not said that you can’t have the chocolate or biscuit, It’s simply changing to a lower calorie option. If you do this but keep everything else the same you are guaranteed to lose weight.
I live most of the year in a reduced calorie state and train more than most people do and I still use this approach so no matter what level you are at, whether starting your weight loss journey or just want to get those final few body fat percentiles to budge then this is a tactic I’d suggest.