Good morning!
Happy Mom's day to all of you wonderful women out there!
Children mom's, dog mom's, cat mom's, grandma's, great grandma's and more! I'm sure you are all loved by your surrounding significant others, family and friends. Have a fantastic day!
Let's talk about calories today and, specifically, the fact that if
you want to change your body, you can't ALWAYS BE DIETING.
When many people want to lose weight, they are usually told nowadays to eat less. Yes there are some quacks out there and very unintelligent people who make ridiculous
claims that it doesn't come down to calories...but, we have some pretty solid research from human controlled trials that shows us, yes, it IS and WILL always be calories in, calories out.
Here
are some terms I'm going to use below, let's clarify them first:
- Calorie deficit: you are burning more calories than you are consuming...you will lose weight.
- Calorie maintenance: you are eating the same amount of calories that you are burning..you will stay the same weight.
- Calorie
surplus: you are eating more calories than you are burning...you will gain weight.
SO. Most people want to lose weight. MOST people will try to keep dieting forever and ever and ever on a never ending journey to try to lose weight. That doesn't work out too well for ya. You can't "diet" all the time. Our body does not
like that. We need times where, yes, we are in a deficit, but we also need to be in maintenance mode MOST of the time as well as maybe a slight surplus sometimes.
- Deficits - help us lose weight although we will lose some muscle as well.
- Maintenance - help us maintain our current weight while keeping most of our muscle while progressively getting
stronger.
- Surplus - allow us to build the most muscle possible because we are feeding our body more than it needs. Weight gain is possible, but necessary, during a surplus.
Going through ebs and flows of the above calorie demands may be necessary for you. It's necessary for
MOST people who are on a fitness journey. Those of you who are happy where you are at probably stay around maintenance most of the time.
If you are unsure where you are at or what your maintenance calories are...try this little
hack:
- For the next 2 weeks, track your calories EVERYDAY. Be very diligent. Include any and everything that you eat.
- Also for these 2 weeks, weigh yourself EVERYDAY. Normally, I don't recommend clients to weigh themselves everyday. BUT, if you want to see what your maintenance calories are, this is a
necessity.
- Within those two weeks, don't stray much from your current routine. Don't try to get in as many workouts as you can. Don't suddenly go on walks or runs if you haven't been doing that. DO exactly what you have been doing for the last several months. We need to see where your body is at before we start to change anything.
- Once the two weeks are over we are going to take an
average of your weight and calories. If you've gained weight, you are in a surplus. If you lost weight, you are in a deficit. If you stayed relativity the same, you are in maintenance.
If you are confused...reach out to me😇.
Have a fantastic day!
