Failure To Plan Is A Plan, To Fail

What does dieting or the need to lose some weight mean to most people?
It means to stop eating except for salads and maybe some peanuts, (because they are healthy right?) and start jogging/ running as much as possible. For the men specifically, I’ll just drink more protein shakes and stop eating food. Sound about right?

After a few days of only eating salads and telling your peers that you are on a diet (for motivation) and running/jogging for 2-3 days you wake up feeling like you got hit by a truck. You’re tired with no energy, sore, food cravings and food fantasies are through the roof. If you workout you notice yourself getting weaker by the day. Maybe you keep this up for a couple weeks and the scale does move 5-7lbs. Then you decide to celebrate your success and have a cheat day. The next day you wake up to find that you have gained 7-8lbs of scale wt and still feel terrible and sore. No what? Well you “ruined your diet” so you’ll chalk it up as well, I lost 7lbs and I need a break. You’ll tell your peers that you accomplished your goal while secretly feeling like a failure. 

This failure plan is ramped. You would not believe the number of people that have and still experience this exact same process that always ends with the same result. Guess what? Its not your fault and your not a failure. Your disciplined and tough as nails, you can endure "the diet". Ready for the shocking moment? Give yourself credit for your ability to endure. A REAL diet is not something you just do to lose scale wt. Your diet should always be your diet. If everyone around you does the same diet more or less but everyone always ends up back where they started how are you supposed to succeed from their advice? The drive to be "the one" that makes a noticeable change is what makes you continue down this same path time and time again.

You start feeling like you got hit by a truck because you depleted yourself. In a depleted state muscle loss is common and your inability to recover from activity is at its highest. This feeling does not mean you are losing fat! Its actually the opposite. First you lose muscle glycogen (tired feeling) next your body starts to turn you muscle tissue into usable energy (weakness). All the while your body is still storing the majority of its fat stores. So where did the scale wt. loss come from? Water & Glycogen.

If you find yourself needing to lose 10+ lbs. in short time for vacation, reunion, etc.. Its likely too late to lose 10 lbs. of fat. Notice what I said, FAT. Not scale wt. they are not the same. Your body has a specific number of calories that it needs daily to sustain its current wt. This is called your maintenance calories. Anything over this will cause a calorie surplus. Anything under this will cause a calorie deficit. It takes 3,500 calories over your maintenance to gain 1 lb. of fat. Think about it, how many calories it would take you to eat to gain 8 lbs. of fat on a weekend binge, Ill tell you , 28,000 calories over your maintenance calorie. Do you think you could really eat that many calories in one night of celebrating? Of coarse not.. So where is the scale wt. from you ask.. Carbohydrates. Each gram of carbohydrate that you consume makes you body retain 3-4 gr. of water.

Figure out you maintenance calorie, optimize your macros based off your activity levels and personal goals. Create a 500 calories per day deficit either from food or a combination of food and cardio and watch the scale go down, and stay down. It will stop at some point. This is the point where your deficit has now become your new maintenance calories. At this point you will need to go into another calorie deficit to continue to reach your goal.

I know this may seem confusing, but don't worry, I'm here to help. My goal as a coach is to help clients reach their goals as efficiently as possible. Your diet doesn't have to be something you hate with just salad or chicken broccoli and rice. A diet that you will stick to because you enjoy your food and you love the way you feel is what your looking for right? Together we can make this goal a reality. From that point you can keep going and take it to the stage or just be happy, confident, healthy, and by that point in charge of your own physique destiny. 

Don't be fooled by cookie cut programs. What someone else does, let them do it. What you do to meet your goals, is just for you. Its your life right?