Eating Enough Food; The Key To Body Transformation
Most people who are struggling to lose weight are struggling because they are under-eating and they are consuming the wrong types of food with their low calorie diets. This will create an endless loop of catabolic muscle wasting (losing muscle) & fat preservation (maintain or gaining more fat). Media has done nothing to help with this issue as they encourage you to eat less and exercise more. Many people take this advice to the extremes. To steal a quote from Jay Cutler “I want to do as little as I can and still get in better condition”.
Why do work that isn’t going to get you to your desired outcome?
I’m here to tell you that our most successful clients eat way more food than you would imagine (women well over 1600 calories; men well over 2200 calories) and reduce body-fat and maintain or build muscle while transforming. Here are some thing you need to look at.
- Thermogenic Effect of Food (TEF)
- Base Metabolic Rate (BMR)
- Non Exercise Activity Time (NEAT)
- Thermogenic Additives (caffeine and other supplements)
- Exercise Activity Time (ACT)
- Protein Intake
The thermogenic effect of food is the caloric burn required for your body to break the food down into usable parts. The more vegetables and protein you consume the higher this number will be. Base metabolic rate is the amount of calories your body requires if you never leave the bed from the beginning of the day to the end of the day. BMR is the calories needed to simply survive. Non exercise activity time can be anything from gardening to walking groceries into your house or even fidgeting. This increases your body’s metabolic rate (BMR) as well.
Thermogenic additives such as pre workouts or coffee can increase calorie burn by as much as five percent. Then the obvious one is looking at how many hours you are working out per day. A good rule of thumb is to eat back about 75% of the calories you burn through exercise to maintain muscle mass.
Here is the formula for you math and formula people like myself:
Total Calories needed per day to lose body-fat and preserve muscle mass =
TEF + BMR + NEAT + ACT – 300 calories = Approximate amount of calories needed per day to create a deficit while still improving body composition.
Some of these numbers are hard to track so a simplified version is this.
How much you weight * 12 = The least amount of calories you should eat if you are exercising and weight training to transform. 220 * 10 = 2640; 140 * 12 = 1680 calories. To build muscle the 12 might go up to 16 and once adaptation occurs the 12 might become a 10; never less than 10 calories per pound of bodyweight though. The body needs fuel to provide energy to accomplish all tasks.
What are some signs that I’m not eating enough?
- Lack of hunger
- Brittle finger nails & dry skin
- Dry and splitting hair
- Constantly cold
- Irritability
- Fatigue or lack of energy.
Once you have your ideas for your above calculations you want to keep it simple. Match your protein and carbohydrates to your weight and your fat roughly half of that as your starting point.
A 200lb mans nutrition would look like 200g protein, 200g carbohydrates & 100g fat. If this man is lifting weights effectively four days per week, getting his steps in while managing stress and optimizing sleep; he will get results!
Stop depriving your body of what it needs and you will be on your way to achieving increased muscle mass (improved metabolism) & decreased body fat (leaner physique).
Michael Hartman
My mission is to give personal training participants a safe and effective workout designed specifically for their goals. Dealing with many sports injuries over the years taught me how to come back stronger every time. The competition is with yourself... Strive to bring out your best self and get better every day!
