This seems to be the non-stop battle we all deal with. Calories are calories, right? Well yes, that is true. So why does it really matter where we get them from? Well, let me dive into this a bit. You have your macros, your days are trucking along and you eventually figure out, how to work in a donut, then you work in eating out, and then you’ve really figured our game out and before long your able to eat really crappy candy, and drink booze but your wondering why your not losing weight. I think at some point everyone goes through this and asks, why isn’t this working. So let’s backtrack a bit. I think we can all agree that fruit and veggies lean meats and starch are the BEST sources of energy and by far the best choices, but if Coach says eat 200g of carbs does it really matter if it’s coming from ketchup and fruit worms? Well, whats your goals?
9/10 clients are chasing the unicorn. They want the ripped bodies with the stellar performance. We know that it’s not possible to chase both. Ripped abs come from calorie deficits, and performance comes from calorie surplus… So where do you fit on that scale? If you are the 9/10 clients losing weight, I have yet to meet anyone who will tell you they got shredded eating ice cream and pizza. Yes, they might have had this once in a blue moon but if they have gone through a cut, A REAL cut they did not have that. Focusing on whole foods, real foods will provide your body with vitamins, minerals, and nutrients. If you are needing to spend some time in the gym working-out your going to need to fuel your body correctly. Eating gummy bears and “crushing” your workout isn’t going to give you the results you want and it sure won’t give you the body composition your chasing.
WHY? Well, it all comes down to how our bodies metabolize our foods. Protein is not stored therefore we MUST ingest it daily! Making sure we have enough to fuel our muscles and repair and grow is essential for fat loss and performance. The more muscle mass we have the more calories we burn and the more “toned” we will look once the fat is gone. Strength training should be your best buddy when your working to lose body fat. (but that’s a whole different blog post)
Fats and carbs get stored. It’s as simple as that. If the carbs we consume contain large amounts of sugar when our body doesn’t use them it will just store it as fat! Choosing fruits and veggies, with some starch will always provide you with the best fuel options as well as health. Even eating a surplus of healthy fats will still be stored as fat.
So again ask yourself, where do you fall? If you are reverse dieting, focus on whole foods with the odd cheats here and there a 90-10 rule is great! If you’re in active fat loss you better be ready to give up cheat meals, pizza, booze, and be 100% all in! If you are in performance again you can go back to 90-10 diet without the booze, and if you’re in maintenance, your living the dream! You can sneak in those cheats, have some more flexibility and really just live life! Having a good understanding of your goals and the periodization of your nutrition program will really dictate what your able to do with the flexibility of your nutrition plan. Don’t forget, you HAVE to go through periodization with your nutrition, you can’t stay in one phase forever, we are constantly changing, our lives are constantly changing so we have to roll with it to have long-term success.