Part I
I am going to rant a little here. Not that I am upset or mad, it will be a friendly rant.
First, there is a metric-ton of new people signing up to this forum on a daily basis. I think it is great. It actually blows my mind how many new members we have signing up.
However, with the onset of new activity, I have noticed that everyone is looking for that "one routine" that leads to success.
My favorite when it comes to nutrition is this:
"So I tried that calorie counting thing before and it didn't work, so now I am trying low carb."
My response that I would LIKE to use is, "Earth to You. All diets are based on calories. Even if they don't directly say it, they are. It is scientifically impossible for them to NOT be based on calories. Calories are energy. To lose weight, you must create an energy deficit. No questions about it! Sure, you can try the low carb approach, but if your energy intake isn't right, you won't lose a pound. Now flip that to a high carb approach (against commonsense) however, account for energy intake and wala, you've got weight loss. You see, there is only one underlying factor that drives weight loss, and that is calorie (energy) balance."
If you pour motor oil in your gas tank, the car won't run. That doesn't mean cars don't work.
Or, on the training side of things, you always have the person looking for the "routine" that leads to optimal results. Guess what? There isn't one. There is a set of basic principles that apply to everyone. These principles can be arranged a million different ways to create a "method" of doing things. I hate the idea of "routines." They limit your thinking. They lock you into a set way of doing things. Knowing how amazingly adaptive our bodies are, it should be common sense that a set "routine" is not the smartest choice. Rather, understanding the basic principles that apply to everyone is paramount IMO. I know you don't want to have to put thought into it. You just want to be handed a sheet that tells you exactly when and what to eat and when and how to train. If you think you can't do this on your own, find a trainer! A good one.
This certainly isn't written in stone, and I did not plan on writing this. At this point I am merely jibber-jabbering. BUT, a few things I think everyone should understand:
1. In terms of weight lifting, it is hard to go wrong if you are training each bodypart/movement 2-3 times a week with the basic barbell exercises, focusing on something between 5 and 10 reps for 3-5 sets per exercise, and striving to improve your weights over time.
2. Manage stress. Dieting is a physiological stress. Exercise is a physiological stress. You need breaks. By constantly stressing your body, you actually accumulate fatigue. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, if you aren't careful, and continue to push yourself past this "over-reached" state without managing your fatigue, you can reach a point of being "over-trained." This is not a fun place to be.
3. Training to a point that creates muscle soreness or DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) is not necessary. Actually, often times it is negating in terms of success, especially while dieting. In most cases, when talking about muscle traits such as glycogen levels and protein synthesis, the muscle itself is recovered in almost all cases after 72 hours. But if you are experiencing residual DOMS on a regular basis, you are almost certainly not recovering neurologically, which ties into the overtrained state from above.
4. High Intensity Interval Training. Somewhere along the line of my time on the forum, things were twisted. It became the, "Steve said HIIT is the ONLY way to do cardio" forum. This is far from true. One, a combination of steady state and interval work is called for IMO. Two, not everyone should expect to be ready for HIIT their first month of training. It takes a build up of fitness to perform true HIIT.
A simple progression for those with no exercise experience within the last 3-5 months might look something like this:
Low intensity steady state cardio (40-60% of max HR, ball-parked)
Steady state cardio (70-85% of max HR, ball-parked)
Interval training
HIIT
Once you reach a "good" level of conditioning, this does NOT mean that you rely solely on HIIT.
5. There is no set caloric intake that is right for everyone. If you are following a diet that is telling you to eat a certain level of calories without taking into account your personal stats, 99 out of 100 times it is a bogus diet.
So how many calories should you consume?
A general rule of thumb for determining your break-even (maintenance) caloric intake is 14-16 calories per pound of bodyweight. These numbers are skewed, however, for very lean people or very big people.
Also, to invoke weight loss, a good general rule of thumb shoot for 12 cals/lb or thereabouts, get at least 1g/lb of protein, good healthy fats (75g or so is a good number to start with) and fill in the rest with carbs.
Monitor your progress through measurements. If things are heading in the right direction, modify your approach. Maybe drop your caloric intake to 11 or 10 cals per pound.
Also remember that you're not going to drop more than at most 3 lbs week of fat, likely less in practice, so trying to pull some BS to drop scale weight in a hurry isn't going to impact that. Slow and steady wins this race.
6. Starvation mode. So many claim to be in it. They are eating 1200 calories and not losing weight. Sadly, more often then not, based on the empirical evidence that has been presented to me, people aren't actually eating 1200 calories each and everyday on a consistent basis. Sure, some days they hit that low point. However, other days they are eating 1500+. Or, on Saturdays they binge all day or have massive cheat meals at their local restaurant. Don't lie to yourself. Be precise. If you can't do that, don't complain that counting calories isn't working when you are fudging the stats.
Does low calorie intake really invoke the starvation mode? I hate this term, starvation mode. It makes it seem like there is a switch that is flipped and all of a sudden, your metabolism shuts down. This couldn't be further from the truth. In reality, even a sane, proper diet will invoke the starvation mode if you ride it out long enough. The starvation response is a process. A process that gradually slows down your metabolic rate. Never does it completely turn off your metabolism. Eat 500 calories each and everyday. I promise you will never STOP losing weight. Look at anorexics. Sure, it won't be healthy. And even if you reached your goal weight you wouldn't be happy with the way you looked. However, you would continually lose weight.
If you ate 1000 calories per day instead, maybe, dependent on the individual, weight loss could plateau. All this means is your metabolic rate dropped enough to match your 1000 calorie intake.
Point being, it doesn't drop forever. Also, the process takes a hell of a lot longer than most with a lot of weight to lose, think. If you are fat, don't worry about the starvation response. If you are lean, and looking to get leaner, then plan for the starvation response by tweaking your dietary approach.
People don't seem to realize that there's a physical limit to how low your calorie expenditure can go while you're still considered alive. Metabolic damage has become a scare-tactic buzzword with no real basis in reality.
7. Set goals properly. I am not going to get into the importance of setting goals. I just want to note that it is important to make sure your goals do not conflict. 9/10 people come onto this forum looking to lose fat and gain muscle. This is not how our bodies work. Focus on one thing at a time. Gaining muscle dictates different stimulus through diet and nutrition than does losing fat.
8. Building muscle is not the be all end all component to speeding up your metabolism. People think that muscle burns some ridiculous amount of calories per day. The latest numbers I have seen are something like 6 calories/pound/day.
Fat-free mass is the primary determinant of BMR. However, people confuse FFM and muscle. While muscle is a component of FFM, FFM is also made up of internal organs, bone, water, etc.
The decrease in BMR with dieting is not due to a loss of muscle. It is due to the process of dieting in and of itself, and the various adaptations that take place within the body.
9. You MUST eat at least 5 meals per day. Fact of fallacy?
Answer: Fallacy
There is a huge myth that has been floating around the fitness circles that eating more meals per day speeds up your metabolism, thus, helping you lose more weight.
It doesn't.
I am a fan of multiple, smaller meals. I, myself, consume 6-7 per day. However, this is not because of some magical metabolic change that occurs due to the number of meals consumed. I eat that many mainly b/c I have to pack in so much food in order to add muscle. Too, eating multiple times per day helps with macro/micro nutrient uptake, insulin regulation, etc, etc. It has its benefits, but aiding in metabolic rate and therefore weight loss is not one of them.
If you can't squeeze in that many meals per day due to schedule, don't sweat it.
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