This is just a general topic about losing fat and keeping it off, in order to live a healthy fulfilling life.
Theory
The basic theory behind losing weight is that you want to burn off as much fat as possible while maintaining muscle. Often times, people get caught up way too much with how many pounds they have shed without thinking about what they lost. Simply put, any time you are in a caloric deficit, you're going to lose weight. Depending on what you eat, and how much of it, it will be either fat or muscle, with water weight as well (which usually occurs first).
Unless you have awesome genetics, you're on steroids, or you're brand new to lifting, it's very difficult or completely impossible to gain muscle while in a caloric deficit. Even maintaining is tough, but if you do things right you will likely lose very little in your lifts. So, whether you like it or not, you're likely to lose at least a little muscle mass when you're burning fat. There is an alternative to this called a ketogenic diet (similar to atkins), which I have some experience with, but even though it is a great diet it is not especially well known. If you'd like to hear about it, though, ask me, because I have found in my experience that it is an overall more efficient diet than a carb-based diet, but a lot of people believe it's too extreme.
The Glycemic Index
Not all carbs are the same. Unfortunately, most types of carbs are considered high GI. Without going into too much detail, eating a lot of high GI carbs causes your insulin levels to spike up to compensate for the high amounts of blood sugar in your body. When this happens, your body tends to store fat and make you hungrier after a few hours than you would have been normally. When losing weight, this causes additional muscle loss since your body puts a priority on reducing insulin levels before it does anything else. This is by no means a detailed explanation of what happens, but it should get the point across.
Simply put, avoid processed carbs and sugar. Processing foods makes the complex carbs turn into a form of starch that is rapidly converted into glucose - meaning insulin levels spike. So, believe it or not, when you ate Kix or Cheerios as a kid, you were much better off eating oatmeal.
Now, there are those who say that the GI value is overrated because the blood sugar levels are measured when participants eat their food on an empty stomach. Still, it's best to take it seriously, and if you have to eat something high in sugar and processed, then try to do it when you're full.
Maintenance calories
When it comes to dieting, your overall caloric intake is the most important manipulation to your diet. There are several formulas out there (such as those who say 15 times your body weight), but this is the best and most accurate formula out there to find your BMR and then maintenance calories. Your BMR is how many calories it takes to maintain your weight when you are bedridden, so don't confuse it with your maintenance.
Women: 661 + (4.38 x weight in pounds) + (4.33 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age) = BMR
Men: 67 + (6.24 x weight in pounds) + (12.7 x height in inches) - (6.9 x age)= BMR
Sedentary = BMR X 1.2 (little or no exercise, desk job)
Lightly active = BMR X 1.375 (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/wk)
Mod. active = BMR X 1.55 (moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/wk)
Very active = BMR X 1.725 (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days/wk)
Extr. active = BMR X 1.9 (hard daily exercise/sports & physical job or 2X day training, i.e marathon, contest etc.)
Example: I am 19 years old, 5'10 184. For me, the formula is 66 + (6.24 x 184) + (12.7 x 70) - (6.9 x 19) = A BMR of 1972.06
Now, I do brazilian jiu-jitsu twice a week and I hit the gym three times a week. That's hard exercise 4-5 times a week. As a medium between very and moderately active, I'll multiply my number by 1.65 or so. So, 1972.06 x 1.65 = 3253 calories a day to maintain my weight. This number will likely be lower for most people, because not everyone is as active or weighs as much as I do.
So take your maintenance calories and subtract approximately 500 calories. Don't do this poop right away, seriously. Dropping your calories too fast will definitely cause you to lose muscle mass (cortisol is your enemy here, if you don't know what it is, google it). A good idea is to slowly reduce your calories to 250 below your maintenance, and then raise your maintenance by exercising more. But if you do reduce your calories more, do it over the period of a few weeks.
If you need help counting calories, go to fitday.com and create an account. It's very helpful. After a few weeks, you won't really need to count calories like a nazi and you'll just instinctively know how many calories are in the foods you're eating. Also, try to eat 6 meals a day, not 3, to increase metabolism and make you feel fuller longer.
Foods to eat
Chicken, tuna, oatmeal, sweet potatoes (no other type of potatoes), whole wheat bread (only type of bread you should have), non-processed lunch meat, non-dry fruit (don't overdo fruit - fructose generally goes to your liver instead of your muscles) cheese, nuts, bacon, cottage cheese, eggs, vegetables, steak (ideally lean to reduce calories), can all be eaten. If you drink protein shakes, use them after your workout or in the morning when you wake up to get a fast absorbing protein in you. Eat fats, but watch the calories.
Foods to avoid
Just about any processed food should ideally be avoided. If it's high in sugar, processed, or contains trans fat, stay the flark away. Cheetoes, non-sweet potatoes, white bread, most breakfast cereals, cookies, cake, pretzels, etc.
Cheat meal/day
You should probably use a cheat day once a week for sanity's sake. If you cheat over the course of a day, don't go flark crazy all day. If you cheat for only one meal, once a week, then eat what you want. It won't kill you. Some people find that eating at a deficit for 3 days then a higher amount on the 4th day is effective as well.
Workout
I'm really not going to get too specific here. I'll just make a few points here:
- Cardio is overrated in terms of fat loss. You should do it to burn extra calories (and cardio is important to your health as a whole), but don't get overzealous with it.
- Weight lifting is your friend. A good anaerobic workout will raise your metabolism throughout the rest of the day, and it's vital to preserving muscle mass.
New to lifting? Try Rippetoe's. Look it up in the "Gain weight THE SMART WAY" topic. If you're not new, you probably shouldn't mess with your workout too much, unless you want to add exercises to burn more calories.
Nutrients and additional diet guidelines
Just a basic rundown of the four macronutrients.
Protein - Your biggest friend in this diet, but don't go overboard. Ideally, you should get about 40% of your calories from protein. Protein can be absorbed slowly or quickly. Whey is extremely quick to absorb, while cottage cheese is very slow. Cottage cheese is often recommended before bedtime because of this. 4 calories per gram of protein.
Carbs - I went into this already. Avoid processed carbs and sugar. Eat carbs from slow burning sources. Anything you eat from fiber doesn't count towards your daily caloric intake, so eat your broccoli. 30-40% of your calories should be from carbs. 4 calories per gram.
Fats - Fats get a bad reputation because people are stupid. Just to clear any misconceptions - eating fat doesn't make you fat. Excess calories do. Fats provide energy without spiking your insulin, and most non processed fatty foods contain a lot of protein (and happen to be very filling). Try to get a good balance of saturated and unsaturated fats. Saturated fats get a bad reputation too, but it's important for testosterone production and the like. Despite what people think, saturated fat has not been proven to cause heart disease. Avoid trans fat like the plague. Try to get 20-30% calories from fat in your diet, and remember that there are 9 calories per gram.
Alcohol - Everyone likes to get crunk once in a while. Try to save it for your cheat day, because it will flark up your diet otherwise. 7 calories per gram of alcohol.
As far as your general diet guidelines go, I recommend eating oatmeal in the morning for breakfast along with a protein source. Over the course of the day, eat chicken, tuna, etc, in combination with slow burning carbs such as broccoli and sweet potatoes. A ham and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread is a good idea as well. Eat cottage cheese before bed, and drink a lot of water throughout the course of the day. Again, you should ideally eat about six meals a day.
Summary
- Avoid processed carbs and sugar.
- Eat 400-500 calories below your maintenance. Reduce calories slowly, this is a big mistake many people make.
- Get a lot of protein and exercise to maintain muscle mass.
- Try to eat 6 meals a day.[b][/b]
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Live like your not going to be alive tomorrow.
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