Lose Weight By Eating More?
Anyone who's followed a diet will notice that consuming less food can often result in lower energy levels throughout the day, negatively affecting our mood and most importantly, our activity levels. The better alternative is to eat a bit more to sustain a more active lifestyle. Learn more in this article!
Before anyone jumps down my throat, yes, I know well that to lose weight you have to be in a calorie deficit - eating less calories than you burn.
However, anyone who's followed a diet will notice that consuming less food can often result in lower energy levels throughout the day, negatively affecting our mood and most importantly, our activity levels.
NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis)
Represents all the physical activity throughout the day that isn't considered exercise - walking, fidgeting around, work, etc. When you restrict calorie intake, it can cause you to move less outside of the gym in your daily life. This decrease in NEAT can ultimately cause your fat loss to plateau. Although this is doesn't happen 100% of the time, it's smart to and monitor your physical activity using a basic activity tracker like the FitBit for example and see if your activity levels drop when dieting. It's also smart to be more aware of your mood from day to day and how it affects your motivation levels and your ability to get up and move.
I've written in detail about NEAT and daily calorie expenditure, what they are, and how to use it to your advantage to help your weight loss and fitness goals. Click here to read.
I am in no way advocating for ridiculously high calorie intakes and trying to catch up on your weight loss by performing hours upon hours of exercise. Most people do not have the time nor energy to do so. What I'm advocating for matching the positive mood and motivation levels that comes with a more moderate calorie intake, with higher NEAT levels throughout the day.
If you feel groggy and unmotivated eating 2000 calories a day, it may be smart to increase it to 2250 or a number you'll feel more comfortable or happier at. From here reach a calorie deficit by an extra 5000 steps a day or by staying more active outside of the gym.
Go for a walk on the beach. Go for a bike ride. Move more around the house. Keep yourself active, but keep it simple. The main goal here to is develop a more active lifestyle and making small tweaks to our diet to better accomodate it. Hope it helps!
Do I Eat Less Or Exercise More For Fat Loss?
Do you reach your fat loss goals by eating less or should you stick with your current diet and increase energy expenditure by exercising more? Let's go over each strategy and see what works best.
Picture taken from Huffingtonpost.com
Do you reach your fat loss goals by eating less or should you stick with your current diet and increase energy expenditure by exercising more? Let's go over each strategy and see what works best.
Eating Less While Paying Less Attention to Exercise
Weight loss occurs when you consistently consume less calories than you burn; I'm sure everyone is aware of that by now. By tracking your calories and overhauling your diet with healthy whole foods, plenty of protein, fibre and vitamins, you will definitely lose weight. Some people are under the misconception that decreasing calories means eating less food; these are the same people that have problems managing their hunger levels - possible causing them to overeat or not adhere to their diet properly. The best way to control hunger levels while staying in a calorie deficit is to consume high volume foods, increase their protein intake and increase their meal frequency.
Examples of high volume foods include big salads, or substituting vegetables for your rice or pasta dish. Increasing protein intake can help with satiety and is achieved by consuming lean protein sources like lean beef, some seafoods, and vegetarian sources like tofu. A higher meal frequency, while shown not to have any beneficial effects on weight loss compared to a calorie-equated low meal frequency diet, can help people adhere to their diets more effectively and decrease the likelihood of overeating. Small to moderate size meals throughout the day can be better for diet adherence than eating 2-3 big meals a day.
What's wrong with this approach?
While you are certainly going to experience some weight and fat loss by eating less calories and improving your diet, your fat loss will plateau without paying extra attention to exercise. In order to consistently lose fat, your calories will have to decrease more and more. This is not only difficult in terms of managing hunger levels, but can be out right unhealthy - I've heard stories of females eating 1000 calorie diets attempting to lose weight. This is NOT okay and people will run the risk of nutrient deficiencies and low energy levels.
EXERCISE MORE WITHOUT CHANGING YOUR DIET
Exercise will do wonders for your body. Increased energy/calorie expenditure, improved nutrient partitioning (positively change the way your body deals with the nutrients and calories coming into your body), improved muscular and cardiovascular health, alleviate pain and prevent injuries. I recommend a combination of resistance training and cardio exercises for everyone, the most important thing is to make exercise sustainable and enjoyable.
My general recommendations for resistance exercise (lifting) would be a minimum 2 times a week. Cardio training can be done everyday (low intensity) or 2-3 times a week if performing challenging interval training. Doing that alone will increase your weekly calorie expenditure... as long as you're consistent!
What's wrong with this approach?
If you're a beginner trainee and you currently eat diet high in calories, its unlikely you'll be able to work off a bad diet. A beginner simply doesn't have the work or recovery capacity to exercise enough to out work a bad diet. Increasing muscle mass improves your fat and calorie burning abilities. However, new trainees do not experience significant muscle hypertrophy until 5-8 weeks into a consistent weight training program.
What should you do then? The answer lies in between the 2 strategies.
the perfect fitness and diet lifestyle
The perfect recipe for fat loss utilizes both strategies mentioned above. You should know now that fat loss can be achieved through either #1: increasing calorie expenditure, or #2: decreasing calorie consumption. Trying to take extreme measures on any 1 method will often cause you to fall short of your goals. It's very difficult to adhere to a hard exercise program when you're new to resistance or cardio training, and it's very hard to make your diet sustainable if it includes very low calories or foods you don't like eating.
The solution
Instead of taking extreme measures, take small steps to improve your exercise habits, diet and learn the concept of NEAT (Non-exercise activity thermogenesis).
NEAT is one of the most overlooked aspects of calorie expenditure and fat loss. NEAT represents all the physical activity throughout your day that isn't considered exercise. How much you walk a day, how many chores you do, how active your job is, how long you spend your day sitting and being sedentary, all of these are included in your NEAT.
"I eat pretty well, I exercise 3 times a week, how come I'm still not reaching my fat loss goals?" - Bob
Well I'm sorry to hear that Bob, but it might be because you sit on your ass all day when you're not exercising. Bob is most likely not training hard enough for exercise to have any significant effects on his calorie expenditure. Paired with that fact that he remains sedentary when not at the gym, his metabolism remains relatively slow.
This is an example of a breakdown of the daily calorie expenditure of a person that exercises moderately but stays relatively active in their daily life.
- Basal Metabolic Rate represents the calories burned just by staying alive (based on bodyweight, height, muscle mass, anthropometric features)
- NEAT represents the amount of activity level in a day not related to dedicated exercise
- Exercise represents a dedicated time to which you hit the gym/go for a run/follow your training program
- TE of Food represents the thermic effect of food - the amount of energy spent digesting the food you consume
As a beginner, there is only so much exercise you can do before it becomes unsustainable or you can recover from without being injured or burnt out. Seeing how the thermic effect of food plays a very small part in your metabolism and basal metabolic rate is dependent on genetic and body measurement factors, increasing NEAT would be the next best option.
As an intermediate/advanced trainee, your work capacity develops and the calories that can be burned through exercise increases. NEAT eventually turns into moderate-high intensity exercise. Many of these trainees can "outwork a bad diet", however, it still takes discipline and proper training/dieting strategies to become the leanest, strongest and fittest version of yourself.
There are plenty of ways to increase your NEAT, and consequently, energy expenditure throughout the day. Here are a few:
- Every hour or so of sitting, balance that out with 5-10 minutes of stretching and moving around
- Create a daily step count goal and hit it every day
- Walk to the grocery store instead of driving there
- Go on the stationary bike or treadmill while watching Netflix or studying for your upcoming exam
- Go for walk when listening to music or audiobooks
- Dance in the shower (careful there)
Achieving your fat loss goals and improving your fitness lifestyle does not occur while taking extreme measures, rather, working on all parts of the equation - diet, exercise, NEAT and building sustainable habits.
Exercise more, improve your diet, move more.
Thanks for reading! Here a few articles to get you started with your fitness and diet goals:
What Type Of Dieter Are You?
Surprising Reasons You're Not Reaching Your Fitness Goals (Habit Building Article)
How Much Protein Do You Really Need?
How To Pack On Muscle - Diet Tips For The Hardgainer
Need extra help? Want to jump start your training or diet? Feel free to contact me for a free consultation!
What Type Of Dieter Are You?
Weight and fat loss can be achieved using different styles of dieting depending on your personality, eating habit, tendencies as well as how much knowledge you possess about nutrition and dieting itself. Are you a trainee motivated by quick results or are you a person that likes to take it slow and ensure sustainable weight loss?
Weight and fat loss can be achieved using different styles of dieting depending on your personality, eating habit, tendencies as well as how much knowledge you possess about nutrition and dieting itself. Are you a trainee motivated by quick results or are you a person that likes to take it slow and ensure sustainable weight loss?
1. The Shotgunner - Quick Weight Loss
The shotgun method is what I like to call diets that start out with a large calorie deficit, with that deficit decreasing as bodyweight drops. Why did I name this the shotgun method? Because like a shotgun, the initial blast is strong (large calorie deficit - ensures initial weight-loss) and can hurt the person if they're ill-prepared to handle the consequent recoil (junk food temptations, binge eating, etc).
This method works well for people who are motivated by quick results and find it difficult to adhere to a more conservative approach. For example, a person looking to lose a large amount of weight (eg: 30lbs) will start off with a 500+ calorie deficit (daily) and slowly reduce that to a 400, 300, 200 calorie deficit as the weeks progress and as body fat is being lost. As I believe protein intake should stay at an adequate level, most of the reduction from calories should come from partial elimination of carbohydrates and fats.
Pros
- Very effective for short term weight loss
- Initial stages can be very motivating for some individuals and help them adhere to future weight loss diets
Cons
- Large calorie deficits can be very mentally stressful
- Initial low energy and decreased performance in the gym or at a physical job
- The chance of the rebound effect is much higher, some dieters will use the initial weight loss to justify stuffing their face the following weeks... AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS!
2. The Turtle - Slow And Steady
One of the more popular methods used in the past few years due to increasing research on food intake habits, willpower and weight loss sustainability. In contrast to the "shotgun" method, this style of dieting employs a conservative calorie deficit throughout the entirety of the weight loss period.
The caveat here is that dieters must be aware of their maintenance calories (I've talked about how to find out that number through estimations or tracking right here under section #3: Learn How To Count). So what's a conservative calorie deficit? A daily reduction of 200-300 calories coming from carbohydrates has worked well for me and my clients. Depending on your metabolism, expect to lose about 0.5-1lb per week. Trainees who employ this diet must be persistent and consistent with their calorie intake. If weight loss stagnates, consider increasing the amount of physical activity you do or further increasing the calorie deficit.
Pros
- The conservative calorie deficit allows dieters to lose weight without feeling the initial low energy that comes with large calorie deficits
- A small calorie deficit can sometimes be unnoticeable given the composition of your meals are healthy and based around nutritious and satiating, whole-foods.
- Paired with adequate protein intake, this style of dieting ensures maintenance of your hard-gained muscle!
Cons
- May not be suitable for beginners new to counting calories and portion controls
- Tests dieter's patience, weight loss may not occur for the first weeks either due to inaccurate tracking or using the wrong maintenance calories as a baseline
The Bottom Line
Both types of dieters can see success as long as they plan out their diet and adhere to it. Don't be quick to dismiss large calorie deficits and diets like the "shotgun method". While it doesn't always fit the modern dieting narrative that everything should be done conservatively to ensure long-term success, I've seen first hand that people can succeed with more daring weight loss methods. Pick the right dieting style that suits your goals and current level of experience with nutrition. Good luck!
How To Pack On Muscle - Diet Tips For The Hardgainer
Forget those gross weight-gainer shakes that taste like concrete. Fuel your muscle-building workouts by eating lots of whole foods and developing dietary habits that are sustainable for YOU. Here are 5 tips to help you create good eating habits to pack on size.
Forget those gross weight-gainer shakes that taste like concrete. Fuel your muscle-building workouts by eating lots of whole foods and developing dietary habits that are sustainable for YOU. Here are 5 tips to help you create good eating habits to pack on size.
1. first, Create A relationship with food, not numbers.
You can count calories and protein all you want. As a matter of fact, I'll teach you how to do so later in this article. But first, you need to create a good relationship with food or your journey to being jacked will not be a sustainable one. What do I mean by "creating a relationship with food?" I simply mean:
- Enjoy the foods you're eating - One of the easiest ways to eat more is to eat delicious foods. Even if you're a "picky eater", there's no excuse. Find the foods you love eating, eat them often.
Learn how to cook - There's nothing like a home-cooked meal made by mom but when you're trying to become self-sufficient and take control of what nutrients go into your body, learning basic cooking skills and recipes is a must (plus it saves you money!!). Youtube and find easy recipes to make at home. Use ingredients you're familiar with but don't be afraid to try new things.
Create a good relationship with food before worrying about calories. Gradually eat more, your exercise and activity should fuel your hunger. If you already have a good relationship with food and have done all of the above, then its time dive into the details like maintenance calories, and optimal protein intake levels.
2. Rethink The Term "Hardgainer"
“A hardgainer is an arbitrary label that describes a person who practices bodybuilding but finds it challenging to develop musculature regardless of the amount of effort put in.”
There are most likely no genetic factors preventing you from putting on size, nor are there anyone stealing your muscles overnight. The term hardgainer really just means your appetite and the amount of calories you consume day to day is not up to par with your metabolism. In other words: YOU'RE EATING LESS THAN YOU BURN. Simple as that.
Aside from height and weight, our metabolism is dependent on the amount of physical activity we perform and our NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis). Any energy we expend outside of exercise is considered NEAT: How much are you walking a day? Do you have an active or sedentary job? Are you doing chores around the house?
All of these factors contribute to the amount of calories you burn in a day. These are factors we can control.
3. Learn how to count
The amount of calories it takes to maintain your current bodyweight is often referred to as maintenance calories. We can find out what this number using 2 methods:
Estimation: The Calorie Maintenance Level Calculator
Enter your weight, height, and activity level to instantly receive an estimate of your maintenance calories. While this method may be quick, it may be inaccurate for some. Which leads to the second method:
Tracking: Using MyFitnessPal (or similar app)
Weigh yourself in the morning everyday for one or two weeks. At the same time, eat your regular diet and input all your food into the MFP app. Granted you've maintained the same body-weight, find your average calorie intake by adding up all your days and dividing by 7 or 14 (days). Congrats, you've found your maintenance calorie level.
I recommend using the tracking method right off the bat, and comparing that number to the calculator's estimation. Unless you have abnormal levels of physical activity or have tracked your food inaccurately/inconsistently, there shouldn't be a huge discrepancy.
Now that you've found your maintenance calories, increase your calorie intake in order to see bodyweight changes and muscle gain. I recommend increasing your intake by ~300-500 calories (start off at 300 and keep it consistent for several weeks and go from there). There are 2 ways to increase calorie intake:
1) Increase Meal Frequency: Add a meal to your current dietary habits. Whether its a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a protein shake, or eating an extra lunch, the point here is to eat more often.
2) Increase Portion Sizes: Maintain your current number of meals, increase the portion size for 1 meal or all your meals/snacks.
Increasing calorie intake does not mean stuffing your face with whatever you see in front of you. Where will those ~300-500 calories come from then? For most of you, a combination of high quality carbohydrates and protein.
4. Increase protein intake to 0.8g+ per pound of bodyweight a day
Proteins are the building blocks of our muscles, and the nutrient responsible for repairing our muscle tissues after exercise. The current protein recommendations set out by health organizations and our government target sedentary populations so if you're looking to build muscle, increasing protein intake is a must! I wrote a detailed article on optimal protein intake for people looking to pack on muscle, read it here.
For the beginner trainee and the hardgainer, increasing daily protein intake to 0.8g/lb of bodyweight while eating ~300-500 calories above your maintenance calories is a fail-safe method of gaining weight and packing on muscle. For a 145lb person, aim to consume ~115g of protein a day.
While carbohydrates ultimately fuel our work outs, there should be no shortage of carbs in your diet. Like I alluded to earlier, the extra calorie surplus should come from high-quality carbohydrates like sweet potatoes, rice, bread, pasta and high-quality protein like egg, whey (milk), chicken, fish and red meats.
5. Acknowledge personal preferences
While meal distribution, protein intake frequency and other minutia may be important, its not a detail a hardgainer should be worrying about.
Whatever schedule allows you to more easily and more enjoyably consume the food required for you to reach your health or aesthetic goals, is the schedule you should stick to. For me personally, I like to backload my calories: eat most of my big meals in the evening and night. I'm simply just not as hungry in the day, and you know what? That's okay, it's not the end of the world if you skip breakfast. It may become a problem if you struggle with maintaining proper energy levels and it impedes your ability to stay productive in your work, school or social life. Address those issues if you run into them.
For now, stick to the basics:
- Create a good relationship with food
- Learn how to cook and become self-sufficient
- Increase calorie intake and protein intake
- Prioritize whole foods and high-quality nutrients before you satisfy your sweet tooth or dive into that box of cookies.
Happy gaining!
How Much Protein Do You Really Need?
What are the benefits of increasing protein intake and how much do you really need? Find out here!
Protein is an essential macronutrient used to build, maintain and repair tissue in our body. There are different recommendations on protein intake, this article will touch on the factors that should be considered when determining an "optimal" amount.
The current Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) for protein is 0.36g/lb of bw (equates to 0.8g/kg of bw). Following these guidelines, a 185lb person is only recommended to consume 67 grams of protein!! Quite far off from the 1g/lb of BW recommendation we often hear from the fitness industry.
The RDA for protein was created for non-exercising individuals to consume enough protein for bodily functions and overall tissue health. However, this amount is not sufficient to meet the needs of athletes undergoing rigorous training . There are several variables involved in calculating protein intake values:
- Body composition (total body weight, especially lean body mass)
- Mode of training (strength vs. endurance vs. mixed)
- Frequency, intensity and volume of training
- Specific body weight goals (losing weight vs. gaining weight)
- Dietary Preferences
For The recreational and Dedicated Strength/power Athlete
Strength athletes want to consume adequate protein for one main reason: to maximize muscle protein synthesis (MPS) in order to to increase muscle mass (hypertrophy). Another benefit of protein consumption is to promote recovery in between training sessions. Supplying enough amino acids to repair our damaged muscle fibers from training is essential to health and making short and long term progress in the gym and on the platform.
Often in the strength training circle, we hear about being in a "anabolic state". What this really means is a positive net protein balance. A positive net protein balance is achieved when dietary protein consumption is greater than protein loss. For strength athletes, many lifters have success with anywhere from 0.8-1.5g of protein per Lb of bodyweight (some even higher, we'll touch on this in a bit). This means a 185lb lifter will consume anywhere from 148g to 278g of protein a day.
So why the large range? It really comes down to dietary preference, training age and current lean body mass.
Dietary Preference: Lifters that love steak, chicken and fish among other protein sources will have no problem consuming these foods on a regular basis. Their protein intakes will be high, by habit/dietary preference.
Training Age & Current Lean Body Mass: The more experienced of a strength athlete you are, the more likely you'll have greater amounts of muscle mass. The more muscle mass you have, the more protein you'll need to consume to match the demands of you body. A muscular, lean, world-class strength athlete may grativate towards the higher end of protein intake recommendations (1.5g/lb of bw), while a beginner trainee on starting strength or other beginner programs will make great progress consuming 0.8g/lb of bw.
High Protein Diets
This naturally leads us to the question, are high protein diets safe? Opponents of high protein intakes will argue high protein diets impair kidney function and decrease bone density. However, it is found that high protein intakes are not detrimental to kidney function in individuals with healthy kidneys to begin with and high protein diets are actually positively correlated with increased bone mineral density (elderly).
There is a series of research studies carried out by Jose Antionio et al, on the effects of the very high protein consumption on health and body composition(1.5-2g/lb of bodyweight). They conclude that there is no evidence a high protein diet is harmful, and that they were favorable for body composition goals and body fat control (even at a calorie surplus; very interesting).
"I'm already consuming protein at 1g/lb of bw, in what scenarios should I further increase my intake?"
Periods of Moderate-Large Caloric Deficits
For most lifters in a 300-400+ kcal deficit, I suggest increasing daily protein intake slightly, perhaps to 1.25g/lb of bw. (please note these numbers are far from concrete, these can vary from individual to individual). Doing this will help maintain lean body mass while losing weight/body fat.
Increasing Satiety During Caloric Deficits
Protein is known to be more satiating and has more of a thermogenic effect (takes more energy to digest) compared to carbs and fats. After a high protein meal, individuals usually feel fuller for a longer. For individuals that struggle with hungry during calorie deficits, eating a plentiful amount of protein-rich sources (and a huge salad of course) may be your answer.
Enhanced Recovery
Do you struggle with muscle soreness, and decreased recovery time in between training sessions? Try increasing your protein intake.
The protein - carbohydrate trade off
More protein in your diet means less room for carbohydrates. Luckily, recreational lifters and dedicated strength/power athletes do not require a high amount of carbohydrates to fuel performance; with the exception of high-volume training. Before you increase your protein intake, consider the following:
- Is your current carbohydrate intake adequate for performance?
- Do you have to prioritize performance in the gym or do you need to improve your rate of recovery in between sessions?
- Are you in a isocaloric state (maintenance)? Are you in a calorie deficit? Calorie surplus?
- *Can you afford to decrease your carbohydrate or fat intake in order to increase protein intake?*
the bottom line
Benefits of protein
- Support overall health
- Support muscle growth
- Repair muscle tissue in between training sessions and in times of muscle injury
- Hunger control and satiation
- Controlling body composition and body fat
0.8 - 1.5 grams of Protein per pound of bodyweight is sufficient
- The lower end 0.8-1.0g/lb of BW for:
Beginners and (maybe) Intermediate Strength athletes
Recreational Lifters
General health and fitness (if you partake in strength and cardio training)
- The higher end 1.0-1.5g/lb of BW for:
Intermediate and advanced athletes
Hunger control and satiation
Athletes in a caloric deficit
Athletes with a dietary preference for protein sources
Protein Distribution
- Multiple meals consisting of >20-30g of protein from high quality sources (whey, egg, beef, fish, soy protein)
- Aim for protein sources with high amounts of Branched-chain amino acids (BCAAs), this is often what determines protein quality (optimal amount is 3-4g of Leucine)
Any questions? Comment down below or reach out to me on the Facebook page