Tracking foods
Meal plans are very restrictive but can work if you decide to follow in the short term foods set by somebody else – but please see my article here on meal plans for further information on this.
The most effective way of creating a calorie deficit by eating foods YOU ENJOY – eating less than you need without starving yourself, or staying active without feeling like a hamster on the wheel is by understanding what your tdee is.
What your total daily expenditure looks like, now this will vary day to day and week to week so the figure you come to, can also have some flexibility, if you eat more on a Saturday for example you can balance that out through slightly lower calories in the week,
We can create a deficit to our tdee and this will mean we need to use stored energy, called adipose tissue which is stored glycogen within fat cells to meet our bodies energy demands.
In order to target fat loss rather than weight loss (lean mass/muscle lost too) we need to be strict with our mindset when it comes to dieting as many of us probably have a poor relationship with the scales due to failed diets in the past or clubs/groups/trainers that focus solely on your scales weight.
few truths
1 – this has to be a lifestyle, if I gave you a perfect body or your goal weight well then you need to maintain it, this is more than a six week thing despite us being able to make huge leaps in that time.
2 rushing it will cause your body to adapt to the calorie deficit to quickly and make it unsustainable,
we want to manipulate fat loss so that you have the energy to add intensity ro sessions, so that you can factor in treats and have a social life, and that we can slowly allow the body to adapt while creating a energy deficit.
If you over eat a energy deficit won’t occur so if fat loss isn’t happening and your exercising, and paying attention to food, chances are your under estimating the amount of food your eating – weighing food for a short period of time can be beneficial, but if you aren’t losing fat long term then we need to look at a number of things, sleep, movement, scale, measurements, but use the scale only for a long term trend, if you haven’t lost say a 1lb in a month then you might be very close to your target weight to you a simply not creating a deficit, this is when check in is invaluable as beth can help you identify what your plan of action should be if you feel you still have fat to lose. Short term fluctuations on the scale by 1, 2, 3, 4 lbs is NORMAL!
3 – make sure as you exercise your movement doesn’t drop off, keep active on weeks you exercise and on weeks perhaps your away or in work conferences and you can’t access a space to exercise, although many of you exercise in some amazing spaces!
4 – your not factoring in snacking on the go, sugar in your tee, butter on your toast, or the size of the granola you poured is 3 x the amount of the serving calories on the back of the pack when tracking calories or just underestimating what your consuming.
You can work your tdee out on the tdee drop down menu – please use the Harris Benedict formula make sure you add in your female or male and then to create a deficit start with 10 % and then slowly build that uo to 15 but dont rush straight for the maximum deficit to obtain the quickest results, we need to manipulate fat loss and how quickly our body adapts to the deficit slowing down progress.
Tracking food isn’t essential but having a idea of how many calories you consume can help act like a call out system – like spending into your overdraft, its not as fun is it? 🙂
Take regular diet breaks, perhaps every 3rd week, come back to maintenance on the week prior to your period when your more hungry or perhaps take the last week off dieting in every block.
Don’t stay in a prolonged calorie deficit.
DON’T use the extra calories MFP gives you for working out if you have synched your Fitbit to it, the calories on the tdee is the total calories you should consume once you have added that 10 or 15 % deficit.
If you go over its ok its averages that are the most important not one bad day, its knowing most of the time you are hitting your targets, including your protein target of 20-30 g per meal (little less if your vegan or veggie)
Another way to track foods is to follow this method in the picture below at every meal time if you dont want to track on the app.
the APP I recommend to track food is mfp, dont upgrade, find recipes on there (there’s loads) and dont use map calories – click add my own targets and add how many calories yourself having worked out your tdee and then – a 5, 10 or 15 % deficit
utilise me at check in to continue to feel like you are in a happy place with diet and exercise.
